Dosing alk is a PITA!

Conski

Conski

AC Members
May 8, 2009
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Man ive had my BRS auto top off pump and kalk for over a week now and im still in the process of dosing baking soda to raise the alk!

UGH! i to a half a teaspoon daily to raise it ONE DKH (or whatever) a day. Ive only managed to get it from 5 to 7 in a week.. i thought this would be a quicker process..

No signs off dino backing off from me doing this either grrrrr

Plan on going to buy a new membrane TDS meter and carbon filters for the RODI unit soon.
 
It can be a slow process, that's for sure. 5 dKH is really low and 7 dKH is still on the low side of the recommended range. While your dosing may be calculated to raise alkalinity by 1 dKH per day, that amount probably doesn't take into account the alkalinity being consumed by your tank's inhabitants, which is why it's taken a week to go up 2 dKH instead of just 2 days. Depending on what all is your tank that is trying to put down a calcium base, the amount of both calcium and alkalinity being consumed on a daily basis could go up as alkalinity and/or calcium are adjusted into the recommended range.

As for it helping to combat dinos, while it's certainly not something I'm all that familiar with, I would generally think that a much larger change than 2 dKH is needed to have much effect on them.

Keep up your efforts... One of them will pay off and finally rid you of those dinos!
 
True blue about the paitence! i just didnt think a tank with 13 corals (all LPS) 2 fish a scarlet shrimp and a clam would make such an impact on the alk. Well regardless ill keep doing this until i get my alk up to 11. Everything else is in check with the nitrates being low and the Calcium at 400.

my maimi hurricane and my grape watermelon are all bleaching a little bit and its bothering the crap out of me thankfully they still eat and are growing they just lost some color.. im hoping its just the low alk that is doing it though!
 
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I was never worried about raising it quicker than that, but I dunno that I'd feel safe suggesting someone else do so :D

LPS will use it up FAST depending on your light levels. What is your setup? If your alkalinity is being used so fast I'd think your corals are actually using it for growth which is a good thing. You may have to dose a little more to keep up with them consuming it. Coraline algae will also use it (our 90g had a ton of coraline and some lps corals and they used it pretty quick).
Also, did you start out with alkalinity issues? What salt mixes are you using? I used a mix of instant ocean and oceanic and I never had trouble keeping my alkalinity up from the start. Instant ocean is generally high in alkalinity, and oceanic is on the low side with it, but high in calcium. I found it to be a good mix.

I never dosed kalk, just calcium and alkalinity buffer from Seachem periodically.

BTW, what test kits are you using?
 
The specs of the tank go as such.
Tank:
34 Gallon Solana

Lights:
ATI sunpower 4 bulb.. acitnics go on at 12 and end at 10 the day light bulbs start at 1 and go until 9.
Evils LED bulb- this runs to improve color and add the shimmer to sunpower. this bulb runs from 2 until 8 just to show even more so the added effect of "day"

Skimmer and reactors:
One Reef octopus bc 100 HOB (name may be incorrect)
Phosban Phosphate Remover

Flow:
Standard stock pump
MP20

Media:
I use chemi pure elite as a carbon and polyfilters as my filter pads. I run GFO in the reactor. I use Oceanic like i always have (after this batch im switching to a salt ACE has suggested) which is definitly high in calcium seeing as though when i used to be gun hoe about water changes in my biocube i quickly realized that doing 50% water changes on 14 gallons of water would quickly raise the calcium to over 600. I keep this tank at a steady 400 Calcium

For now my auto top off pump from bulk reefsupply is hooked up to a 5 gallon bucket of fresh RO from a friends house using insanely pure water from his 6 stage unit. I plan on starting to use the kalk and dosing with the pump once i get my alk to where i want it with the baking soda.

I use the API master testing kit

im just gonna start to using a tiny bit more then a half to maybe sustain any drop over night.
 
You probably would do well to switch to another salt, or mix your oceanic with another salt.

I found that with oceanic by itself in my small 20L the alkalinity was an issue, but when I switched to mixing it with instant ocean it was fine. With just instant ocean the calcium was too low.
In my 90g reef where we started with a mix of the two salts we never had alkalinity or calcium issues, we just dosed periodically with the products I mentioned and it was fairly stable. I know there are a lot of other factors that effect alkalinity, but this is my personal experience.
 
I was dosing 25ml of alk per day and then swithced to topping off with kalkwasser. I have not had to dose at all since then. I have my ATO filled with kalk and let my pumps take care of everything for me. Getting the set up is cheap and so is kalk if you go to BRS. I think fear of change is what kept me from doing it initially, but now that I have I would not have a tnak without it.
 
Got alk up from 7 to 8!

Bought some macros today. nothing crazy was very cheap and looked healthy.

Algae.jpg
 
haha no! its impossible to find macro algae in buffalo from what ive seen. Just made that side of my tank planted probably wont get anymore
 
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