Alk/Calc stabilization

[ctopherl]

Very new to the hobby.

I have a 54g display + 11g sump = 65g total water. I have two baby clowns, royal gramma, lawnmower blenny, an astrea snail, and an emerald crab. Bio load is very low. Gramma, blenny and crab were just added yesterday. For corals, I have a xenia, paly and zoa-all frags so they are tiny.

I am dosing the pharma two part soda ash I bought off of BRS. Every time I finally get my alkalinity back up to normal range (8-8.5) and then leave it for a day, it drops down to 7-7.5 the next day. This is not just a normal degradation because calcium also spikes up to 500-550. Then I will slowly dose alk over a couple of days to get it back up, and then let it be, then it will drop again (and calcium will spike). This has repeated multiple times now. Why can I not keep this balanced?

One "weirdness" worth noting is that I also found my salinity to be high, around 1.030. I have slowly been changing water with RODI water over the past ~3 days and finally measured 1.026 today.

Another "weirdness" worth noting is that I have been overfeeding a bit, simply because my clowns are still getting used to eating and they don't see a lot of the food I put in the tank, forcing me to then put more food until they see it and eat some. Still, this is a microscopic amount of food due to having two tiny fish in a 54g tank compared to what I'm sure all of you have to put in every day.

Final thing worth noting is I am going through the ugly stage. There is some algae here and there (that's why I picked up the blenny and crab, and I put the first dose of Vibrant in yesterday) and my rocks are roughly 30-40% covered with some sort of orangeish-brown layer of gunk (cyano? not sure). Could those be "eating up" all the alk?

 

[HuduVudu]

What are your doing for water changes ... how often what percentage?

Also why are you dosing Ca and Alk?

 

[ctopherl]

What are your doing for water changes ... how often what percentage?

Also why are you dosing Ca and Alk?

Water changes - I am currently doing ~23% every week (15 gallons). I figured I should start extra careful/diligent until I get the hang of my normal tank fluctuations.

I am not currently dosing calcium since that has been continuously high. I am dosing alkalinity because I figured (1) I should get the water to a good level BEFORE adding some LPS coral and not after, and (2) I am trying to get the hang of how often I need to dose to keep them in range. Are these not the right school of thought? I would like to add some basic LPS frags soon.

Also, my pH trends lower with the alk as expected, so dosing the alk helps keep that in range.

 

[Saltyreef]

Your consumption is erratic because your tank is still new.
Get your parameters as close to your salt mix as possible with your 2 part additive in the same ratios, then start doing weekly or 2x weekly small water changes.
This will sustain your systems needs until you can no longer keep up with consumption with water changes alone.
It will also help stabilize your macros and also help your nutrient export if worried about over feeding.

 

[HuduVudu]

Are these not the right school of thought?

No, sorry

Dosing has things about it that you need to be aware of. First good on you for you water changes ... keep them going, you will need them if you dose. People are often confused about the chemistry of dosing, they say I am putting Alk (CO3) in my tank ... no actually you are putting Alk and Sodium in your tank. One is a positive ion and the other is a negative ion. The fundamental of the chemistry of water is that you will always of one positive and one negative ion, so you are never just dosing one. As a consequence of adding Na ... sodium to your tank you are throwing that parameter out of balance and you can't directly test for it (labs can), so you need water changes to balance out the parameter.

When you add your hard skeleton corals you need to wait and watch to see what they will consume. Do not start mineralizing your tank if you don't need to.

Also if you are just planning on doing softies and LPS, I would highly suggest using Kalkwasser instead of full on dosing. The kalkwasser should be able to easily keep up with your consumption for a long time, and it doesn't bring with it the balance problems that you get with dosing. Even you are dosing using Kalk will help minimize the dosing and thus also minimize the problems associated with it.

Also, my pH trends lower with the alk as expected, so dosing the alk helps keep that in range.

Don't get lost on this. Forcing numbers will be your downfall. Also a quick experiment for you to conduct if you can watch your PH through a graph is to open your windows for an extended period of time. Open all the cabinets and hoods lids etc ... on your tank with the windows open and see what happens to your PH, this is a helpful lesson to understand going forward.

 

[ctopherl]

When you add your hard skeleton corals you need to wait and watch to see what they will consume. Do not start mineralizing your tank if you don't need to.

So to clarify, I shouldn't worry what my alkalinity/calcium/magnesium are at until after I have some LPS in there, assuming I am keeping up with water changes?

And for ph, it seemed to be slipping towards ~7.8 with the lower alk so that freaked me out a bit. As long as it's at least 8.0-8.4 I'm not worried. I will try the "open windows" experiment at some point, but it is August in AZ so it may be a while.

Thanks for the quick responses!

 

[Saltyreef]

No what he means is dont get wrapped up in trying to chase numbers and dose accordingly. Your tank is new.
Start off with scheduled water changes (this will keep your tank stable for now if youre targeting your salt mixes parameters and not using a coral pro salt), then once you get a good stocklist going, you can incorperate kalkwasser into your ATO.
Softies and LPS will consume less than a tank full of sps as they have less skeletal structure and more flesh.

Youre main goal is stabilization and its more than just mag alk and cal.

Granted youll want to keep them in a general range but i would leave it alone if something like alk was swinging from 7 to 8 at this point.

 

[ctopherl]

No what he means is dont get wrapped up in trying to chase numbers and dose accordingly. Your tank is new.
Start off with scheduled water changes (this will keep your tank stable for now if youre targeting your salt mixes parameters and not using a coral pro salt), then once you get a good stocklist going, you can incorperate kalkwasser into your ATO.
Softies and LPS will consume less than a tank full of sps as they have less skeletal structure and more flesh.

Youre main goal is stabilization and its more than just mag alk and cal.

Granted youll want to keep them in a general range but i would leave it alone if something like alk was swinging from 7 to 8 at this point.

Ok thanks for the help! I am definitely chasing the numbers right now so I will back off a bit and focus on just keeping nitrates down/regular water changes.

Not sure if this helps/hurts but I only buy pre-mixed saltwater from my LFS for water changes. I will measure their calcium, alkalinity and salinity before pouring it in next time.

And I will look into kalkwasser as well, although I may wait until I run out of all this pharma 2 part I have now

Thank you both!

 

[HuduVudu]

So to clarify, I shouldn't worry what my alkalinity/calcium/magnesium are at until after I have some LPS in there, assuming I am keeping up with water changes?

Yes, and even when they are in there don't push exact numbers, let your corals speak.

And for ph, it seemed to be slipping towards ~7.8 with the lower alk so that freaked me out a bit. As long as it's at least 8.0-8.4 I'm not worried. I will try the "open windows" experiment at some point, but it is August in AZ so it may be a while.

LOL lived in Phoenix for 10 years ... I know your pain. When October rolls around and things start to cool down at night you can do it then. I really do suggest you do it because it gives you some wonderful insight to PH and the environment that immediately surrounds your tank and how your house plays a role too.

Just remember it's a dry heat ROFL.

 

[Biglew11]

you can also take a small sample of water outside for an hour or two and remeasure it, if the ph goes up its the house environment causing lower ph. my ph hovers around 7.7 7.9 in the winter time and i see no problems.

your soft corals aren't using much calcium or alkalinity, so you shouldn't have to be dosing. do you see major encrusting on heaters pumps or any place else.

i wouldn't worry much about what the ph is, alkalinity for your soft corals for now i'd probably go around 7.5 Dkh.
don't dose alkalinity just to get ph up. and don't dose calcium unless it's low.

google search
What is the alkalinity of seawater?
Estuarine pH levels generally average from 7.0 to 7.5 in the fresher sections, to between 8.0 and 8.6 in the more saline areas. The slightly alkaline pH of seawater is due to the natural buffering from carbonate and bicarbonate dissolved in the water.

 

[Biglew11]

also you're buying saltwater from the lfs, get some measurements, alk cal, and mag. they may be using a salt that has higher levels than what you need.

 

[ctopherl]

also you're buying saltwater from the lfs, get some measurements, alk cal, and mag. they may be using a salt that has higher levels than what you need.

Definitely going to test this before I dump water in this time for my next water change! I figured if it's "off" in any way I could try to treat the water directly in the buckets so that I could make changes much more quickly than in the tank with livestock.

 

[HuduVudu]

Definitely going to test this before I dump water in this time for my next water change! I figured if it's "off" in any way I could try to treat the water directly in the buckets so that I could make changes much more quickly than in the tank with livestock.

Be very careful adding Ca or Alk into your water change water. You are changing the chemistry immediately and you will lose all of the balancing effects of your water changes by doing this.

 

[ctopherl]

you can also take a small sample of water outside for an hour or two and remeasure it, if the ph goes up its the house environment causing lower ph. my ph hovers around 7.7 7.9 in the winter time and i see no problems.

your soft corals aren't using much calcium or alkalinity, so you shouldn't have to be dosing. do you see major encrusting on heaters pumps or any place else.

i wouldn't worry much about what the ph is, alkalinity for your soft corals for now i'd probably go around 7.5 Dkh.
don't dose alkalinity just to get ph up. and don't dose calcium unless it's low.

google search
What is the alkalinity of seawater?
Estuarine pH levels generally average from 7.0 to 7.5 in the fresher sections, to between 8.0 and 8.6 in the more saline areas. The slightly alkaline pH of seawater is due to the natural buffering from carbonate and bicarbonate dissolved in the water.

Ok that makes me feel better, thanks!

I wasn’t trying to raise due to thinking my softies were using it, I was really trying to get my alk and calc balanced within desired ranges in preparation to add some LPS, but sounds like I need to add the corals first and then observe/adjust as necessary.

Also good to know on PH. I never added alk with the sole intention of raising PH, but rather noticed that both alk and PH happened to be low so figured dosing was a good idea since I knew it would affect both.

Sounds like I’m trying too hard to keep things perfect in general so I will be a little more flexible and not take the ranges outlined in the wiki as hard fact

Thanks for the help!

 

[Saltyreef]

Kalkwasser isnt expensive by any means and its more of a buffer in between water changes to negate swinging. I used it in between my "water changes arent enough" and "i think i need to start dosing" stages lol.
Once you start dosing its really not needed.

 

[blasterman]

Alk and calcium do not couple in tanks that don't have a lot of rapidly growing SPS. They are consumed by different biological processes at different rates. This is the first myth we need to understand. Got lots of fast growing SPS? No? Then abandon the concept of two part dosing.

Young tanks devour alk at a very erratic rate while calcium rarely moves. This is because alk/carbonate is involved in many biologic processes while calcium isn't. Water changes should suffice. I wouldn't even bother testing.

Your calcium is too high for this tank. Once you start getting above 500 alk can get wonky. Most reef stores use Instant Ocean or Reef Crystal's for customer pre mix water. Reef Crystal's can be really high in calcium by default.

 

[Hertz_Ctank600]

A lot of good info from everyone. I’d like to go back to your salinity raising “weirdness”. I don’t recall seeing any response on that observation. Seems the most likely reason your salinity would raise is not compensating for evaporation water? Are you topping off with RODI before the water change or have an ATO? Just a thought.

 

[HuduVudu]

A lot of good info from everyone. I’d like to go back to your salinity raising “weirdness”. I don’t recall seeing any response on that observation. Seems the most likely reason your salinity would raise is not compensating for evaporation water? Are you topping off with RODI before the water change or have an ATO? Just a thought.

Salinity rises from dosing.

 

[ctopherl]

Alk and calcium do not couple in tanks that don't have a lot of rapidly growing SPS. They are consumed by different biological processes at different rates. This is the first myth we need to understand. Got lots of fast growing SPS? No? Then abandon the concept of two part dosing.

Young tanks devour alk at a very erratic rate while calcium rarely moves. This is because alk/carbonate is involved in many biologic processes while calcium isn't. Water changes should suffice. I wouldn't even bother testing.

Your calcium is too high for this tank. Once you start getting above 500 alk can get wonky. Most reef stores use Instant Ocean or Reef Crystal's for customer pre mix water. Reef Crystal's can be really high in calcium by default.

Hmm good info to know, but I feel like this is conflicting advice. The first parts suggest I shouldn’t test let alone dose, but the second suggests my calcium is too high. I can double check what salt they use, but how would you recommend getting calcium down regardless of cause?

 

[ctopherl]

A lot of good info from everyone. I’d like to go back to your salinity raising “weirdness”. I don’t recall seeing any response on that observation. Seems the most likely reason your salinity would raise is not compensating for evaporation water? Are you topping off with RODI before the water change or have an ATO? Just a thought.

I have a built in ATO that I keep full of RODI. This is a Red Sea reefer so it came with ATO.