Alk climbed/precipitation in dosing container

TDTA1181 · Feb 28, 2017

I had alkanity spike pretty high recently in my tank. I'm thinking maybe I didn't rinse my dosing container the last time I added new soda ash/calcium chloride? There was a good amount of residue in the btm of both containers and in both dosing tubes. I test Alk usually every other day and try to keep it in the 8.3-8.6 dKh range. I have also been changing bulbs out the past couple wks but only 1 bulb/wk. It climbed all the way up to 12.15 per Hanna & was getting somewhere close to that w/ Salifert test also when I took the soda ash offline. I mixed a new calcium chloride batch and have left it @ 130ml/day, this is keeping my calcium readings 390-410 depending on what time of day I'm doing my test & letting the Alk fall bk inline to my normal parameters. In the course of all of this, I have also been doing a 5 gal water change each day using HW Reefers mix thinking that should help Alk/Cal balance bk evenly, I have around 110-115 liquid gallons of water in my system. I usually test every evening an hr after the final dose of calcium. So it got as high as 12.15 & tonight I measured 9.16(H) 8.75(S) if my math is right my daily consumption should be some where around .748/day. My question is, according to BRS calculator that's almost 60ml of buffer per day, if I lower my calcium chloride to 60 ml/day won't my calcium level drop?

Any feed bk will be greatly appreciated!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 28, 2017

When calcium is too low and needs a boost, or alk is too high and needs to drop, don't use equal parts dosing.

Boost calcium up with a one time correction, or keep dosing it and just stop the alk until it declines to where you want it.