Alk increasing without dosing?

Zbutcher

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Hey everyone,

I like to keep my alk at 9.3 and about a week and a half ago I noticed my Trident started reading higher and higher so I started by lowering the DOS threshold. I kept doing this more and more but it kept increasing and now I have completely turned of my DOS for alk and my alk is continuing to increase and go up. Currently it is at 10.54 and as I said the DOS is completely off. I have recalibrated my Trident and have done more then one test and it is showing the same.

I really am not sure why this is happening, so I will give you some background on the tank.

It is essentially a very large frag tank (My version of a display tank is a frag tank because I enjoy the coral propagation fun) the dimensions at 72"x36"x12" and it has no sad and only coral racks in the tank. The only media for bacteria I have is Marine pure and brightwell blocks in the sump. I also have a refugium with a ball of chaeto that is being tumbled by a powerhead and is slow growing. I 3D print the racks with PETG material which is reef safe. I run an Eshopps skimmer as well and 2 filter socks and 1 bag of carbon. I have only dosed aminos twice and I dont have a ton of corals atm (still paying off my bills from the new tank lol) This tank has been running for probably 5-6 months at this point. I ONLY use RODI water and use a 25 gallon Brute can filled for top off.

I do water changes every 1-3 weeks as the tank stays fairly clean with the filter socks and refugium and skimmer going plus with no sand most particles are suspended.

Please see my levels below.

Phosphate: .05
Nitrate: 18.2
Alk: 10.54
Cal: 413
Mag: 1333
salinity: 1.024 (going to bring it up a point or 2 next water change.)

Any thoughts everyone? If there is any info I missed or any info you would like to know please let me know and I will answer as quick as I can.

Regards,
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Declining nitrate will boost alk. It may be that.

Make sure the Trident reagents are full. These devices seem to have issues when reagents run low.

How did you calibrate it? Do you have a standard solution to test?
 
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Zbutcher

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Declining nitrate will boost alk. It may be that.

Make sure the Trident reagents are full. These devices seem to have issues when reagents run low.

How did you calibrate it? Do you have a standard solution to test?
Hey Randy, thanks for chiming in and sorry for the late response!

So if anything my nitrates actually have increased as I upped feeding pellets and flake everyday and i add mysis to that every second day.

I just added brand new reagents to my trident for that specific reason hahah

I calibrated it with the solution neptune provides with your reagents and I tested before and after the calibration and the levels didnt even really change maybe by a point or 2 but they are both in the same range.

I used RODI water for everything so I doubts its that unless this is a sign my RO or DI cartridges are getting low?

I have literally turned off the DOS for ALK and its still going up. the line is the in its spot in the sump so maybe its dripping?

Any other thoughts?
 
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Zbutcher

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Ph? That could de an issue.
Possibly? My PH is 7.6-7.9 I find, it used to sit quite high at like 8.3 but then my tank flooded with fresh water (Fell asleep and the float valve broke) it dropped my salinity to 1.018, everything survived luckily but my PH has never been the same unfortunately.
 

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