ALK over 16! Best way to lower it please!

[link81]

outstanding. glad to hear!

 

[Todd Kellley]

I once had 16 in kH. A timer for the dosing pump hang up so one morning the tank was totally cloady.
It was a sight of about four inches. Ca was 380 and -sorry I dont remember the Mg level.
I shut off all dosing and did nothing else. The tank cleared up in a day. It was a layer of precipitated calc evrywhere. The corals shook it off in a few hours and then all corals looked good. As the kH was sinking I began to add Calcium and when it was down to 8 Ca was 420. Not a single loss. I started dosing again with a new timer.

As some has said here: Dont do anything drastic.
I would just take out a quarter or so of tank water every day and let the ATO refill until the salinity is down to 3,5%.

By the way - Do you add anything to the ATO water. If You are adding kalkwasser - its the reason for the high kH.

I do not have an ATO, but need one! As much as the water evaporates during these humid months I will be fighting raising salinity issues once the furnace kits on for the winter! In 2 days of evaporation my water goes from 35ppt to 38-39. If I let it go for a week without adding fresh water it can jump to 40 ppt! An ATO would help me a lot

 

[TheGulag]

Glad to hear you got everything figured out, you should come back and post what the alk numbers actually are to give some closure!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It might. Depends on how high it was. You mightctr

It has been over 3 months with only RODI water, doing 2 5% changes a week to try and swap the tap water out without too much stress or parameter changes. Do you think the tap water raised it so high it is just going to take more to bring it down?

Try measuring the alk of your tap water to see if that is even a possibility.

 

[Streetcred]

Nothing wrong with Red Sea kits, they are good quality. Now tell me why are you so worried about alk at 16dKh ? It is just a measure of buffering capacity. If you really want to reduce it, do it slowly, just don't add any more bicarb and let it drift down naturally.

 

[Todd Kellley]

Nothing wrong with Red Sea kits, they are good quality. Now tell me why are you so worried about alk at 16dKh ? It is just a measure of buffering capacity. If you really want to reduce it, do it slowly, just don't add any more bicarb and let it drift down naturally.

I had never heard of a reading that high is all. I do agree as well, good quality kit was just hampered by bad instructions. I purchased a salifert test yesterday and obtained the correct instructions for the redsea. Will post results in next thread so all those trying to help can see the results. I am sure they can here as well. Just new to these forums and still trying to figure out the right way to post and respond.

 

[link81]

@Todd Kellley, can you respond back in this thread? will help give some resolution as to the issue, no need to start a new one imo.

 

[Todd Kellley]

So an update for everyone that has been so kind to share their advice and help! Purchased a salifert test last night. It is nice posting from my desktop, it does not keep changing that to sailfert! Anyways I also printed the correct instructions for the redsea so I have on as a back up or to verify. The both gave me a reading of 9.8 which makes me feel a lot better then the 16! Again, thank you to all of you for the advice and input. In surfing all the forums I have the members of reef2reef to be the best!

 

[TheGulag]

Great news, glad it was a simple mistake compared to actual 16dkh. No doubt you learned a bunch through this as well!

 

[Todd Kellley]

Great news, glad it was a simple mistake compared to actual 16dkh. No doubt you learned a bunch through this as well!

That I did! I think one of the biggest things I am learning, just like my fish only tanks, is to not rely so heavily on test results and testing unless the inhabitants are giving you a reason to! Thank you again for all the help and advice!

 

[Steve Elb]

So huge rookie mistake, with fish only tanks I never really worried about my alkalinity. Never had an issue so for some reason with my reef tank my brain was thinking PH and Alk were the same thing. Still trying to get my nems to where they were a light finally went off in my head and I bought an ALK test from the LFS. A good one too, not something from the budget shelf. My ALK tested over 16! I tested it 3 times in a row to make sure I was not seeing things or using the wrong amount of solution. In using good old google all I could find as the "best advice" was add fresh RO or distilled water. Everything seems to be ok to the human eye, but it probably explains why my bubble tips are not bubbling or opening up as much as they used to and the new LTA I put in the tank over the weekend is acting stressed. My carpet and other LTA seem to be thriving so not sure how fast I can safely lower it?

Hopefully someone can shine some light on this for me, please!

Waterchanges!!! And a new test kit. No way if you're using a regular salt mix and your at 125 can you be at 16. Good luck and be patient

 

[Dkeller_nc]

That I did! I think one of the biggest things I am learning, just like my fish only tanks, is to not rely so heavily on test results and testing unless the inhabitants are giving you a reason to! Thank you again for all the help and advice!

Good to hear. In my opinion, getting an ATO to control salinity swings is considerably more important than testing for/correcting alkalinity and calcium at this stage. One of the reasons for that assertion is that your alkalinity & calcium will, of course, change with the changing salinity. So testing for and stabilizing alkalinity in the tank water will be quite difficult without a way to keep the salinity stable.

There are, btw, tons of different ATOs on the market now. Some are bulletproof, some not so much (I personally prefer the Tunze Osmolator for this reason). A post in the equipment forum should get you lots and lots of comments/preferences.

 

[Todd Kellley]

Good to hear. In my opinion, getting an ATO to control salinity swings is considerably more important than testing for/correcting alkalinity and calcium at this stage. One of the reasons for that assertion is that your alkalinity & calcium will, of course, change with the changing salinity. So testing for and stabilizing alkalinity in the tank water will be quite difficult without a way to keep the salinity stable.

There are, btw, tons of different ATOs on the market now. Some are bulletproof, some not so much (I personally prefer the Tunze Osmolator for this reason). A post in the equipment forum should get you lots and lots of comments/preferences.

That is priceless advice. I have been fighting rising salinity all summer. Worse then I ever have before. At first I thought it may be because I switched the salt I was using, but I only switched from Instant Ocean to Reef Crystals which is made by the same company and as the owner of my LFS says "35ppt is 35ppt no matter what type of salt you are using". Mine can be right there and 2 days later it is at 40! An ATO would certainly save me some frustration.

 

[MnFish1]

Good to hear. In my opinion, getting an ATO to control salinity swings is considerably more important than testing for/correcting alkalinity and calcium at this stage. One of the reasons for that assertion is that your alkalinity & calcium will, of course, change with the changing salinity. So testing for and stabilizing alkalinity in the tank water will be quite difficult without a way to keep the salinity stable.

There are, btw, tons of different ATOs on the market now. Some are bulletproof, some not so much (I personally prefer the Tunze Osmolator for this reason). A post in the equipment forum should get you lots and lots of comments/preferences.

Not to confuse @Todd Kellley - but the problem is not an ATO - the problem is not accounting for evaporation ( which to get from a normal alkalinity to 16 must have been significant). I don't have an ATO - but I have a line in my sump - when the water level goes below that level - I add RODI to the correct point. With no damage/effect on the coral/tank in general.

The way to keep 'salinity stable' is different from keeping the 'specific gravity' stable. An ATO will not do anything (I dont think) to change his problem - if you keep adding 2 part to a tank - but not add other things that are taken up/used by the animals in your tank - you will have a deficiency in those elements - and a relative increase in Ca and Alkalinity - (this is why BRS recommends adding a mixture of MgCl2 and MGso4 periodically to help equalize these chemistries. Right?

 

[Todd Kellley]

Not to confuse @Todd Kellley - but the problem is not an ATO - the problem is not accounting for evaporation ( which to get from a normal alkalinity to 16 must have been significant). I don't have an ATO - but I have a line in my sump - when the water level goes below that level - I add RODI to the correct point. With no damage/effect on the coral/tank in general.

The way to keep 'salinity stable' is different from keeping the 'specific gravity' stable. An ATO will not do anything (I dont think) to change his problem - if you keep adding 2 part to a tank - but not add other things that are taken up/used by the animals in your tank - you will have a deficiency in those elements - and a relative increase in Ca and Alkalinity - (this is why BRS recommends adding a mixture of MgCl2 and MGso4 periodically to help equalize these chemistries. Right?

In my opinion you are doing the same thing by adding RODI water to your sump when it gets to a certain level. An ATO is going to do the same thing. If you are adding pure RODI without any salinity to it then that has to effect both the specific gravity and salinity for you are diluting the water you already have in your tank. Just trying to make sure I am not confused here. If you are mixing water to do a change and your salinity or gravity is too high you do what to reduce it? We add pure RODI water correct? I am no chemist I can attest to that. Just thinking based on what we know.