Alk really low need dosing advice

[IslandLifeReef]

Just as a follow up, I added 55 ml of alk per the calculator

Let it sit for about 5 minutes just to see if I could tell the result to verify tester is ok

Hannah now says 8.8

So I imagine in about 30 more
Minutes it will settle down a bit so that’s good.

I will probably start dosing kalkwasser tonight
At ml every 2 hours

I watched a video from someone that has a similar tank and that was what they calculated

Might go maybe 3ml to watch effect

Thanks for all the support

Did you add 55ml of the RedSea Alk or did you add 55ml of the BRS Sodium Bicarbonate? That calculator isn’t for the RedSea product. 55ml of the RedSea Alk should only raise the Alk 0.6 dKh in your tank.

Also, raising from 7.2 to 8.8 in one day is too much. You should only change Alk by no more than 1 dKh per day. SPS need stability, so change Alk slowly. IMO, I would try to match your Alk to the salt mix you use.

 

[Rscott]

Did you add 55ml of the RedSea Alk or did you add 55ml of the BRS Sodium Bicarbonate? That calculator isn’t for the RedSea product. 55ml of the RedSea Alk should only raise the Alk 0.6 dKh in your tank.

Also, raising from 7.2 to 8.8 in one day is too much. You should only change Alk by no more than 1 dKh per day. SPS need stability, so change Alk slowly. IMO, I would try to match your Alk to the salt mix you use.

That’s incorrect
The calculator has a setting explicitly for Red Sea products

Use the drop down
Says right on it, Red Sea foundation B liquid

 

[Rscott]

Also like I said above I did the dose and tested like 5 minutes later. So I expected it to be higher in concentration from the sample water taken from the top

I just re tested and it’s 8.1 exactly what the calculator said for 55ml 7.2 to 8.1
Thanks for the comment on 1dkh per day.
That’s partially what I was afraid of.

 

[Rscott]

I did also notice my pH go up by .2 and this ticked off my BTA for sure. This big swing in parameter change
Was bad form on my part for sure

 

[Nathan Milender]

So this is a newish tank 3 months old

Started to accumulate some frags
7 little frags

Mostly easy stuff , zoa , Xenia ,
Only sps is a cyphastrea and a monti cap

Noticed for the first time my alk dropped between when I. Normally do my 2 week water changes

Down to 7.2 yesterday
Calcium was 350 and mag like 1400

Last night I used the Red Sea ABC kit
For the first time

Put in 5ml of mag
10 ml of alk
And 5 of Calc

In that order with 10 minutes between in addition

Tested this morning and alk still at 7.2?

What should I do? I am new to the dosing thing

I have the following items at my disposal also
A friend gave me the powders
Not even sure what the do

I was planning to start dosing kalkwasser
I made up a gallon last night and let it settle over night

Any recommendations

1) Decide where you want to run your Ca2+ and Alk- A convenient way to so this is to see what salt you like and set it there. I set my alk originally to 10, but have lately let it drop to 9ish as this is more in line with available salt and saves me a step. I shoot for 450 on Ca2+.

2) Use your calculator to adjust levels to where you want them. Take tests and verify where you are at.

3) take daily reading for 4-5 days to figure out how much you lose per day.

4) set up an auto feed to supply that much per day. Some do this with Kalk, I prefer 2-part type set up. It looks like you use BRS already. They have some cheap pumps that need an outside timer but will get the job the done. You set up a solution and have the pump deliver the solution to correct the daily amount. The advantage to this is that with lps your alk will drop more than calcium. With kalk the ratio is set so if you are adding enough alk your ca might rise higher than you want. The advantage to kalk is that there is one less thing to manage but you do have to play with the amount of kalk you put into your ato so the concentration delivers the right amount per evaporation rate. I find it simpler to directly control, but if I had a smaller tank where I did not have room for more hardware the kalk/ato option may be preferable. It is simpler than it sounds, start with the goal and calculate your rate. It will quickly make sense.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

That’s incorrect
The calculator has a setting explicitly for Red Sea products

Use the drop down
Says right on it, Red Sea foundation B liquid

Oh, my mistake, I thought you were using the BRS calculator. I just always use the RedSea calculation.

RedSea says that 2ml/100 L raises Alk 0.1 dKh. So, for your tank, every 9 ml raises dKh by 0.1.

 

[Rscott]

Oh, my mistake, I thought you were using the BRS calculator. I just always use the RedSea calculation.

RedSea says that 2ml/100 L raises Alk 0.1 dKh. So, for your tank, every 9 ml raises dKh by 0.1.

Cool thanks

Yea I was just using the one the previous poster sent me a link to
Seemed to work pretty good so far
Although like I said it really ticked off my BTA

 

[FragileReefer]

I used a Reef parameters trackers app on my phone, and set an alarm to do an ALK test same time every day at lights out. The app told me I used .3 dkh a day, so I used reef calculator figured out that amount of solution to add to make it up. It was close but I'm still losing .1 dkh but I'm getting closer.

I think tracking daily tests for 2 weeks will give you some insight into your consumption. First time I attempted this I was writing thing down and "remembering" things. I failed and had a bit of an ALK swing cause I missed a day or so of testing.