Alk rising on its own after new aquascape

ryboy707 · Feb 7, 2021

So I’ve got a nuvo 10 that I’ve been trying to make sps dominant, I know it’s a foolish venture that’s likely to fail, but the challenge is the fun part. Recently I decided to change my aquascape using some cycled rock from my other tank. Also I’ve got some of those marinepure gems in an intank media basket in the back so I figured I’d be good on bacteria. But since I had to break up the rock to make the NSA aquascape, I added a whole bottle of frtzyme bacteria just to be sure. Well, since adding the bacteria my alk started rising from 8.5 to 9.0. So I turned off the dosing pumps to wait for the alk to drop back to 8.0-8.5 like normal. The next day after turning the dosing pumps off, the alk was 9.5. So I did about a 35% water change for a couple days and brought it down to 8.7. For 2 days now it’s been rock solid at 8.7. I’m confused as to what’s going on. I’ve used 2 Hanna checkers so I know it’s not user error. Any ideas?????

ryboy707 · Feb 8, 2021

Tested at 8.7 again just now

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 8, 2021

Moving corals likely just reduced demand.

ryboy707 · Feb 8, 2021

I could see lowering demand, but it’s like it’s stopping it altogether. I haven’t dosed anything for a week and the alk hasn’t dropped any, besides when I did a water change. Could adding the bacteria cause some sort of chemical change that builds alkalinity and calcium??? I used to dosed 4.8 ML a day of 2 part, now the tank seems to produce that much on its own. Definitely strange

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 9, 2021

IME, it is not that unusual.

I'd just keep monitoring.

ryboy707 · Feb 9, 2021

Ok, thank you for the reassurance. It tested at 8.6dkh today so maybe this weird phenomenon is going away slowly. I test in the morning and night daily until the tank goes back to normal.