Alkalinity/calcium consumption imbalance

[Rowboman]

Wondering if anyone can help me make sense of this. My 39 gallon system consumes about 5.74 dKh/week and only 3-4 ppm of calcium (so within the margin or error my Hannah checker). I’ve never had this issue until about a month ago when my weekly testing was showing my Ca was getting much higher than it should. I was hitting 479 ppm using kalkwasser but maintaining an alkalinity level of about 9 dKh. So I switched to dosing just BRS soda ash for a week to bring the Ca level down while maintaining alk levels. It worked and Ca dropped to 439 ppm over a week while alk stayed at 9 dKh. So then I switched back to dosing kalk again to maintain that and sure enough it’s back up to 478 ppm a week later. This is pretty confusing and frustrating because I live in an apartment with 4 other bodies (wife, kid, and 2 dogs) and have had issues keeping pH up, hence why I prefer dosing Kalkwasser. The only explanations I can think of are that either my testing equipment is off or my salt mix is imbalanced. I use IO reef crystals for weekly 10% WC’s. Gonna test my last batch and I’ll post the levels for that in a bit.

All my testing is done with Hannah checkers and here are my tank params

• dKh=9.1
• NH3=17.1
• PH4=0.2
• Ca=478
• Mg=1435
• Salinity=1.026
• Temp 77.5-78.
• Ph=8.1-8.3

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You have ammonia at 17 ? What units?

There are a variety of things that add or deplete alk independent of calcium.

This article describes them:

When Do Calcium and Alkalinity Demand Not Exactly Balance? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

PH4 is also not a thing you are likely to have. lol

 

[Wizard677]

Wondering if anyone can help me make sense of this. My 39 gallon system consumes about 5.74 dKh/week and only 3-4 ppm of calcium (so within the margin or error my Hannah checker). I’ve never had this issue until about a month ago when my weekly testing was showing my Ca was getting much higher than it should. I was hitting 479 ppm using kalkwasser but maintaining an alkalinity level of about 9 dKh. So I switched to dosing just BRS soda ash for a week to bring the Ca level down while maintaining alk levels. It worked and Ca dropped to 439 ppm over a week while alk stayed at 9 dKh. So then I switched back to dosing kalk again to maintain that and sure enough it’s back up to 478 ppm a week later. This is pretty confusing and frustrating because I live in an apartment with 4 other bodies (wife, kid, and 2 dogs) and have had issues keeping pH up, hence why I prefer dosing Kalkwasser. The only explanations I can think of are that either my testing equipment is off or my salt mix is imbalanced. I use IO reef crystals for weekly 10% WC’s. Gonna test my last batch and I’ll post the levels for that in a bit.

All my testing is done with Hannah checkers and here are my tank params

• dKh=9.1
• NH3=17.1
• PH4=0.2
• Ca=478
• Mg=1435
• Salinity=1.026
• Temp 77.5-78.
• Ph=8.1-8.3

Hopefully the NH3 is meant to be NO3. I had a similar situation. I was able to get it to be stable by lowering my PO4 and Nitrates. I had numbers similar to what yours are now. After lowering them roughly 50% , everything has been testing / dosing evenly.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Rising and falling nitrate does impact alk.9

 

[Rowboman]

You have ammonia at 17 ? What units?

There are a variety of things that add or deplete alk independent of calcium.

This article describes them:

When Do Calcium and Alkalinity Demand Not Exactly Balance? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

Sorry, typo. Wrote that in my testing notes before morning coffe. Meant NO3 and PO4

 

[Tom Reefer]

Hi Randy, good to see you’re still active and posting after all these years!
I met Julian in 1994 when he had long hair! Lol. Time flys!

 

[Rowboman]

PH4 is also not a thing you are likely to have. lol

Wait, your telling me I shouldn’t be dosing phosphine?? Hahaha

 

[Rowboman]

Wondering if anyone can help me make sense of this. My 39 gallon system consumes about 5.74 dKh/week and only 3-4 ppm of calcium (so within the margin or error my Hannah checker). I’ve never had this issue until about a month ago when my weekly testing was showing my Ca was getting much higher than it should. I was hitting 479 ppm using kalkwasser but maintaining an alkalinity level of about 9 dKh. So I switched to dosing just BRS soda ash for a week to bring the Ca level down while maintaining alk levels. It worked and Ca dropped to 439 ppm over a week while alk stayed at 9 dKh. So then I switched back to dosing kalk again to maintain that and sure enough it’s back up to 478 ppm a week later. This is pretty confusing and frustrating because I live in an apartment with 4 other bodies (wife, kid, and 2 dogs) and have had issues keeping pH up, hence why I prefer dosing Kalkwasser. The only explanations I can think of are that either my testing equipment is off or my salt mix is imbalanced. I use IO reef crystals for weekly 10% WC’s. Gonna test my last batch and I’ll post the levels for that in a bit.

All my testing is done with Hannah checkers and here are my tank params

• dKh=9.1
• NH3=17.1
• PH4=0.2
• Ca=478
• Mg=1435
• Salinity=1.026
• Temp 77.5-78.
• Ph=8.1-8.3

Well, found the issue. Tested my batch of saltwater, 381 ppm Ca levels. So that wasn’t it. Tested my tank water again 3 more times and got 381, 392, and 391 ppm. Best guess is I accidentally pressed the 100 uL pipette from the Hannah checker kit to the second stop instead of the first and pulled too large of a sample on accident. Woops

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hi Randy, good to see you’re still active and posting after all these years!
I met Julian in 1994 when he had long hair! Lol. Time flys!

Thanks! Yes, it does.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Well, found the issue. Tested my batch of saltwater, 381 ppm Ca levels. So that wasn’t it. Tested my tank water again 3 more times and got 381, 392, and 391 ppm. Best guess is I accidentally pressed the 100 uL pipette from the Hannah checker kit to the second stop instead of the first and pulled too large of a sample on accident. Woops

All's well that ends well.

 

[MischiefReef]

Wondering if anyone can help me make sense of this. My 39 gallon system consumes about 5.74 dKh/week and only 3-4 ppm of calcium (so within the margin or error my Hannah checker). I’ve never had this issue until about a month ago when my weekly testing was showing my Ca was getting much higher than it should. I was hitting 479 ppm using kalkwasser but maintaining an alkalinity level of about 9 dKh. So I switched to dosing just BRS soda ash for a week to bring the Ca level down while maintaining alk levels. It worked and Ca dropped to 439 ppm over a week while alk stayed at 9 dKh. So then I switched back to dosing kalk again to maintain that and sure enough it’s back up to 478 ppm a week later. This is pretty confusing and frustrating because I live in an apartment with 4 other bodies (wife, kid, and 2 dogs) and have had issues keeping pH up, hence why I prefer dosing Kalkwasser. The only explanations I can think of are that either my testing equipment is off or my salt mix is imbalanced. I use IO reef crystals for weekly 10% WC’s. Gonna test my last batch and I’ll post the levels for that in a bit.

All my testing is done with Hannah checkers and here are my tank params

• dKh=9.1
• NH3=17.1
• PH4=0.2
• Ca=478
• Mg=1435
• Salinity=1.026
• Temp 77.5-78.
• Ph=8.1-8.3

From my experience, Kalkwasser is not the right thing to dose to maintain carbonate hardness in your case. The product is doing what it should, you are just dosing it for the incorrect purpose. I would look at products like seachem, reef builder for carbonate hardness or reef buffer for pH. Otherwise you are just raising and lowering your calcium unecessarily while trying to hit your target dKH. Hope that helps!

Edit: just noticed several far more experienced members have already commented on this. Feel free to correct me on what I added if it for some reason incorrect. I’m always learning too!

 

[Rowboman]

From my experience, Kalkwasser is not the right thing to dose to maintain carbonate hardness in your case. The product is doing what it should, you are just dosing it for the incorrect purpose. I would look at products like seachem, reef builder for carbonate hardness or reef buffer for pH. Otherwise you are just raising and lowering your calcium unecessarily while trying to hit your target dKH. Hope that helps!

Edit: just noticed several far more experienced members have already commented on this. Feel free to correct me on what I added if it for some reason incorrect. I’m always learning too!

I appreciate the response but I do disagree. Kalkwasser does a great job of maintaining my alkalinity and Ca levels while raising my pH. I also use soda ash and calcium chloride to make any further adjustments if say my kalkwasser needs exceed my evaporation rates or if I do develop a dKh/Ca imbalance. In this case though that imbalance was due to a testing error

 

[MischiefReef]

I appreciate the response but I do disagree. Kalkwasser does a great job of maintaining my alkalinity and Ca levels while raising my pH. I also use soda ash and calcium chloride to make any further adjustments if say my kalkwasser needs exceed my evaporation rates or if I do develop a dKh/Ca imbalance. In this case though that imbalance was due to a testing error

If you’ll allow me to clarify my comment. Firstly I wrote the first bit as a direct response to your initial comment without realizing the testing error issue. Also perhaps my wording was not the best, I am not saying that kalkwasser doesn’t boost and maintain kH, but rather that it’s not the only thing it increases. On my incorrect understanding that your original issue was actually a real issue rather than a testing error, I thought you were dosing kalkwasser into a system already high in calcium while trying to raise/maintain alk. In which case there are better products you can use that target just your alk. Rather than dozing kalk and raising the calcium simultaneously and then having to dose soda ash to correct it. But given that it was a testing error, this advice no longer applies. Hope that clarified my meaning!

 

[arking_mark]

From my experience, Kalkwasser is not the right thing to dose to maintain carbonate hardness in your case. The product is doing what it should, you are just dosing it for the incorrect purpose. I would look at products like seachem, reef builder for carbonate hardness or reef buffer for pH. Otherwise you are just raising and lowering your calcium unecessarily while trying to hit your target dKH. Hope that helps!

Edit: just noticed several far more experienced members have already commented on this. Feel free to correct me on what I added if it for some reason incorrect. I’m always learning too!

Please be aware that marine "pH Buffer" product are most likely a mix of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. The pH boost/stability is false advertising as the pH boost/buffering is only temporary. Your pH is driven by CO2 in your system...which is greatly impacted by the CO2 levels in your home...which are usually elevated...which drive down your pH. Additionally, this is unbalanced dosing...and I wouldn't recommend that. I would only use this product if I needed to increase Alk independently of my other parameters

 

[MischiefReef]

Please be aware that marine "pH Buffer" product are most likely a mix of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. The pH boost/stability is false advertising as the pH boost/buffering is only temporary. Your pH is driven by CO2 in your system...which is greatly impacted by the CO2 levels in your home...which are usually elevated...which drive down your pH. Additionally, this is unbalanced dosing...and I wouldn't recommend that. I would only use this product if I needed to increase Alk independently of my other parameters

Yes, I realize that. The intent was to offer unbalanced dosing advice to counteract the unbalanced parameter issues which I thought the OP was dealing with before realizing that the whole issue was caused by a test error. I was not offering this as standard advice for a normal tank.
Also, just to note, marine buffer is not the product I was referring to. But rather reef builder and reef buffer. Two different products. And “unbalanced dosing” has worked for quite a few of my systems, you just need to calculate the dosages correctly, and I find it may take a while to get the numbers truly dialed in.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I would look at products like seachem, reef builder for carbonate hardness or reef buffer for pH.

The pH boost from any buffer is far less than one gets from hydroxide solutions, per unit of alkalinity added, whether kalkwasser or a two part using hydroxide.

 

[TheNewGuy321]

Hopefully the NH3 is meant to be NO3. I had a similar situation. I was able to get it to be stable by lowering my PO4 and Nitrates. I had numbers similar to what yours are now. After lowering them roughly 50% , everything has been testing / dosing evenly.

this hurts my head

 

[MischiefReef]

The pH boost from any buffer is far less than one gets from hydroxide solutions, per unit of alkalinity added, whether kalkwasser or a two part using hydroxide.

Noted, thank you!

What about for using reef builder for kH if calcium is already too high? Is it better to use kalk?

 

[MischiefReef]

Sorry for the double post, I’m genuinely interested to improve my understanding of this particular issue, as in the past when I tried dosing only kalk on certain systems that I would always overshoot calcium, while struggling to maintain a steady kH. On other systems just using kalk was enough. Is this because of environmental factors external to the tanks as well as the environment/livestock in the tank? If you could shine some light on this for me that would be greatly appreciated! @Randy Holmes-Farley