Alkalinity/Calcium Daily drop with no livestock

[Jeff Miotke]

@Jeff Miotke
It's been awhile and this is an old thread.
How is your reef doing now?

Regards, GoVols

Still here. The conversation was taken to private and have been working with Brew.

Short story...we tried a bunch of things, lots of digging, no changes to the drastic loss of alkalinity and calcium. What appears to have been calcite crystals continued to form on the rock.

Best guess is that the crystals were formed via microbially induced calcium precipitation or MICP. I decided that as a last ditch effort to empty the tank and removed all the sand, rock and biomedia.

I have since replaced the sand and rock and currently the tank Is finishing the diatom phase. Interesting note is that the tank never went through the diatom phase the first time around. Calcium and alkalinity values are no longer dropping and i jist added the first corals back today as a test before adding more from the QT tank.

Hopeful this issue is behind me and looking forward to enjoying the tank.

 

[GoVols]

Still here. The conversation was taken to private and have been working with Brew.

Short story...we tried a bunch of things, lots of digging, no changes to the drastic loss of alkalinity and calcium. What appears to have been calcite crystals continued to form on the rock.

Best guess is that the crystals were formed via microbially induced calcium precipitation or MICP. I decided that as a last ditch effort to empty the tank and removed all the sand, rock and biomedia.

I have since replaced the sand and rock and currently the tank Is finishing the diatom phase. Interesting note is that the tank never went through the diatom phase the first time around. Calcium and alkalinity values are no longer dropping and i jist added the first corals back today as a test before adding more from the QT tank.

Hopeful this issue is behind me and looking forward to enjoying the tank.

Jeff,
That's some deep stuff and @Brew12 is a awesome human being that truly helps us all.

Thanks for taking the time and I hope you are on your way to enjoying your scape master piece.

Freddie

 

[Jeff Miotke]

Jeff,
That's some deep stuff and @Brew12 is a awesome human being that truly helps us all.

Thanks for taking the time and I hope you are on your way to enjoying your scape master piece.

Freddie

Thanks Freddie. Yea I greatly appreciate everyone's help but Brew's was another level!

Here is the tank with the new sand and soil before the diatom bloom.

 

[Brew12]

I appreciate the kind words, but I really didn't do much. Resetting a tank on the fly isn't what I would call an acceptable solution and wish we could have found a better way. That "solution" made you do a huge amount of work.

The tank does look fantastic again though!

 

[Jeff Miotke]

Hello Jeff!
I feel your pain! I have a 200 gal and its 6 months old . I have exact problem. Although everyone can't give me a reason why my ALK drops 2 Dkh in a 24 hour period when I have 3 Montiporas and a hammer and 1 gonipora . I have zero Coraline although in the second month I had what seemed like white encrusting algae maybe Coraline but it's gone now. Fish health, corals were growing but seemed to slow. Montipora lost its color. I have a real hard time keeping my Dkh above 7!
At one point I was dosing 8 oz of 2 part everyday for a week. That's almost a gallon! Based off of this club if any other reefer did that they'd have a Dkh of 14 and calcium of 500!
I don't have a Doser yet, I must admit. I would dose 8 oz in my display in a high flow area. I've seen you tube videos of precipitation . Mine does not when dosing but apparently it must after 24 hrs.
I'd love to bounce ideas off you. It's driving me nuts!!!! I stopped stocking the tank until I can easily balance my numbers

Hey Bhavey. I just saw this. What kind of rock and sand do you have?

 

[GoVols]

Thanks Freddie. Yea I greatly appreciate everyone's help but Brew's was another level!

Here is the tank with the new sand and soil before the diatom bloom.

Jeff,
Your scape is perfection.