Alkalinity, is this normal?

[jray8]

Is it normal for alkalinity to continually drop while calcium and magnesium remain steady? I am losing 0.3 dkh per day and need to continually test and dose to maintain it. Shooting to maintain about 9.
If this is normal can I dose my auto top off water to reduce the rate at which it drops? I have been using BRS soda ash.

Calcium stays steady at 420 and Mg at 1320. Aquarium is 4-5 weeks old and is not really stocked with much, a few snails, hermits and some GSP. The 2 clowns were moved to a QT 11 days ago for treatment.

thank you

 

[RockBox13]

Do you have coralline algae growing on surfaces?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Is it normal for alkalinity to continually drop while calcium and magnesium remain steady? I am losing 0.3 dkh per day and need to continually test and dose to maintain it. Shooting to maintain about 9.
If this is normal can I dose my auto top off water to reduce the rate at which it drops? I have been using BRS soda ash.

Calcium stays steady at 420 and Mg at 1320. Aquarium is 4-5 weeks old and is not really stocked with much, a few snails, hermits and some GSP. The 2 clowns were moved to a QT 11 days ago for treatment.

thank you

Yes. That's because it would take a considerable time to detect the balanced drop of calcium (which is 2 ppm per day) and you will never detect the magnesium drop (0.2 ppm per day or less).

I recommend to always dose the calcium part in equal volume to the alk part unless calcium is ALREADY too high ( over 550 ppm). The amount of calcium you'd add is very small.

 

[jray8]

No coralline, I started with Carrib Sea Life Rock and Carrib Sea live sand.

 

[mimi117]

I am somewhat in the testing phase for this in my own tank.

I would make a quick journal over a 7 day period of what your dkh is reading at the same time each day in your tank, then look at how much it's going down day to day without any intervention from you, some days may be higher/lower, you can take an average over that 7 day period to figure out your amount, your above post says you are losing .3dkh per day, how accurate is this measure?

and yes, you would need to dose to maintain the level or keep it from dropping.