Alkalinity rising?

[Cory]

Id send a sample to triton if yiuve got lots invested. Or just try another alk kit.i think its water changes.

 

[griff500]

I do have a Triton test available - it's probably a good time to do it.

I don't see how you would think it's down to water changes. To expand on what I said earlier, 8% water change on Sunday, test the next day and no increase in alkalinity... gradual increases every day since then. Tests before the water change and 24 hours later did not show any difference. TMPR is supposed to be quite a low alkalinity salt as well.

 

[Cory]

I do have a Triton test available - it's probably a good time to do it.

I don't see how you would think it's down to water changes. To expand on what I said earlier, 8% water change on Sunday, test the next day and no increase in alkalinity... gradual increases every day since then. Tests before the water change and 24 hours later did not show any difference. TMPR is supposed to be quite a low alkalinity salt as well.

Yes id do it too. If you haven't tested a new batch of salt Id do that. One thing I learned in this hobby is never assume. I think tmpr is a good brand of salt, but they are all prone to having a bad batch. Ive seen many threads online about tmpr having 10dkh batches and super low ones. Its your choice but id test it. Id also do an alkalinty standard i posted you ealrier. You can get a pharmacy to weigh it for you if you dont have a scale, however thistest may not work well for Hanna as Randy pointed out to me once.

 

[griff500]

If I had changed to a new bucket of salt or I was near the end of one then I could consider it as a potential cause but that's not the case. I've been using it without any changes to alkalinity. I'll certainly test it on Sunday when I do the water change BUT I would expect the difference caused by higher alkalinity salt to show up quicker than a few days after the water change and to be more immediate than a gradual daily rise.

 

[Cory]

Maybe its the decaying hair algae then?

Also i found a long time ago that dosing sugar to grwo bacteria caused my alkalinty kit to read bad. Are you dosing anything like that? Vodka?

 

[griff500]

Zeovit Start3, which is carbon dosing. The alkalinity shift appears to have coincided with the noticeable algae decline and nutrient reduction, which has also coincided with the pH swing apparently reducing, which wouldn't be entirely unexpected.

 

[Cory]

Real Reef Rock (the product) was used. It was absolutely covered in GHA for quite some time due to using Triton and having an algae bed that was of insufficient size (in my opinion). I believe the rock became clogged up and saturated with phosphate but I now seem to have pulled it out based on the reaction of the GHA. It took about 6 months and is now disappearing rapidly.

Id actually say these rocks are raising your alkalinty. They are "marine safe" man made rocks. That means cement, and cement is basically calcium hydroxide.

I once put an uncured dime soze piece of cement in my tank thinking i could maintain alk and calcium with it, all my fish died alk was very high and ph too. The fish looked burned die to high ph. So don't underestimate the effects of cement marine safe or not

 

[Cory]

So what id do is put a peice in a bucket of saltwater and test alk for a few days

 

[Cory]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2531192

Is about it lowering alk, but i wouldnt be surprised if it raised alk too

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Maybe its the decaying hair algae then?

Also i found a long time ago that dosing sugar to grwo bacteria caused my alkalinty kit to read bad. Are you dosing anything like that? Vodka?

Read bad in what way?

 

[Cory]

Read bad in what way?

I went crazy dosing it. Like 5 tsp in 70 gallons. The alkalinty was reading high.

About the real reef rock, i found this, point 3 about using thorite hydraulic cement

There are 7 problems with "Real Reef Rock":

1) The name is deceptive. The product in no way, shape or form resembles "real" reef rock. Many newbies get sucked in by the name.

2) It is woefully insufficient on porosity compared to actual real reef rock.

3) It's made with thorite cement and coral/shell aggregates. These types of hydraulic cements have a high percentage of alumina-silicate in them (some are almost all alumina-silicate). Aluminum compounds, no matter how theoretically insoluble in the high-pH of seawater, have no place in a reef tank, IMO.

4) The rock is very briefly cultured in closed systems. It will certainly be seeded with a little bit of bacteria, but little else. So if don't want all the myriad creatures that come in on truly live rock, you'd be better off with so-called "dry rock" that you seed yourself.

5) The purple pigment that they put in the outer coating is hideously ugly, in my opinion. Yes, it will eventually get coated with coralline, but if you're willing to wait on that, why not start with considerably more aesthetically pleasing dry rock?

6) It's expensive compared to the equivalent product - dry rock and a bottle of bacteria.

And the numero uno reason to avoid this product:

It does not "save" any reefs. The live rock that is harvested for reef tanks comes from surf zones in the Indo Pacific, and hundreds of thousands of tons of it are harvested every year for building roads, causeways, walls, and buildings. What the aquarium trade uses doesn't even register as 1% percent of this total take. In the case of Florida live rock, it's all aquacultured, fossilized aragonite rock - it has no impact whatsoever on the ocean at all. And Florida aquacultured live rock actually is live rock, and a far, far superior product for a reef tank at about the same price.

Finally, natural aragonite rock isn't in short supply. Florida, for example, has millions upon millions of tons of it in terrestrial quarries. So there is just no good reason to make "reef tank rock" from alumina-silicate hydraulic concrete and shell aggregate, coat it with a hideous artificial purple dye, seed it with a little bacteria, call it a deceptive name, make false "eco-friendly" claims, and sell it to unsuspecting aquarists for $8 a pound when they can get a far superior product for about the same money in Gulf aquacultured rock, or even better, Indonesian natural reef rock.

And yes, this is my opinion only.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If the rock is inadequately cured, that could well be it.

 

[griff500]

Id actually say these rocks are raising your alkalinty. They are "marine safe" man made rocks. That means cement, and cement is basically calcium hydroxide.

I once put an uncured dime soze piece of cement in my tank thinking i could maintain alk and calcium with it, all my fish died alk was very high and ph too. The fish looked burned die to high ph. So don't underestimate the effects of cement marine safe or not

It's been in for about 18 months and I've not heard of any issues.

 

[griff500]

If the rock is inadequately cured, that could well be it.

18 months in the tank.

 

[Cory]

If its not pourous, and you accidentally break a chunk it will raise alk. I doubt any amount of curing will cure internal cement, unless its very pourous. Just do the test man, your just doubting everything we say. At least try something.

 

[griff500]

Nothing broken.

It's not a case of doubting everything you say - it's discussion. I don't quite see some of the suggestions being the logical cause and I'm not inclined to disturb the tank by taking large rocks out. The increase in alkalinity has been very recent, gradual and fairly small - I'm not seeing it as a major issue yet, it just seems odd for alkalinity to rise.

Can alkalinity have been bound up in the rock or algae and then released with the GHA die off. If not then it's a coincidence...

 

[Cory]

How do you confirm that its not the rock leaching? Visual isnt enough imo.

How do you confirm its not your test kit?

How do you confirm its not your salts alk level?

You gotta do something about it.

Randy said its unlikely the hair algae die off, id trust him.

So your point sources to suspect are your:

Rocks
Salt mix
Test kit

And all youve done is said, its not it.

What are you going to DO about it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Nothing broken.

It's not a case of doubting everything you say - it's discussion. I don't quite see some of the suggestions being the logical cause and I'm not inclined to disturb the tank by taking large rocks out. The increase in alkalinity has been very recent, gradual and fairly small - I'm not seeing it as a major issue yet, it just seems odd for alkalinity to rise.

Can alkalinity have been bound up in the rock or algae and then released with the GHA die off. If not then it's a coincidence...

No, I just don't see a plausible cause and effect between algae dying and alk rising.

 

[Cory]

If your really want to know if its the algae, test it in a small bucket. Let it die in darkness, testing alk before and after. Then you got results to say yes or no

 

[JonasRoman]

I agree with Randy that a plausable explanation is increase in denitrifikation. When you have equa denitrifikation as nitrification it is still an decrease in Alk as it is produced 4 H to oxidice one ammonium molecule and only gets 2 OH to reduce same molar/amount nitrate. Thus, it must be att least twice so much denitrifikstion compared to nitrification to get a nettoincrease in alkalinity. As you dose organic carbon i think yoy maybe have an explanation here. In that case it Will stabilize itself because when nitrate go down the reduction of that will decrease over time and the balance between nitrification and denitrifikation Will be back and Alk be more stable.
Randy have to correct me if i am wrong on the exact stochiometri.

Concerning Hanna I believe there method is not sensitive to pH. The reason is (i believe) is that they adding a constant amount acid of that amount so the sample always go below the eqvivalentpoint for HCO3, thus a bit under pH 4.2. Then in that case the pH beyond this slope is not any more sensitive to CO2 as 100% of all carbonates is pushed to H2CO3 and CO2(aq) and as long as the pH is below 4.2 there will be no dissociation at all of H from H2CO3.
So, the point we Will reach on the curve beyond /below 4.2 is only dependent on the alkalinity in the water before we added the constant amount of acid.
I have tried this method of myself and experimentet with different acids and concentrations and it is working.
I tried measure same water with different CO2 levels and got down to excactly the same pH point with same alk. So, i think you can trust Hanna method. There is only one weakness: if the alk is so high so the amount of acid is not enough to reach a point below 4.2. But i guess Hanna has calculated at least that the metre will manage alk from dKH 14 and down maybe.
They by the way use bromocresolgreen with acid added. The light from the diod is 610 nm as the difference in asorbance between the different colorchange for bromocresolgreen in this wavelenght is maximal.