Can't keep my alkalinity raised, help wanted!

[AmatuerAuer]

My Vectra L1 stalled on me over the weekend while I was out of town. A combo Tunze ATO and Apex notification saved the day and notified me. The pump had a lot of calcification on the impeller shaft so I soaked in a vinegar bath for 2 hours and it cleared up. The tank/sump has a good bit of grime that looks like calcification or perhaps sluff from the biopellets. I lowered my dosing from 10min/hr to 5min/hr. If the Alk level stays the same at 5min/hr or 10min then why not go lower and save on solution..

I'm still a bit confused as to why I can't "zero out" the tank by stopping all dosing for a day or two and then slowly raise it over time.. I genuinely feel like I had better growth and coloration at higher Alkalinity levels.

 

[anit77]

My Vectra L1 stalled on me over the weekend while I was out of town. A combo Tunze ATO and Apex notification saved the day and notified me. The pump had a lot of calcification on the impeller shaft so I soaked in a vinegar bath for 2 hours and it cleared up. The tank/sump has a good bit of grime that looks like calcification or perhaps sluff from the biopellets. I lowered my dosing from 10min/hr to 5min/hr. If the Alk level stays the same at 5min/hr or 10min then why not go lower and save on solution..

I'm still a bit confused as to why I can't "zero out" the tank by stopping all dosing for a day or two and then slowly raise it over time.. I genuinely feel like I had better growth and coloration at higher Alkalinity levels.

It's been 7 weeks since your last post on this. How have things worked out over that time?

I'm going through something similar now myself. Based on your pump getting a lot of calcification on it and what you were seeing on the glass it sounds like you had a lot of precipitation, which meant you were way over dosing for alk. What I'm seeing is sand clumps and I had some calcification on heaters and the glass of my sump in the chamber I was dosing in. I just put in a new sump a couple weeks ago and I stopped all dosing. My Cal was a bit high at 470 afterwards so after a few days I did a water change and started dosing 1/3 of what the BRS calculator recommends since last Saturday 2/4. The Cal was down to 458 last night but the alk is still lower than what I'm shooting for. I'm trying to get the cal & alk "balanced" at 430/9.5dkh then try and see what my usage is as I bring those down some to figure out what my maintenance dose is.

 

[AmatuerAuer]

Sorry for the delay here. I've been battling with quarantine and my DT has honestly become an after thought.

Update: I stopped dosing for about 48 hours over a weekend and tested the alkalinity drop over that time. I then started increasing the dosing rate of Alk and Calc slowly starting from 2 minutes an hour. I was not able to solve the problem, but there is more to the story. Since that post I have lost several fish to a qt problem that is also unresolved. I've had a failing skimmer pump that needed to be replaced. One of my vector power heads needs a new ball bearing or Ill have to replace the whole pump and my Apex controller became corrupt and I'm waiting on Neptune to call and fix it.

The coral are alive and growing with good poly extension so I have honestly given the levels question a pass until the less serious items are addressed.

I was able to clean power heads, return pumps and heaters in a vinegar bath and that did solve some of the issues. White vinegar and water in a trashcan with a power head for a few hours. Then take it apart, scrub and rinse. Be sure to remove any rubber seals as the acid can cause them to become misshapen.

 

[Ocelaris]

Did you ever get back to level adjustment? I too have been having the same issue. I've stopped dosing for a while day or two to no avail. And I'm burning through 2 part as well, so going to try 3 days without dosing and start back on my way up. I used to have it dialed in way better a while back, but it seems like once you're precipitating it's hard to get back on track.