Help! Recirculating Co2 Fail

[Fallenreef]

Warning... big block of background text. I have been running recirculating CO2 scrubber (BRS media) for a few weeks. Yesterday my skimmer cup overflowed and started pulling wet CO2 media into the tank. As expected my ph skyrocketed 9 and it took me 6 hours to get it back down to under 8.5. My alkalinity also jumped from 7.6 to 10 during this period and I did water change to bring it back down to ~8.5 dkh and turned off my calcium reactor. I have been waiting for my alkalinity to fall back into my "normal range of 7.6" but the weird thing is, even without dosing anything related to alkalinity, my alk keeps jumping up at night until right before the light turns on. (It would go to 8.0 at the end of the day, but back up to 8.5 at night until the morning). It has been this pattern for the past 5 days now and I am worried I threw off the chemistry in my tank. The other parameters in my tank is 425 calcium, 1350 magnesium. Is there anything else I should be doing to get my tank back on track (Alk back to 7.6 and turning my calcium reactor back on). The only thing I have dosed in the past 5 days is a total of 3 ppm of sodium nitrate (3 different days) since I have read that nitrate can increase Alk. But it still doesnt explain the .5 increase of alkalinity every night I have been getting without my calcium reactor or dosing anything else. I have discontinued dosing of sodium nitrate right now and I am still experiencing the spike up in alkalinity. Any advice is appreciated! Thank you in advance!

 

[blaxsun]

I don't have any suggestions, but those more knowledgeable might want to know how you're doing your alkalinity testing (is this manually with a kit or through something like an Apex?) Hope you're able to resolve everything.

 

[E13MentX]

Following

 

[Fallenreef]

I don't have any suggestions, but those more knowledgeable might want to know how you're doing your alkalinity testing (is this manually with a kit or through something like an Apex?) Hope you're able to resolve everything.

I check the alk with KHG (Test every 2 hours), then double check the readings with Hanna and salifert. They are all testing pretty consistently.

 

[Fallenreef]

This is what my alk graph looks like. Even last night the alk went from 8.1 to 8.7 this morning and I have not dosed anything

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The only thing I have dosed in the past 5 days is a total of 3 ppm of sodium nitrate (3 different days) since I have read that nitrate can increase Alk. But it still doesnt explain the .5 increase of alkalinity every night I have been getting without my calcium reactor or dosing anything else. I have discontinued dosing of sodium nitrate right now and I am still experiencing the spike up in alkalinity. Any advice is appreciated! Thank you in advance!

Perhaps pH drops low enough at night to dissolve more of the media that settle around the tank system.

 

[Fallenreef]

Perhaps pH drops low enough at night to dissolve more of the media that settle around the tank system.

The ph fluctuates from 7.9 to 8.1 the past few days. Should I put my co2 scrubber back on to try to help everything to go back to normal? Thank you!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The ph fluctuates from 7.9 to 8.1 the past few days. Should I put my co2 scrubber back on to try to help everything to go back to normal? Thank you!

If there is media dissolving, then it's better (IMO) to get through dissolving it than to try to keep it undissolved.