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- Apr 27, 2020
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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!