Howdy all!
I've got a 60g AIO tank that is about 7 months old and has been doing fairly well with the exception of losing a couple fish in QT and a couple corals along the way. In the last few weeks I've been starting to supplement with fully saturated kalkwasser in my ATO with an evaporation rate of 0.5g/day. Through testing with my Hanna alk checker, I started noticing a drop in alkalinity as well as my pH staying pretty high (avg 8.5).
To try and correct this, I started manually dosing ESV 2-part first at 5ml a day, then 10ml. At 10ml a day I started noticed my alk dropping even faster and after doing some reading, I suspect the high pH is causing some precipitation or insolubility. I took 3 days off from touching my tank hoping that stopping dosing would show the elements leveling out. However, during those 3 days alk continued to drop from 6.6 to 6.2 despite using the kalkwasser.
What can I do to try and stabilize my water chemistry? Should I stop using kalk and go back to straight RODI topoff water? Spring for a DOS and start dosing 2 part? Leave it all alone and just back to straight water changes?
Attached is the chart of the past month's levels. I do weekly 10-15g water changes.
Alk: 6.6dkh
pH: 8.54 (avg)
Ca: 450ppm
Mg: 1245
Nitrates: 5-10ppm
Phosphate: ~0.06
Salinity: 35ppt
I've got a 60g AIO tank that is about 7 months old and has been doing fairly well with the exception of losing a couple fish in QT and a couple corals along the way. In the last few weeks I've been starting to supplement with fully saturated kalkwasser in my ATO with an evaporation rate of 0.5g/day. Through testing with my Hanna alk checker, I started noticing a drop in alkalinity as well as my pH staying pretty high (avg 8.5).
To try and correct this, I started manually dosing ESV 2-part first at 5ml a day, then 10ml. At 10ml a day I started noticed my alk dropping even faster and after doing some reading, I suspect the high pH is causing some precipitation or insolubility. I took 3 days off from touching my tank hoping that stopping dosing would show the elements leveling out. However, during those 3 days alk continued to drop from 6.6 to 6.2 despite using the kalkwasser.
What can I do to try and stabilize my water chemistry? Should I stop using kalk and go back to straight RODI topoff water? Spring for a DOS and start dosing 2 part? Leave it all alone and just back to straight water changes?
Attached is the chart of the past month's levels. I do weekly 10-15g water changes.
Alk: 6.6dkh
pH: 8.54 (avg)
Ca: 450ppm
Mg: 1245
Nitrates: 5-10ppm
Phosphate: ~0.06
Salinity: 35ppt
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