PLEASE HELP, ALK @20.0

[A$AP-Reefer]

Hello everyone, I am loosing my mind, legit on the verge of crying rn. I've been battling this for almost a week, my alkalinity won't stop raising , I don't dose my tank.

I have frags mainly LPS , mushrooms 2 birds nests , 3 blasto mini colonies 6heads , about a 30head colony(not wild, aquacultured) acan, 4 head acan frag, 5head frogspawn. 5 fish .. all about 2"-2.5" !
• yellow tang
• pair of fathead sunburst
• wyoming clownfish, I forget the type..
• pintail wrasse

December 12th it all started. I always sit around 8.8-9.1 testing hanna checker from 3 different people all same reads.

December 15th, still have not dosed or added anything to the tank. No ph buffer nothing! This is when i started to lose my bird! Wondering and making calls why it was raising without me dosing, I figured it would decrease if anything. Tank is 2 years old and a red sea max 260E if you were wondering! 40lbs of live sand and about 40ish pounds at the time aquamaxx reefsaver rock.

Flash to December 16th, still have not dosed anything or have done anything. at this point I'm loosing my mind and it's breaking me down, corals now starting to react and starting to show signs of stress. MY ALK AT THIS POINT IS AT 15! this highest I've ever seen anything! Corals are stressing at this point.

NOW FLASH TO THE PRESENT DAY! I went to my local fish store a well known store in my area, known them a long time. I am bring the water to them I say.. I got it tested there , maybe thinking my checker was messed up.. he begins testing everything. First up ALK test. BOOM 17! what in the world!?!?! 17! No no no no this can't be. We'll it is everyone 17...


So I buy some water from them to do a 50% water change. I got the water from them around 5pm, I just got home as I'm typing this, their water is testing at 8.5 which would be able to bring it down alittle right...

WELL GUESS WHAT, I JUST GOT HOME... MY dang ALKALINITY IS AT 20PPM!! WHAT IS GOING ON ?! I am legit in tears as I'm typing this right now, I just invested a good 2,600$ in corals I've been wanting and mainly from local reefers and some mom and pop shops around the tri-state. I'm sitting at 20ppm I just tested before I change the water, I lost 4 shrooms already and my 3 mouthed orange win blue-green plate is completely white and puffy not skeleton.. I am about to do this 40% water change. I am so confused on WHY IS IT RAISING SO DANG MUCH .. SO RAPIDLY! WHAT IS GOING ON, I DONT DOSE.. I DONT ADD ANYTHING. HERE IS A PHOTO CURRENTLY RIFHT BEFORE I MADE THIS POST.

Please, please , please help me. I can't afford to lose this investment I made especially with what's been going on. Saved up for a while to get what I actually wanted after I crashed my tank due to neglect from last year when I couldn't pay attention to it as much due to traveling..

Any questions you have please ask away. I .. I don't even know at this point. After I post this I will start doing the 50% water change and see where that gets me. This are already starting to melt and Parrish so I guess it'll be a lose lose situation for me at this point in time.

Thank you all.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Oh my that’s horrible! Sorry you are going through this, I don’t kno too much about this but what are you calcium and mag levels? Also PH and salinity

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

Oh my that’s horrible! Sorry you are going through this, I don’t kno too much about this but what are you calcium and mag levels? Also PH and salinity

Salinity is at 1.025
Ph - a bit on the lower side 7.8
Phos at .08
Nitrate -very low I forget the number have no algae

Ammonia is sitting at .25 or lower couldn't tell cause the color was in-between.

Also.... Forgot to mention my tank started getting cloudy , was thinking it was maybe a bacteria bloom.. but how? I feed 1x a day and very minimal, tank is clean as it can be.

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

I took my return pumps out the back chamber cleaned them, thought maybe that could take into effect.. nada...

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Oh my that’s horrible! Sorry you are going through this, I don’t kno too much about this but what are you calcium and mag levels? Also PH and salinity

And what other equipment do you have on your tank?

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

Also over the past few days since this happened the redsea skimmer has been working like I never seen before

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

What food do you feed the tank?

 

[Auto-pilot]

There must be something leaching alkalinity into your water, try adding calcium maybe it will help precipitate your high alkalinity for now. It has to be coming from somewhere

 

[dvgyfresh]

Salinity is at 1.025
Ph - a bit on the lower side 7.8
Phos at .08
Nitrate -very low I forget the number have no algae

Ammonia is sitting at .25 or lower couldn't tell cause the color was in-between.

Also.... Forgot to mention my tank started getting cloudy , was thinking it was maybe a bacteria bloom.. but how? I feed 1x a day and very minimal, tank is clean as it can be.

Not too sure, possible the calcium is super low?

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

And what other equipment do you have on your tank?

2 ai hydra twentysix HD that comes with the tank. MP40 and a slw-20 wave pump like one of those jaebo WaveMakers. The redsea skimmer that comes with the redsea 260e all in one tank, run chemipure once every few months , I just changed it the other day to see if it would help with the cloudiness

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

There must be something leaching alkalinity into your water, try adding calcium maybe it will help precipitate your high alkalinity for now. It has to be coming from somewhere

Calcium was low, it was low when I first tested the all at 13. It was sitting at 204 I raised it to 390 . I tested last night it was at 444 with 15dkh.

I have no clue where this can be coming from

Not too sure, possible the calcium is super low?

 

[Tamberav]

What kind of biomedia and rock do you have/use?

Also what type of water do you use for top off? Have you tested the alk of your top of water?

I know you said you don't dose anything, does that include nitrate?

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

Tank is at 2 years old, I have minimal corals I use ESV salt mix, been using it for years. I got back into the hobby 2 years ago, I tested the batch I made when I did a water change 5 days ago I had some left over it is still sitting at 8.5 alk and 420 cal so it couldn't be my esv salt mix.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I think we need to get @Randy Holmes-Farley in here to make sense of this...

 

[Auto-pilot]

If it were my tank I might try adding white vinegar to try and bring it down. But that might cause a bacterial bloom if you add too much

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

What kind of biomedia and rock do you have/use?

Also what type of water do you use for top off? Have you tested the alk of your top of water?

I know you said you don't dose anything, does that include nitrate?

I use a brs 4 stage radio unit 100 or 150gpd I forget as for the rock I explained in the post when I first started the tank I used aquamax reefsaver rock from BRS and live araginite sand figi pink which I used in all my tanks when I was in the hobby back few years ago. I don't dose anything meaning alk and cal, since my water changes kepted up with the replenishing of my levels. I am not the one to Chace numbers but this is needing to now be chased. It's absurd and I'm scared I'm gonna lose everything, these aren't just frags to me. It's my pets and not cheap pets either, I love this hobby with my heart and soul and eat sleep breathe this hobby. Search and research corals any chance I can, look at other people's problems and try to help others as well. This is a mature tank not a new setup. This is the first time this has ever happened to me , I found a few threads on here that it's happened to. Some haven't found the solution.

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

If it were my tank I might try adding white vinegar to try and bring it down. But that might cause a bacterial bloom if you add too much

I'm already thinking I have a bacterial bloom cause my tank is cloudy like a milky color ish.. I was thinking due to the fact the alk is rising so rapidly it is causing this cause all my other levels to cause that are fine and up to par with everything. Sand bed is nice and white and rocks are a normal color for a 2 year old tank.

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

What food do you feed the tank?

I feed LRS herbivore flat pack about a half size of a nickle once a day spurt out sometimes 2x a day half that portion

 

[Tamberav]

I use a brs 4 stage radio unit 100 or 150gpd I forget as for the rock I explained in the post when I first started the tank I used aquamax reefsaver rock from BRS and live araginite sand figi pink which I used in all my tanks when I was in the hobby back few years ago. I don't dose anything meaning alk and cal, since my water changes kepted up with the replenishing of my levels. I am not the one to Chace numbers but this is needing to now be chased. It's absurd and I'm scared I'm gonna lose everything, these aren't just frags to me. It's my pets and not cheap pets either, I love this hobby with my heart and soul and eat sleep breathe this hobby. Search and research corals any chance I can, look at other people's problems and try to help others as well. This is a mature tank not a new setup. This is the first time this has ever happened to me , I found a few threads on here that it's happened to. Some haven't found the solution.

Test the alk if your top off water. If something is getting through your RODI and say you have alk in your ATO then it will rise in your tank.

Do you dose nitrate at all? The tank consuming Nitrate raises alk. Not sure if it can this fast but something to consider anyways.

The cloudiness could be calcium precipitating with the increasing alk.

 

[A$AP-Reefer]

What kind of biomedia and rock do you have/use?

Also what type of water do you use for top off? Have you tested the alk of your top of water?

I know you said you don't dose anything, does that include nitrate?

Also as for equipment, I don't have any dosers or anything. I actually just ordered a brs doser and was gonna pull the trigger on the apex Neptune system and the apex trident, was gonna get it as a Christmas present, now I have no clue as if to even do that cause of what's going on. I'm pulling my hair out of my head wondering how the heck can this be raising without doing anything.