Please help! Way low alkalinity.

[dpfish]

I did some work on my tank equipment about a week ago and must not have got the tube pushed all the way into my doser. I checked alk today and got 3.5 with my hana. Checked it twice. I dose All 4 Reef. I have a 120 gallon display and a 80 gallon frag tank on the same system with a bunch of coral. It went about a week with no A4R. It typically uses 205 ml a day. I have a mixed reef with a lot of high end coral. Looking for advice on how to best bring it back up.

 

[dpfish]

I also just brought down a lot of corals to add to the tank today. They are still in the bags. I tested the water from them at 7.4 wondering how to get them in the tank? I might need to bring them to a friend's house until I get mine back up

 

[dloberry]

If you have the option to take them to a friends I would do that to be safe. You will need to bring the alk up slowly. Less than 1ppm per day. Any more will shock them. How are they looking? Closed up? Any polyps bail out?

 

[dpfish]

Everything works fine. Only reason I checked it was to compare it to the water with my new incoming coral.

 

[dloberry]

If everything looks good you should be okay to being alk up slowly. But would not shock your other coral by putting them in a tank you know has a low alk. Hope all works out for you

 

[dpfish]

I guess that's not totally true. I have had a couple of blastos lose a few polyp.

 

[dpfish]

If everything looks good you should be okay to being alk up slowly. But would not shock your other coral by putting them in a tank you know has a low alk. Hope all works out for you

Thank you for the replies. I know dosing all for Reef to bring it up is not the correct move. I have the BRS soda ash but I know that raises pH. I also have the aquaphorist part 2 what do you recommend?

 

[Peer.Boerner]

Baking soda. Use a calculator like this one to determine the dose based on where you are and where you want to be. Dose enough to raise dKh by 1 degree each day, even split the daily dose in 2 to make it gentle.

https://reefapp.net/en/dosing-calculator

Given the urgency you can use plain Arm & Hammer baking soda (sodium bicarb)

Hope all the best for you!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’d be very wary of assuming alk that low is accurate and I’d double check it before making big changes.

 

[dpfish]

I’d be very wary of assuming alk that low is accurate and I’d double check it before making big changes.

I've ran it 3 times with the same reading. I tested the water from the bag the my new coral came in and got 7.4 all with the same tester. I will run it with a different tester today

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I've ran it 3 times with the same reading. I tested the water from the bag the my new coral came in and got 7.4 all with the same tester. I will run it with a different tester today

Assuming a second test method confirms the low alk, you have a variety of options to raise it, one of which is just to continue the AFR at the previously OK dose, and a second is to boost with baking soda over a few days while continuing the AFR.

 

[dpfish]

Assuming a second test method confirms the low alk, you have a variety of options to raise it, one of which is just to continue the AFR at the previously OK dose, and a second is to boost with baking soda over a few days while continuing the AFR.

I'm currently dosing brs soda ash because that's what I had last night along with the AFR with the goal of raising 1 dkh every 24 hr. Should I swap the soda ash with baking soda? I'm going to run home during my break to check with a different tester. Would you expect this temporary drop in alk to be harmful for the coral?

Thank you for the all help working me through this!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm currently dosing brs soda ash because that's what I had last night along with the AFR with the goal of raising 1 dkh every 24 hr. Should I swap the soda ash with baking soda? I'm going to run home during my break to check with a different tester. Would you expect this temporary drop in alk to be harmful for the coral?

Thank you for the all help working me through this!

The sodium carbonate will boost pH too much to add 1 dKH at once, IMO. I'd go slower with it, maybe 0.3 dKH at a time.

 

[dpfish]

The sodium carbonate will boost pH too much to add 1 dKH at once, IMO. I'd go slower with it, maybe 0.3 dKH at a time.

This afternoon I tested with my hana same one I used yesterday and an aquaphorist test kit that I have. Both tested 4.6 I'm pretty confident that my readings at 3.5 yesterday work correct

 

[dpfish]

Well it's been 6 days since I first noticed this fiasco. I've slowly come up to 7.8 from 3.5 dkh over about 5 days. I ended up using a second doser and running a combination of soda ash solution and AFR. I only had a few small casualties in my frag tank, nothing that I'm overly worried about. I didn't lose any of my higher-end Frags. All my large colonies in my display tank look great. I'm not saying I'm 100% out of the woods, I know some things take a while to show evidence of being stressed but so far so good. I really appreciate the help and advice from this group! I was kind of freaking out.

 

[dloberry]

Well it's been 6 days since I first noticed this fiasco. I've slowly come up to 7.8 from 3.5 dkh over about 5 days. I ended up using a second doser and running a combination of soda ash solution and AFR. I only had a few small casualties in my frag tank, nothing that I'm overly worried about. I didn't lose any of my higher-end Frags. All my large colonies in my display tank look great. I'm not saying I'm 100% out of the woods, I know some things take a while to show evidence of being stressed but so far so good. I really appreciate the help and advice from this group! I was kind of freaking out.

Glad it has worked out, hopefully you do not lose any more coral

 

[mcarroll]

I didn't see this addressed, sorry if I missed something. But if you run a low nutrient system then all this was totally warranted. If nutrietns are on the higher side, then I wonder if it was so necessary, maybe minding pH spikes would have been enough?

Still not a bad idea going slow just due to the maturity of the system and the potential losses. But thought this would be goo info because it's good to know the actual risk factors vs guessing or assuming the worst when you're in a position like this. Nutrient levels matter.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Well it's been 6 days since I first noticed this fiasco. I've slowly come up to 7.8 from 3.5 dkh over about 5 days. I ended up using a second doser and running a combination of soda ash solution and AFR. I only had a few small casualties in my frag tank, nothing that I'm overly worried about. I didn't lose any of my higher-end Frags. All my large colonies in my display tank look great. I'm not saying I'm 100% out of the woods, I know some things take a while to show evidence of being stressed but so far so good. I really appreciate the help and advice from this group! I was kind of freaking out.

Good to hear! :)