Raising alkalinity by 2dkh

dsouth1103

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Hey guys! I have a 50g lagoon and I just setup my Neptune Trident for ease of testing. My first test results came in and told me my Alk=6.02dkh Cal=410ppm and Mag=1296. First off, should I take this test result with a grain of salt considering it was test #1 right after calibration? Secondly, if this is a viable result how should I raise DKH with calcium in mind? I have Red Sea ALK buffer but if i raise DKH by 2 (not all at once) wouldn’t that have an inverse affect on calcium? If so, how much? I have been dosing 80ml of 1/2tsp/gallon BRS kalkwasser daily and obviously that is not enough to keep up with Alk but is enough for calcium, which I thought was strange because I thought kalk provided both proportionally. After getting the levels right should I increase saturation and maybe volume of doses? Sorry for all the questions at once but any help would be greatly appreciated!
 

Mark laar

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First, how long does the tank run?
The reason I ask is that in young tanks just set up, alk consumption can be higher than calcium. Don't know exactly how that works, but has something to do with ammonia.

Second, I would never trust a new piece of equipment immediately.
Just let it run for a few weeks, then you know at least that it is working as intended. In the meantime do your maintenance as usual.
 
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dsouth1103

dsouth1103

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First, how long does the tank run?
The reason I ask is that in young tanks just set up, alk consumption can be higher than calcium. Don't know exactly how that works, but has something to do with ammonia.

Second, I would never trust a new piece of equipment immediately.
Just let it run for a few weeks, then you know at least that it is working as intended. In the meantime do your maintenance as usual.
Kind of hazy on the tanks “age”. I had a 30 gallon running for almost a year when I decided to transfer everything in it to the 50 gallon. Not sure how that impacts the tanks maturity but every drop of water and every ounce of rock/media was transferred over.
 
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dsouth1103

dsouth1103

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First don't do anything until you cross check that value with another test kit if not 3 different test kits until you know the trident enough to trust it.
I have Hanna checkers and two days prior to this Trident test it read 7.62dkh, i’ll test again today and react off the Hannas result. At the end of the day ALK is low but how much is the question.
 

Dburr1014

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I have Hanna checkers and two days prior to this Trident test it read 7.62dkh, i’ll test again today and react off the Hannas result. At the end of the day ALK is low but how much is the question.
If you know alk is off, raise it maybe a 0.5dkh. That won't effect anything.
Definitely check with other test kits.

Kalk is balanced. It may have been like this for some time. You can get it back in line with baking soda.

Let's just say your tank is a year old to keep it simple. ;)
 
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dsouth1103

dsouth1103

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So I just got home and checked again with the hanna checker and it says 7.28, I dosed up to 8. It’s strange having such wildly different answers. I have the same issue with PH, Hanna says 8.33 and Neptune Apex probe says 8.02. Hard to pick the one to trust.
 
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