Reef Crystals and My Struggle with Low Alkalinity

[((FORDTECH))]

Man, this is why I love this forum! You guys are so helpful!



That is very good to know. I wouldn't have thought of that but I guess it makes sense! It's an easy enough fix so I should give it a shot! Thanks!


So the PM can also be seen when I add the water from the Brute bucket; I suspect it's a very small amount of buildup of calcium or something else from adding my soda ash.



That's so frustrating, but I wouldn't be surprised at ALL. I also have a phosphate tester; the latest batch of reagents ONLY reads 0 and has been for the last several weeks. That sounds like crap to me. Maaaaayyyyyyybe in the 20g reef because there is so little food/waste being produced but my 120 absolutely should have phosphate readings. For a $50 checker and a $15 reagent, they really need to get their act together! QC control is important!!!!



That was something I was wondering about as well. I buy the large buckets that make 200g or so of mix, since I can re-use the buckets to perform water changes and such. I really wish these manufacturer's would get their QC control straightened out.

And your salinity is still low but anyways

 

[loui]

had problems with hanna ALK tester in the past with low ALK readings. Turned out to be the reagent every time I opened a new bottle the ALK would be 2 or 3 dkh higher. You have to be very careful with the reagent, when using it put the lid back on right away, any evaporation will screw up the reagent. Since making this small change my readings have been dead on every time. Also I give the reagent a small shake before use.

I also have the Ultra low phosphate tester and it has been perfect. I had a 0 reading for a few weeks I removed my filter socks and dosed phosphate from brightwell and I now have a phosphate reading and my corals have never looked better.

 

[X-37B]

Get a salifert alk test kit.
You should always have a backup cross reference, imo.
I run hanna alk every day and log but thats just me.
Been using it for over 3 years.
When I get a reading that does not make sense I retest and it is usually a mistake I made.
If its way off I test with salifert to double check.
I have had a bottle or 2 that gave wonky reading during the 3 years.

 

[RobberyinCSharp1824]

And your salinity is still low but anyways

Perhaps I'm in the wrong here but I think 1.026 is a bit high and leaves little room for fluctuation should an ATO issue occur.

I generally keep my salinity on the lower side to reduce parasite risk.
Marine Depot recommends a range from 1.020-1.028sg.
Mr. Saltwater Tank recommends 1.024 – 1.025sg.
LiveAquaria recommends 1.023 - 1.025sg.

I've also read in more than one place that salinity over 1.025sg in a tank with fish in it can be deadly. That could be nonsense though.

 

[RobberyinCSharp1824]

Get a salifert alk test kit.
You should always have a backup cross reference, imo.
I run hanna alk every day and log but thats just me.
Been using it for over 3 years.
When I get a reading that does not make sense I retest and it is i
usually a mistake I made.
If its way off I test with salifert to double check.
I have had a bottle or 2 that gave wonky reading during the 3 years.

Yeah, I considered getting a Salifert test kit as a backup. I only haven't pulled the trigger because I'm miffed about the fact that I have to throw out another twenty bucks on a test kit because the one I spent money on has poor quality control or is unreliable. But to your point, it's the way to get a clear-cut answer.

 

[RobberyinCSharp1824]

had problems with hanna ALK tester in the past with low ALK readings. Turned out to be the reagent every time I opened a new bottle the ALK would be 2 or 3 dkh higher. You have to be very careful with the reagent, when using it put the lid back on right away, any evaporation will screw up the reagent. Since making this small change my readings have been dead on every time. Also I give the reagent a small shake before use.

I also have the Ultra low phosphate tester and it has been perfect. I had a 0 reading for a few weeks I removed my filter socks and dosed phosphate from brightwell and I now have a phosphate reading and my corals have never looked better.

Wow! Dosing phosphate! I would never have thought that would be good for corals. Maybe I'll take a look at this.

I will probably be buying their calibration sample to see if their reagents or my checker are the culprit.

 

[blasterman]

RC mixes at around 12dKH .028 consistently for me. I've always used small bags and never had uniformity problems.

I think there's testing error here.

Salifert Alk tests using low resolution mode is my goto alk test. Its cheap, reliable, fast and has never failed. No one needs granularity with .1 dKH , and given all the problems you guys seem to have with these kits I will stick to Salifert and bulletproof half point dKH in low res mode. SPS don't care if they are kinda around 9 dKH or so as long as its stable and i trust the accuracy.

 

[EMeyer]

Perhaps I'm in the wrong here but I think 1.026 is a bit high and leaves little room for fluctuation should an ATO issue occur.

I generally keep my salinity on the lower side to reduce parasite risk.
Marine Depot recommends a range from 1.020-1.028sg.
Mr. Saltwater Tank recommends 1.024 – 1.025sg.
LiveAquaria recommends 1.023 - 1.025sg.

I've also read in more than one place that salinity over 1.025sg in a tank with fish in it can be deadly. That could be nonsense though.

No. 1.026 (35 ppt) is the salinity of the ocean, pretty much everywhere (and certainly where corals live).

I don't know why so much misinformation about the parameters of the ocean gets spread around in our hobby. The ocean is 35 ppt and 7 dkh.

Mixing a salt at anything below normal salinity (35 ppt = 1.026) will result in lower than intended levels for everything in the salt, including alkalinity. (7 dkh is actually ideal, but I suspect your reading is an error because RC always mixes much higher than that IME)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Perhaps I'm in the wrong here but I think 1.026 is a bit high and leaves little room for fluctuation should an ATO issue occur.
.

That is incorrect. You are right, however, that your comment about fish is nonsense.

A sg of 1.026 is actually still lower than the overall ocean average, and there is plenty of room to go higher. I recommend 35 ppt, or sg = 1.0264.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Wow! Dosing phosphate! I would never have thought that would be good for corals. Maybe I'll take a look at this.

I will probably be buying their calibration sample to see if their reagents or my checker are the culprit.

It would be nice if the calibration fluid was an actual standard, but it is not. It is barely useful as it does not check reagents or procedures or vials at all. It just checks the machine optics operation.

 

[RobberyinCSharp1824]

That is incorrect. You are right, however, that your comment about fish is nonsense.

A sg of 1.026 is actually still lower than the overall ocean average, and there is plenty of room to go higher. I recommend 35 ppt, or sg = 1.0264.

Thank you for that information. I'll definitely work on raising the salinity in my tanks!

It would be nice if the calibration fluid was an actual standard, but it is not. It is barely useful as it does not check reagents or procedures or vials at all. It just checks the machine optics operation.

Yeah, it's just bonkers to me that you can order a "calibration" fluid that just tells you whether your reader is good or not; no method for correction, no indication that a reagent is bad....total waste IMHO.

 

[RobberyinCSharp1824]

If anyone is still following this thread, I think I have confirmed what you all suspected about the bad Hanna reagent.
I ordered one new Alk checker reagent and the Salifert KH test kit. This morning my Salifert test kit said my tank's KH was 8.9; the same reagent I was using when I posted this originally came back with 4.64. That's pretty freaking enraging for such an expensive device. (I know $50 is pennies in this hobby, but it is more expensive than the average at-home test kit).

Anyone have any luck getting refunds, etc. from them? I don't want to order the new Hanna checker reagent yet if there is a true, short shelf life.

 

[Albertan22]

If anyone is still following this thread, I think I have confirmed what you all suspected about the bad Hanna reagent.
I ordered one new Alk checker reagent and the Salifert KH test kit. This morning my Salifert test kit said my tank's KH was 8.9; the same reagent I was using when I posted this originally came back with 4.64. That's pretty freaking enraging for such an expensive device. (I know $50 is pennies in this hobby, but it is more expensive than the average at-home test kit).

Anyone have any luck getting refunds, etc. from them? I don't want to order the new Hanna checker reagent yet if there is a true, short shelf life.

I have contacted them in the past about drift in the reagent. They have told me that it’s within acceptable parameters for the industry or something like that. I just write the date I open the reagent on the side of it with a pen now. If I don’t use it in 2 months I chuck it. It’s not usually an issue as I burn through alk reagents pretty fast.

 

[rmurken]

How do you get 5.768 from the Hanna Alk Checker? It only resolves to tenths.

 

[ingchr1]

How do you get 5.768 from the Hanna Alk Checker? It only resolves to tenths.

If you have the PPM checker the conversion to dKH is PPM x 0.056.

103 PPM would equal 5.768 dKH.

 

[rmurken]

If you have the PPM checker the conversion to dKH is PPM x 0.056.

103 PPM would equal 5.768 dKH.

Got it. Thanks.