Spike in ALK when manually removing flatworms?

[zelik]

I have quite a bit of flatworms and they haven’t really caused noticeable issues but I finally had it so I’ve been vacuuming them out with the false siphon method into the sump with a filter bag. Been doing this everyday and seeing marked progress! Strangely, my ALK has been going up, from my usual 8.0 to now 8.8 over 5 days. I’ve been dropping my dosage of TM all for reef from 42 ml/day to 30ml last few days. CA has gone up some too from 454 to 480.

My question is, do flatworms consume Alk and Ca? Could it be making that much difference?

Edit: they are the rusty brown flatworms

tank waterbox 130G
Dosing TM all for reef
Alk 8.76
CA 474
MG 1326
Ph 7.9-8.1
Salinity 33.5
ORP 410 (meaningless I know)
Temp 25C

got a refugium with chaeto and a small inflow ATS from Santa Monica. Chaeto not growing much as before, probably need to dose iron.

 

[lapin]

Im going to say you are vacuuming out more than flat worms. Maybe some coraline that was consuming alk. Tube worms, ones that form hard shells will consume alk, but i dont think flat worms do.

 

[zelik]

Im going to say you are vacuuming out more than flat worms. Maybe some coraline that was consuming alk. Tube worms, ones that form hard shells will consume alk, but i dont think flat worms do.

Thank you. I figured that’s the case. I have lots and lots of tube worms growing everywhere