Been trying to balance out my tanks Alk, Cal for a while now. Had issues right after I upgraded my tank in keeping my Alk levels normal. About two months after I upgraded my tank from a 25g to a 50g red sea reefer I had a set of acans jump out of their skeleton and when I tested I seen my Alk was super low at 5.5. Was having trouble getting Alk higher than 7 when dosing by hand but calcium was at 430-450.
I got myself a doser and started to dose B-ionic unevenly to try to jump start the balance back. Even with a large amount of alk being dosed the Alk level stayed at 7.0 but my Calcium started to jump to 450-470. I decided to stop and start to evenly add B-ionic and slowly increase the levels until they hopefully ended up balancing out while making almost weekly changes to my dosing for the levels.
Anyways, my Calcium started to go over 500 and my Alk was still holding at 7.2, then it started to hold at 8.0-8.2 for 2 increases with Calcium at 520. I did a large increase last week and now my alk is at 10.2 with Calcium at 540. Feels like Calcium just keeps wanting to go up without balancing back to 460 or so. Little worried that I'm going to crash the tank with overdosing at this point.
Should I do another increase in 2 part to get Alk around 12 and then see what happens with Calcium? Or should I stop dosing all together, see what my consumption rate is and balance out with a bunch of water changes, then start fresh this whole process. At least if I start with lower levels of Calcium and Alk I can redose at the current levels and see if that balances?
I don't even know why my Alk has been dropping so much and why its not increasing evenly with Calcium.
Magnesium is at 1350 and I dose with Hanna Checkers, but check them against the red sea test kits every once in a while. PH has been steady at 8.2 the whole time.
Only thing that changed with the setup was I added a bunch of new Marco Rocks, and my snails started to spawn often. I have a bunch of small baby snails all over.
I got myself a doser and started to dose B-ionic unevenly to try to jump start the balance back. Even with a large amount of alk being dosed the Alk level stayed at 7.0 but my Calcium started to jump to 450-470. I decided to stop and start to evenly add B-ionic and slowly increase the levels until they hopefully ended up balancing out while making almost weekly changes to my dosing for the levels.
Anyways, my Calcium started to go over 500 and my Alk was still holding at 7.2, then it started to hold at 8.0-8.2 for 2 increases with Calcium at 520. I did a large increase last week and now my alk is at 10.2 with Calcium at 540. Feels like Calcium just keeps wanting to go up without balancing back to 460 or so. Little worried that I'm going to crash the tank with overdosing at this point.
Should I do another increase in 2 part to get Alk around 12 and then see what happens with Calcium? Or should I stop dosing all together, see what my consumption rate is and balance out with a bunch of water changes, then start fresh this whole process. At least if I start with lower levels of Calcium and Alk I can redose at the current levels and see if that balances?
I don't even know why my Alk has been dropping so much and why its not increasing evenly with Calcium.
Magnesium is at 1350 and I dose with Hanna Checkers, but check them against the red sea test kits every once in a while. PH has been steady at 8.2 the whole time.
Only thing that changed with the setup was I added a bunch of new Marco Rocks, and my snails started to spawn often. I have a bunch of small baby snails all over.
