Tank absorbing Alkalinity fast

Dj A-Ron

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Hello everyone. I am going to give as much info as I can about my system in hopes that some of you can provide me with some advise. I am new to reefing so please bare with me. Any advise will be greatly greatly appreciated.

I have a new tank that is a little over 3 months old. I set it up with dry rock and dry sand. I did a fishless cycle using Dr. Tim's kit. Everything is going great. I have 6 fish, 3 hermit crabs, a cleaner shrimp, about 20 small frags and a couple small/medium sized euphyllia corals in the tank. The tank is a 54 gallon Red Sea Reefer 250 with an 11 gallon sump (65 total gallons). I have been running the tank with auto water changes since day one changing 1 gallon per day which is about 10%-11% water change per week. I've been using the Fritz RPM blue box salt. I've been testing Calcium, Magnesium, Nitrate, Phosphate once per week and Alkalinity every day. I use Hanna checkers for Cal, Alk, Phosphate. I use Salifert for Mag and Nyos for Nitrate. My current perimeters are as follows:

Calcium 455
Alkalinity 5.1
Magniesium 1425
Nitrate 5
Phosphate 0.05

I have a couple fish quarantine tanks running and also a coral QT as well that I have been pulling water from the DT to put into the QT's between medication treatments. I then replace the DT water with freshly mixed saltwater. So this is obviously additional water changes on top of my daily auto water change system. I only do these QT water changes once a month between medications, usually about 15 gallons over a few days. This would bring my Alkalinity back up to about 6.5 however every day the Alkalinty drops by 0.5 at least. Once I'm done doing water changes in the QT's the Alk will steadily drop over a week down to about 5 where is seems to level out. I tried dosing by hand Sodium Bicarbonate for one week by hand at 20ml in the morning and 20ml at night to try to keep the Alk up. Every day I would test before dosing and the Alk would drop at least 0.5 within 12 hours. I am logging all of my testing and dosing in my Apex and the Alk graph in Apex Fusion looks like a roller coaster during the dosing period! While I had my Alkalinity up a few of the corals looked much better. More colorful and fluffy. When the Alk is low the few corals look downright bad. I want to try and keep the Alk up closer to the level of my salt mix of 8.5. I'd even be happy if I could maintain it around 7. Alot of the research that I've done says that Alkalinity and Calcium get absorbed in equal amounts but that most definitely isn't the case with my system. Where is the Alkalinty being absorbed?

Here are a few things that I have on hand but just don't know which path to take if any:

BRS Sodium Bicarbonate
BRS Soda Ash
BRS Calcium
BRS Magnisium
BRS Kalkwasser
Avast Kalkwasser reactor
BRS 1.01ml per minute dosing pump
Kamoer X1 Pro dosing pump

So here are some of my questions/concerns:

I have this dosing pump, should I start dosing either the Sodium Bicarbonate or Soda Ash to keep the Alk up? Some of my research has said that I shouldn't dose Alkalinity without dosing Calcium. However my Calcium levels are fine...

I have a saltwater mixing station with a 30 gallon Brute can that I keep saltwater for the auto water change system. I thought about maybe adding the Sodium Bicarbonate to the newly mixed saltwater to bring the Alkalinity in the bin to say about 12 and let the auto water change system basically dose the tank and hopefully equalize the Alk level in the display tank to a higher level, hopefully around 7 or more. I'm just not sure if this is a normal practice or if it would cause excessive precipitant in my mixing bin.

I also thought about switching to the Fritz RPM Red Box which is basically the same salt with a higher Alk level of 12.... small problem is I just bought a brand new box of the RPM Blue Box...

I also thought about dosing Sodium bicarbonate slowly over about a week to bring the Alkalinity up to around the 8 mark and then fire up this kalkwasser stirrer. I'm just not sure if the kalkwasser with then in turn elevate my calcium to an undesired level...?

Please help guys! I really don't know what path to take if any. Should I just leave it alone? Where is all of this Alkalinity going?! Let me know if I left out any info about my system.

Thanks for any guidance.
 
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Dj A-Ron

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A couple things that I forgot to add. I also have a high tech planted aquarium in the same room as my reef tank. Begin a high tech planted tank I inject C02 into the fresh water aquarium to help grow the plants. I did struggle at first during the cycling of the reef tank with a low PH of about 7.5-7.6. So I added a C02 scrubber to my skimmer on the reef tank sump. My sump is plumbed into my basement so I did run a line from the outside of my house to my C02 scrubber then to my skimmer. I have been able to dial the PH of the reef tank to 8.1-8.2 most of the time. Right now its sitting at 8.24.

Hopefully this additional info helps. Thanks again
 

homer1475

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Ok lets start with the basics.....

You should always dose ALK and CAL in balance, most dosing "systems" allow for this. Our hobby grade test kits can't register the reletive small drop in CAL. Trust me, if you dose them together, you'll see the CAL stays in line.

Now for starters, in your case you want to bring the ALK up to an acceptable level before adding CAL. Right now with literally no ALK consumption(it typically stops around 5), you won't have any CAL consumption either. In this case, it's perfectly OK to just dose one without the other, until your at an acceptable level.

Start with a calculator, and figure out how much needs to be added to bring your system up to a minimum of 7( I would do this over the course of 2 days). I like and use this CALC:


BRS soda ash is randys recipe 1, and sodium bicarb is recipe 2(BRS chems are based of @Randy Holmes-Farley DIY 2 part and they are interchangeable in reef calculators)

Assuming you have 65G(I bet it's a bit lower as your displacing water with sand, rocks, equipment, sump not totally full, etc) the calc says you need 92.8ML of Soda ash. I would add about half, check, then add the other half the next day as to not shock your corals(typically you don't want to go over 1DKH point in 24 hours when raising it).

Once your up to 7, on the next round, add till your up to 8. Then test daily at the same time every day to figure out what your consumption is. IE your ALK goes from 8 to 7.5 in 24 hours so your using .5DKH of ALK. Go back to your calculator, and figure out how many ML you need to add to make up that .5DKH drop. Add that daily, then in a couple days test, if your still at 8 then you have your dosing dialed in. If it's low up the dose a bit(check the calc to see how much your adding), If it's high, then just decrease the dose.

Once you have the ALK dialed in, then just start adding the same amount of CAL. Even though you don't see move on your test kit, it is dropping. It really makes no sense as when I first started dosing years ago it didn't to me either. Once i got my ALK dialed in, I just started adding CAL even though my test kit said not to. Low and behold ALK and CAL are rock stable.

Hope all that make sense to you?
 

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I was going to point out to the BRS investigate about salt in mixing bin.


But unfortunately they don't have Fritz as one of the test.
You might need to test it yourself.
What is the alk level on newly fresh mix saltwater. Then what is the alk level on the bucket after its sitting for a week or how many long that bucket last.
How long before you need to mix new saltwater?

I am thinking RPM might be like Redsea. Its good for 24 hours, then the alk would drop
 

homer1475

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Of course I'm assuming your actually using the ALK, and it's not precipitating out?

Have you checked your sandbed to see if it's getting hard anywhere? Do you have a snowstorm when adding ALK? Is any of your equipment have a hard white crust in the magnets?
 

blasterman

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Young tanks suck alkalinity much, much faster than calcium and will do so for quite awhile. You will not be able to get calcium and alk balanced until your SPS frags get growing and your tank matures. That's going to be several months down the road. Calcium is likely barely moving...if at all, right?

I would target your alk level higher to at least 9 and check it no more than bi-weekly otherwise you will go nuts. I would stick to regular baking soda for simplicity sake.
 
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Dj A-Ron

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Now for starters, in your case you want to bring the ALK up to an acceptable level before adding CAL. Right now with literally no ALK consumption(it typically stops around 5), you won't have any CAL consumption either. In this case, it's perfectly OK to just dose one without the other, until your at an acceptable level.

Start with a calculator, and figure out how much needs to be added to bring your system up to a minimum of 7( I would do this over the course of 2 days). I like and use this CALC:


BRS soda ash is randys recipe 1, and sodium bicarb is recipe 2(BRS chems are based of @Randy Holmes-Farley DIY 2 part and they are interchangeable in reef calculators)

Assuming you have 65G(I bet it's a bit lower as your displacing water with sand, rocks, equipment, sump not totally full, etc) the calc says you need 92.8ML of Soda ash. I would add about half, check, then add the other half the next day as to not shock your corals(typically you don't want to go over 1DKH point in 24 hours when raising it).

Once your up to 7, on the next round, add till your up to 8. Then test daily at the same time every day to figure out what your consumption is. IE your ALK goes from 8 to 7.5 in 24 hours so your using .5DKH of ALK. Go back to your calculator, and figure out how many ML you need to add to make up that .5DKH drop. Add that daily, then in a couple days test, if your still at 8 then you have your dosing dialed in. If it's low up the dose a bit(check the calc to see how much your adding), If it's high, then just decrease the dose.

Once you have the ALK dialed in, then just start adding the same amount of CAL. Even though you don't see move on your test kit, it is dropping. It really makes no sense as when I first started dosing years ago it didn't to me either. Once i got my ALK dialed in, I just started adding CAL even though my test kit said not to. Low and behold ALK and CAL are rock stable.

Hope all that make sense to you?
Thanks so much for the help.

I did exactly this for one week. I used the BRS calculator to figure out how much Sodium Bicarbonate to add. I spread it out over a couple days. On November 18th at 10pm I got it up to 8.6 right around where I wanted it. The next day at 10am I tested it and it was at 8. Tested that same night at 10pm and it was at 7.6. So within 24 hours it dropped 1 whole point... Over then next few days I dosed by hand trying to maintain those levels of around 7.5 but I just felt like I was doing something wrong so I stopped the dosing. I stopped on Nov. 22 and just wanted to test every day to see where my bottom line was. November 28th it was at 5.4. So about 1 week dropped about 2 points. I had to change water in my QT tank so pulled 10 gallons of water from the DT for that and put fresh saltwater into the DT. I did this over the coarse of two days. Each 5 gallon water change would bring it back up to 5.9 then it would drop back to 5.4 as of yesterday.

Yes, I am using the calculator and assuming that I have 55 gallons of water after all of my rock and sand. I did try a bit of the Soda Ash and it did have a slight snow effect. The Sodium Bicarbonate did not have the snow effect.

I was planning on doing exactly how you say but I couldn't get over the fact that I felt like I was making a mistake. What do you think about Kalkwasser? I have this Avast Kalkwasser stirrer here. Do you think I could dose the Alkalinity up to the desired level and then switch to Kalkwasser to dose both Alk and Cal together?
 
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Dj A-Ron

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I was going to point out to the BRS investigate about salt in mixing bin.


But unfortunately they don't have Fritz as one of the test.
You might need to test it yourself.
What is the alk level on newly fresh mix saltwater. Then what is the alk level on the bucket after its sitting for a week or how many long that bucket last.
How long before you need to mix new saltwater?

I am thinking RPM might be like Redsea. Its good for 24 hours, then the alk would drop

Thanks for the reply. I've watched all the BRS video's like 5 times each. They are great. I've watched this video a few times and have tested my newly mixed saltwater and it is pretty spot on to what Fritz claims it will be. I tested the water again a week later and got almost identical results with the Hanna checkers. So I think I'm safe with that.
 

homer1475

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The only problem with KALK, most people add it to their top off. Depending on evaporation you could be adding more then needed, or not enough. I'm personally not a fan of KALK once a tank starts maturing, on a young tank that doesn't have alot of consumption, it's great. I do add a small amount to my topoff, but just for the PH raising effect.

The small cloud you see when adding soda ash is the localized PH raising effect. If it disipates into the water, it's fine. It actually should cloud a small bit when adding. Sodium bicarb doesn't raise the PH as much, so it doesn't cloud when adding.

Your dosing correctly, just need to keep at it.
 

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Thanks for the reply. I've watched all the BRS video's like 5 times each. They are great. I've watched this video a few times and have tested my newly mixed saltwater and it is pretty spot on to what Fritz claims it will be. I tested the water again a week later and got almost identical results with the Hanna checkers. So I think I'm safe with that.
How long does the bucket last? as it showed in the video, it can still change after few weeks for the red sea
 

homer1475

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It might also help, once you figure out your consumption....

Add your supplements in the AM(if your going to continue to hand dose for now), then test in the PM(You said you were testing at 10PM witch would be fine). FYI it's best to dose all day long in small increments so things stay stable, but perfectly fine for a young tank to be dosed BOLUS.


Depending on your turnover, you could add supplements, wait 30 minutes, then test. In my tank I have a large turnover rate, so I can typically tell what my supplements did in about 10 minutes or so.
 
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Dj A-Ron

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Of course I'm assuming your actually using the ALK, and it's not precipitating out?

Have you checked your sandbed to see if it's getting hard anywhere? Do you have a snowstorm when adding ALK? Is any of your equipment have a hard white crust in the magnets?
I don't think its precipitating out. None of heaters or anything in my sump has any crust or dust on it. None of my powerheads in the tank have any signs of precipitation either. My sand bed is not hard at all. It blows around a little bit and I also have a Goby in there who sifts through it all the time with no problem.

When I was dosing I mostly used Sodium Bicarbonate which didn't show any signs of precipitant. But I did play around with the Soda Ash a bit and I did notice that it did get a little snowy looking for just a second when dosing. As long as I dosed it very slowly it didn't do that as bad though. I dosed the Soda ash directly into the tank right in front of my powerhead.
 

homer1475

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Only difference between soda ash and sodium bicarb is the PH altering effect of soda ash, and you use less soda ash. If you have low PH use soda ash, if your PH is normal, use sodium bicarb. Sodium bicarb IME doesn't precipitate as bad either as it doesn't raise the PH.

Randy's DIY 2 part is just baking soda(sodium bicarb), or actually baking the baking soda for soda ash(drives off the co2 creating soda ash)
 
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Dj A-Ron

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How long does the bucket last? as it showed in the video, it can still change after few weeks for the red sea
It kind of depends if I need to do water changes in my QT tanks or not. At this point I'm going through a 30 gallon bucket of water every 2-3 weeks. I did do all of this testing on my bin water after a few weeks because someone else kind of assumed exactly what you are saying. All the testing showed that the water elements where holding. I started the tank using Tropic Marin Pro salt and it did the same exact thing but the levels were even lower presumably because the Alk level of that salt was only 7. I switched to this RPM salt because of the higher starting Alk level thinking that it would better maintain the Alk level with the auto water change system that I have running but it did not help.
 

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The only problem with KALK, most people add it to their top off. Depending on evaporation you could be adding more then needed, or not enough. I'm personally not a fan of KALK once a tank starts maturing, on a young tank that doesn't have alot of consumption, it's great. I do add a small amount to my topoff, but just for the PH raising effect.

The small cloud you see when adding soda ash is the localized PH raising effect. If it disipates into the water, it's fine. It actually should cloud a small bit when adding. Sodium bicarb doesn't raise the PH as much, so it doesn't cloud when adding.

Your dosing correctly, just need to keep at it.
OP does have a dosing pump and is using a co2 scrubber. What do you think about him calculating a constant rate (based on his daily drop posted above) of kalk throughout the day, then adjusting from there.? Do you think he could discontinue the scrubber? Ie two birds one stone.
 
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Dj A-Ron

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Only difference between soda ash and sodium bicarb is the PH altering effect of soda ash, and you use less soda ash. If you have low PH use soda ash, if your PH is normal, use sodium bicarb. Sodium bicarb IME doesn't precipitate as bad either as it doesn't raise the PH.

Randy's DIY 2 part is just baking soda(sodium bicarb), or actually baking the baking soda for soda ash(drives off the co2 creating soda ash)
As long as I stay on top of the media in my C02 scrubber my PH sits between 8.0-8.2. Today its higher than I've ever had it at 8.26.
 
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Dj A-Ron

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It might also help, once you figure out your consumption....

Add your supplements in the AM(if your going to continue to hand dose for now), then test in the PM(You said you were testing at 10PM witch would be fine). FYI it's best to dose all day long in small increments so things stay stable, but perfectly fine for a young tank to be dosed BOLUS.


Depending on your turnover, you could add supplements, wait 30 minutes, then test. In my tank I have a large turnover rate, so I can typically tell what my supplements did in about 10 minutes or so.
I just got this little Kamoer X1 doser that I planned to use to feed RODI into the Kalkwasser reactor. I was gonna send it back because I didn't think it was gonna work for that application. I could use it to dose the Sodium Bicarb throughout the day equally. Would probably be better than had dosing...
 
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Dj A-Ron

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OP does have a dosing pump and is using a co2 scrubber. What do you think about him calculating a constant rate (based on his daily drop posted above) of kalk throughout the day, then adjusting from there.? Do you think he could discontinue the scrubber? Ie two birds one stone.
This is what I've been thinking would work I just wasn't sure I was doing it right and was scared when I couldn't get it to level out and wasn't dosing any Calcium which all my research said I was supposed to do. I never did introduce the Kalkwasser reactor or dosing pump. I figured I'd ask all of you guys and go in with a stronger plan. I do have all this gear waiting here to use if needed. Everyone's advice is welcomed and appreciated.
 

blasterman

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Kalk will make the problem worse, not better, and your tank is not precipitating. Stop listening to bad advice.

Kalk reacts with tank water and forms balanced amounts of carbonate and calcium. That's not your problem. Your problem is excessive carbonate consumption caused by a young tank consuming carbon as it matures. If you use Kalk you will be in the same situation resulting in too much calcium and insufficient alk.

Stop obsessing over calcium. Forget about calcium. Nothing in your tank is consuming calcium at a rate worth worrying about. Sporadic water changes will replenish calcium just fine right now.

Let me try common sense. The *only* time calcium and alk are consumed at a balanced ratio in a reef tank is when you have large amounts of healthy growing SPS and/or clams. You have a bunch of frags and some LPS. Therefore, your tank is not not consuming calcium and alk at a balanced rate. Sounds like you can't even get a reading on calcium changes, right?

If your tank is not consuming calcium and alk at a balanced rate then it's basic logic to assume you shoulnd't be replenishing them at a balanced rate, correct? There's a reason hardcore SPS keepers *BEG* new reefers to not mess with SPS in new tanks until 6months or longer. That's because of instability issues like this. Alk / carbonate is consumed much. MUCH faster than calcium in a young tank. There's also the fact you started with a dry tank and hence having to build all the bacteria and algae beds from scratch vs get there faster using established live rock. These biological stratas need carbon for growth and they suck alk at a massive rate long pass your initial cycle. I've set up a dozen or more reef tanks the past 2 years and some of them ate 2 dKH per day while calcium didn't flinch. When your alk level gets to around 5 it's consumption becomes self limiting and biologic processes slow down to compensate.

As your tank matures alk consumption will slowly level off. Assuming your SPS frags survive and start growing then you can opt for a balanced schedule. This is *WAY* down the road dude.

Quick rant here, but 10 years ago what I just stated was regarded as common knowledge. Unfortunately with todays forums being nothing more than front ends for the likes of BRS selling you stuff I can get in a grocery store for 1/10 the price it's getting frustrating. E very new tank I've set up goes through a rapid alk consumption stage. If it starts from dry rock the process is more extreme and the deltas more severe. BRS won't talk about this because they want to sell you stuff.
 
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Dj A-Ron

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Young tanks suck alkalinity much, much faster than calcium and will do so for quite awhile. You will not be able to get calcium and alk balanced until your SPS frags get growing and your tank matures. That's going to be several months down the road. Calcium is likely barely moving...if at all, right?

I would target your alk level higher to at least 9 and check it no more than bi-weekly otherwise you will go nuts. I would stick to regular baking soda for simplicity sake.
Over the coarse of a month the Calcium went from 496 down to 455 but seems to have stabilized at that 455 number. It's pretty much stayed at the 450 mark for the past week. The frags that I have are about 5 soft corals about 6 LPS and a few SPS (monti's and a leptoseris). The Softies, LPS, and Leptoseris seem to be growing a bit the Monti's not so much.

So you are saying that it is okay to dose to raise alkalinity and to not worry about dosing calcium at this time?
 
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