Tank absorbing Alkalinity fast

[Dj A-Ron]

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.

This is great man. This is the kind of information I can't seem to find. Yes, my common sense told me that my tank needed me to dose Alk. Everything I read had me spinning and thinking that I was doing something wrong. I am just looking for verification that I am safe to dose Alk and not cause any major tank problems by not dosing Calcium. I feel like my tank is doing so good and I don't want to make some major mistake.

 

[Ls7corvete]

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.

You dont think that OP's Calcium consumption will start/increase once he gets his Alk into a normal range?

It is interesting to know that Alk is consumed more in a young tank, I have never read that before, thank you for pointing that out.

 

[homer1475]

@blasterman is spot on, young tanks consume much more alk until it stabilizes, then you would start dosing both at a constant rate.

It's perfectly fine to just dose ALK if thats what your tests are telling you. I dosed ALK constantly but my weekly WC's were plenty for calcium until my tank matured.

My post was more geared to a mature reef, and why you would dose both equally.

And yes, you may notice an increase in calcium consumption once you start to keep your alk more stable. Corals like things to be stable, and will respond in growth when things become and remain stable.

 

[Dj A-Ron]

Thanks so much guys for all of the advise. I feel alot better about moving forward with dosing and without fear of destroying my tank inhabitants.... LOL!

I consider myself borderline expert when it comes to high tech planted tanks. I've gotten bored with freshwater and wanted another challenge within the fish keeping hobby so I dove in head first into the saltwater game. I really don't know anyone that is into saltwater and don't have any mentors to guide me and give advice. So all and any knowledge that I've obtained was from forums and YouTube videos. It's difficult to weed through it all and decipher what is the correct method and what is not because alot of the information contradicts. Like blasterman said, it was my common sense and basic logic to think that I needed to start dosing only Alk. However, everything I read told me that my water changes would do the job, they didn't. Other research told me that I had to dose both calcium and alkalinity. I learned today that is not necessarily true either.

Thanks again!!!

 

[homer1475]

I once posted this almost same exact question to randy way back on reefcentral. He explicitly told I do not need to dose both parts equally if thats what my test kits are telling me.

Common sense for some, but like you said, everything says your supposed to dose equally. So it tends to be a bit confusing some times.

You may have dove in head first, but at least you found the place with the best information.

 

[Ls7corvete]

Thanks so much guys for all of the advise. I feel alot better about moving forward with dosing and without fear of destroying my tank inhabitants.... LOL!

I consider myself borderline expert when it comes to high tech planted tanks. I've gotten bored with freshwater and wanted another challenge within the fish keeping hobby so I dove in head first into the saltwater game. I really don't know anyone that is into saltwater and don't have any mentors to guide me and give advice. So all and any knowledge that I've obtained was from forums and YouTube videos. It's difficult to weed through it all and decipher what is the correct method and what is not because alot of the information contradicts. Like blasterman said, it was my common sense and basic logic to think that I needed to start dosing only Alk. However, everything I read told me that my water changes would do the job, they didn't. Other research told me that I had to dose both calcium and alkalinity. I learned today that is not necessarily true either.

Thanks again!!!

Any updates?

 

[Dj A-Ron]

Any updates?

I dosed Sodium Bicarbonate to get my Alk up to around 8.5-9.0. I then switched to Soda Ash to try and maintain those levels. I seemed to only be able to keep it in the low 8’s to high 7’s. I tested Alk every day. And tested Calcium once a week. I noticed my Calcium levels dropping a bit as well. I also noticed some signs of precipitation. The sand around of the base of the rocks started clumping and hardening. I went with my gut and decided to switch to Kalkwasser. I’ve been running the Kalk for about a week now. Seems to be coming close to maintaining levels but not quite. My Alkalinity is still dropping but not as quickly. Calcium seems to be dropping too. I tested tonight and my Alk tested at 7.0 and Calcium at 384. I’ve been doing 100ml per hour of Kalk. Problem is I can only dose as much Kalk as my tank evaporates. So I may just start to hand dose along with the Kalkwasser to keep my levels where I want. I also noticed elevated PH with the addition of the Kalkwasser along with my C02 scrubber. It was rising to 8.4. I ordered an electric ball valve and rigged that to my Apex to bypass the C02 scrubber when PH went above 8.31. Now I’ve been maintaining an exact 8.3 PH for the past few days. Still dealing with some ugly phase algae and funk but the rest of the corals and fish seem to be doing really good.

 

[Ls7corvete]

I dosed Sodium Bicarbonate to get my Alk up to around 8.5-9.0. I then switched to Soda Ash to try and maintain those levels. I seemed to only be able to keep it in the low 8’s to high 7’s. I tested Alk every day. And tested Calcium once a week. I noticed my Calcium levels dropping a bit as well. I also noticed some signs of precipitation. The sand around of the base of the rocks started clumping and hardening. I went with my gut and decided to switch to Kalkwasser. I’ve been running the Kalk for about a week now. Seems to be coming close to maintaining levels but not quite. My Alkalinity is still dropping but not as quickly. Calcium seems to be dropping too. I tested tonight and my Alk tested at 7.0 and Calcium at 384. I’ve been doing 100ml per hour of Kalk. Problem is I can only dose as much Kalk as my tank evaporates. So I may just start to hand dose along with the Kalkwasser to keep my levels where I want. I also noticed elevated PH with the addition of the Kalkwasser along with my C02 scrubber. It was rising to 8.4. I ordered an electric ball valve and rigged that to my Apex to bypass the C02 scrubber when PH went above 8.31. Now I’ve been maintaining an exact 8.3 PH for the past few days. Still dealing with some ugly phase algae and funk but the rest of the corals and fish seem to be doing really good.

Sounds like you have made a lot of progress, I will be following along as my tank matures (and I learn a bit)

 

[Woodneers]

This is interesting! I have a similar situation except my sand bed is clumping up quite a bit. How does one fix the clumping? Furthermore what caused it in the first place?

 

[Dj A-Ron]

This is interesting! I have a similar situation except my sand bed is clumping up quite a bit. How does one fix the clumping? Furthermore what caused it in the first place?

I’m new to all of this so maybe someone else can preach the science behind why it does that. I’ve read that it’s from precipitation build up from dosing 2 part. However, I was only dosing to boost my Alk... since I also saw my Calcium dropping I decided to quit dosing the soda ash and switched to the Kalkwasser and the chunky substrate has diminished.

 

[Dj A-Ron]

Well, my tank has been through the ugly phase for a few weeks now. Corals are doing good and fish are great. However, I am still having major Alkalinity absorption. Once I added the the Kalkwasser reactor on 12/13/2020 I thought I had it all under control but nope! I have been testing rigorously for the past 4 weeks and my other parameters have all been rock solid and very stable with very little if any change:
Calcium 440
Magnesium 1425
Nitrate 5
Phosphate 0.07-0.08
Salinity 35ppt
Temp 78
PH 8.3

However, Alkalinity drops so fast its not even funny. I have even been trying to dose 40ml per day Soda Ash lately and it doesn't even help. Just keeps dropping. It's only a 55 gallon tank... It'll drop 0.5dkh over night so about 1.0dkh per day and this is while dosing kalkwasser, soda ash and daily auto water change running. I tested the tank last night and it was 6.5dkh and this morning it was 6.0dkh. Literally can't even seem to get my Alk level up back over 7. A week ago I also bumped up the auto daily water change from 1 gallon up to 2 gallons per day which is about a 25% water change per week, thinking that this may help keep the Alkalinity up. I tested my mixed saltwater and it's reading at 8.9dkh...

I have a separate 10 gallon coral QT tank with the same rock and water that'll maintain levels between 7.5-8.0 for weeks. Only difference between the coral QT and the main DT is that the DT has Carib Sea Special Grade gravel in the tank. The QT tank is bare bottom and don't dose anything. My only guess is that the gravel in the DT is absorbing the Alkalinity....? Could this be possible...? Another guess that I had is that the Soda Ash is precipitating out with the Soda Ash/Kalkwasser combo... However, I don't see signs of precip on anything in the tank or sump.... I was thinking about switching from Soda Ash to Sodium Bicarbonate thinking maybe it'll make a difference....?

Tank is 5 months old. I only have about 7 or 8 small/medium soft and LPS corals in the DT so I really don't think that's where the Alk is going... Plus I had this same problem before I even added corals to the tank. I have been seeing some signs of coraline algae growing on the rocks but it's very little, just a few spots here or there on the rocks.

Again, I am very new to saltwater aquariums so take it easy on me. I'm just trying to figure this thing out and get a stable tank running. Any advice or criticism is welcome and appreciated.

Thank you

 

[Dj A-Ron]

I read Randy Holmes-Farley's article on this very subject and even though all that information is way over my head, it has sparked a couple thoughts:

1. Maybe I should discontinue the daily automatic water change system. Bring the Alk up (if I can) to 8.5 with Sodium Bicarbonate. Let the tank run for two weeks without a water change. Monitor all the parameters just as I have been and see what happens. After reading the article I'm thinking that maybe the daily 1-2 gallon water change is battling the balance with the kalkwasser addition...???

2. Maybe I should bump up the concentration of kalkwasser in the reactor and just leave everything else the same..? Maybe I just need more of both calcium and alkalinity (kalkwasser)..?