Why Is Alk Rising?

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I certainly didn't anticipate it, let me give you the background:

You might be familiar with the 144+ page discussion going on over at Humble reef with respect to the DT ich treatment protocol. Basically the heavy lifting involves UV + hydrogen peroxide use/dosing mostly done at night with a few dosing intervals done during the day.

Many people have noticed an increase with alkalinity doing this protocol. I myself noticed this. I actually had to stop my bi-weekly dosing of AFR for almost a month while doing the treatment in order to get this alkalinity rise under control. Can't say exactly what was going on with the chemistry, but when I finished doing the H2O2 part of the treatment my alkalinity returned to how things were before. Maybe it was biological?

Thoughts?

Any chance it stopped uptake of alk rather than added alk? Stopped uptake along with ongoing dissolution of sand and rock could result in rising alk even with no alk dosed.

I cannot see a chemical way that ordinary hydrogen peroxide can be converted into alkalinity. Most commercial hydrogen peroxide solutions are actually acidic (negative alk) to make it shelf stable.

 

[aidensav]

Alk is now stable. I did nothing to stop it and added nothing new to the tank/schedule. After I added the super low alk water it rose to 10, and now is stable.