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Alkalinity issue, need advice!

I

IrradiatedReef

OK need some advice here. My measurements follow:

Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = never more then 5 usually around 2
PH 8.0 - 8.1 depending on time of day
ALK = BLUE, BLUE, BLUE! <using the Red Sea kit>
Calcium = 410-420 using the Seachem kit.

My issues are...

My PH will not go up even using buffer additive. If I don't use buffer, it can drop to 7.8 when I test in the morning before I turn on the lights.
My ALK I can't seen to get to drop at all.
Calcium is slowly rising about 10 points a day but that is if I use 7 ml calcium to 1 ml of buffer. <Bionic 2 part system>.

For the life of me I cannot figure out why my ALK is so high. I know I am overlooking something and I just cannot see it. I am currently doing a 1 gal. water change a day to try to bring it down. <22ish gallon system with sump>.

Can the high ALK be the reason my PH won't buffer up to 8.2 - 8.3? What can I do to get the ALK down? What is the air speed velocity of a fully laden swallow?
 
C

Carlo

Your alk is probably high because you added buffers to the tank. PH buffers are really alk buffers. The PH measurement is complex and adding carbonates usually isn't the way to fix a low PH problem UNLESS your Alk is also low.

What you need to do is totally forget about PH for now. Don't even test it. Also don't bother testing your calcium or Mag right now either as your alk concentration will change those also. Your alkalinity is probably the single most important thing to keep steady as it affects so many other things.

What you need to do is a series of water changes each day. Do no more then 25% of tank volume per day to SLOWLY bring the alk back in line. It's important to not shock the system by lowing it to fast. It's far worse to lower it fast then raise it. When you do the change today don't worry about testing it right away. Also give yourself 24hrs to see what effect something has on your alk reading.

Once your alk is back at 11 dkh do a series of tests and let us know what your reading are for:
Calcium, Mag (important) and PH

With a good solid 11 dkh for alk we can help you get your system balanced back to normal and figure out why your PH is low.

Just guessing here but your problem is probably related to CO2 and not any type of buffers but we won't know that until you can get your system stable again.

Carlo
 
I

IrradiatedReef

Ok, I did a 1 gal. change today. I will up it to 2 gal tomorrow which is about 10%. Will stop all buffers and will stop the calcium for the time being. It is wierd, I have never had my ALK go bonkers like this before. Completely new territory. At first I thought maybe it was the water <bottled distilled> I was using. Just to be sure, I am using the water I make in my store with RO/DI to do my water changes.

Oh, all corals are doing fine and nothing seems to be stressed. Even the fish are acting normal.
 
C

Carlo

That's a good thing.

I just thought of something. Test the alk levels of the water you are using for the water change. It could be on the high side which will make it hard to do water changes to bring your tank level down. If the made up water is high then you can try mixing your own water and use Tropic Marin Pro which is the lowest alk salt mix I've found. Anyone know of any salt mix lower in alk???

You can also cheat a little but do this only a tad bit. For example if you normally target 026 salinity then you can use made up water at 025 or 024. When mixed with the tank water the salinity will drop ever so slightly which won't hurt anything but will help you because you are adding less in the way of buffers with the new water. Again go easy if you dilute the water somewhat.

BTW, it is important to keep the calcium levels up as the corals need this but since you are doing daily water changes you KNOW the calcium levels are good because of the new water being added. That is why I suggested not even testing or adjusting it for now.

Carlo
 
I

IrradiatedReef

The salt I was using was Reef Crystals. It says it has high levels of everything that a reef needs blah blah blah. Maybe the salt brand is doing this? The pre mix water I am using now for water changes is regular Oceanic brand.

The ALK of the water being used for the water change is a nice aqua green, sits right in the middle of the "normal" range of the test kit.

Come to think of it, I had to use some treated tap water for late night top offs because I ran out of bottled water <no more then a quart at a time>. Maybe the tap water or water conditioner <declorinator> had a hand in this? Maybe the tap water is very heavy?
 
C

Carlo

It very well could be but I'd doubt a quart here or there is going to do raise it much even if it was off the chart.

It's possible we could be fighting a dead horse. I would suggest either picking up a decent alk test kit that will give you numbers (if yours doesn't do this) and/or taking a water sample to your lfs and have them test it and tell you what your true alk numbers are. It's possible your test kit has gone bad or just isn't reliable enough. If you purchase a test kit a cheap one like Aquarium Pharm will work just fine. It's easy to use. Fill water to line on test tube and add one drop of solution and tip tube for a second or two to mix the drop in. Each drop is 1 dkh. So it's quite easy to know exactly what your alk number is in dkh by how many drops it takes to turn from blue to yellow.

Carlo
 
I

IrradiatedReef

LOL, I happen to work at the LFS. We use the Red Sea kits which go from yellow <low> to green <normal> to royal blue <high>. I think I have a test kit that works like the one you described at the store, ill have to pick it up tomorrow. Once I get a good number reading off something Ill let you know where I am standing.
 
C

Carlo

Sounds good. Once we get your alk down to acceptable levels we can balance your calcium and mag (if needed) and then tackle the cause of your PH problem.

BTW, I don't recall if I mentioned it or not but don't add any "PH down" or "alk lower" type products since that will come back to haunt us later. The combination of the UP and DOWN products creates a see-saw or roller coaster type affect. Since you only added the UP at this point we only need to work on delusion of the carbonate buffers with water changes.
 
C

Carlo

That is an excellent, really well written article on pH. It may be a little technical for the average user but well worth a read or two!

The trick to pH IMHO is to get everything else stable and where it should be and then run through the "checklist" of items mentioned in that article. My gut feeling is that IrradiatedReef has a Carbon Dioxide/O2 issue but we'll find out soon enough.

Excellent post of information CamZ28!

Carlo
 
I

IrradiatedReef

OK, over the past 3 days, I have gone from 17 dkh down to 12dkh with only doing 10% water changes each day. Tomorrow I should be at 10/11 dkh. That was the BEST explination of ALK/PH I have ever read. I am waiting for someone in the group to drop off some cheato at my work for me so I can finally get the refugium up and running which should help. Looks like I might have to start Kalkwasser dripping soon too :-\.

Ill let you know where I am at tomorrow once I do the water change.
 
C

Carlo

Tomorrow you should be at a good range on your alk. The very next thing we want to test is your Calcium and Mag. If you don't have a Mg test kit pick one up at work or take a sample of your water to work at test it. :)

If you have any other test kits run the full range of tests you have and post them here. Also tell us what you current PH is. If possible give us 2 PH readings. One reading right before the lights come on and one right before the lights go off. These should be the two extremes you get on in your tank. Take tonight's PH reading if you want for one of the values.

What we'll do is get your alk, calc and Mg right on target and balanced with each other. These 3 items are very important to keep balanced (with each other). Depending on your PH reading and the "outside air test" we will do, will figure out if you should drip some amount of kalk (more then likely I bet) and cut down on the alk portion of your B-Ionic. The kalk (limewater) is really never a bad thing to do but it needs to be done in moderation. A kalk drip will help raise your alk somewhat. It will also raise your PH by driving out excess carbon dioxide out of the water as well as precipitate phosphates (a very good thing).

In the article that Camz28 posted there is a section called "The Aeration Test". Do this test if you have an air pump. Let it bubble for an hour and then test the pH. Let us know the result of the test.

Thinking ahead (maybe not needed) do you have room to install a 5 gallon bucket with your other equipment (in case of a kalk addition)? In case we find you may want/need to drip some kalk an easy way to do this if you have the room is to drill a hole in the top of a old salt bucket just big enough to snugly fit a piece of airline tubing through the top. Then a $10-$15 dollar doser pump is used to push the water from the bucket into your sump. You don't need a pump or anything to mix the kalk. Through a little experimentation you can put a timer on the pump so it runs 15 minutes to a couple of hours a day during the night (when pH is lowest). Once every few days you can dump in a slurry (water and kalk mixed together to be pretty thick but in liquid form) into the bucket and top it off with RO/DI water. Mix the bucket and close the lid.

I have my kalk drip 24 hours a day using a 3.5 gph pump. I put a small plastic valve on the end so I only drip it at about a drip a second (your milage will vary) and keep a pretty steady 8.1-8.2 pH range while nailing my alk at 11 dkH.

You can get fancy on your DIY kalk reactor and install a maxijet to mix things up during the day (assuming you drip at night) set on a timer and even set your RO/DI unit up to fill the bucket (keep it filled) with a float switch. It can become pretty hands off except for adding the slurry of kalk to the bucket once every few day to a week.

But before going into any of that (should have thought of that sooner) :) lets see what your test results are. :)

Carlo
 
I

IrradiatedReef

This is a 15 gal nano. my sump is a 10 gal tank which takes up most of my stand. I am thinking I can make something like you described but in a nano size! ;D Probably be around a gallon container.

Also, I am picking up my cheato today so I am hoping that the refugium will handle the CO2 issue.
 
C

Carlo

Ahh, nano size. I don't know how the drain is configured into your sump but if possible have the water "released" above the normal sump water line so it creates a waterfall type effect (like a HOB filter). This will help the O2 exchange.

However, you may not be able to do that for several reasons including to many air bubbles that get returned back to the tank, to much noise for your taste or simply because the sump is already configured with holes drilled in it. But it's worth a shot if you can do it.

Carlo
 
I

IrradiatedReef

I have a waterfall coming of the refugium section but apparently not enough. Air bubbles not an issue, I have a bubble trap that works great. The noise is an issue being that the tank is about 6" away from my head when I sleep lol.

Main tank is drilled on the back. Then PVC down through a ball valve to restrict flow then goes into a flex tube which spills into the sump. Goes through a bubble trap into the center where the return pump sits. The return pump goes up into a T junction where I redirect some of the flow into the refugium which spills over into the return pump area.


Would an air pump w/stone in the sump work?
 
C

Carlo

Since you already have the waterfall in the sump I don't think an airstone is going to do anything for you since your water is already getting mixed up enough.

Curious, have you tried the airstone test with water outside as mentioned in the article Camz28 posted? If so what kind of result did you get? btw, when/if you do that test let it bubble for an hour to get a good result.

Carlo
 
I

IrradiatedReef

PH on the test from outside went up by maybe .1 higher then the inside test. The ALK has settled out at 10 dkh now. Ph daytime is 8.0, Ph first thing in the morning is 7.8. I have started back with adding B-ionic but the alk buffer to calcium buffer ratio is offset a lot. I can add 5 ml calcium with no buffer at all and my alk stays the same and calcium maintains at 420-430.

No coral or any other livestock is acting funny, nothing died off, everything is doing rather great actually.
 
C

Carlo

It sounds like you are back in shape again.

Here is a very handy webpage that can be very helpful in keeping Alkalinity, Calcium and Magnesium in perfect balanced. It has a graphical tool built in that will show you how you stand graphically to where you should be target wise and breaks it up into 4 different "zones". It supports many different products and allows you to play "what if" online to see what effect different chemicals would have on PH, alk and calcium.

Check it out.

Carlo
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Bear in mind that Kalk is also going to raise your Alk. A delicate web we weave.
 
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