Jestersix

Now that my KH is up, help me keep it there

badbread

badbread

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So in both of my tanks, my Alkalinity levels were very low. Around 5-6KH in both. Since discovering this I have been baking up baking soda, dissolving in RO/DI, and very slowly adding to the tanks.

Currently the 28 gallon tank is sitting at 9KH with a calcium level of 400 and mag level around 1000.

I guess a 3 part solution would be the best bet to keep my levels in control, right? Or will the Kalk keep my calcium levels consistent?

On the 28 gallon tank I am dosing kalk for 2 minutes every 60 minutes using an aqualifter. It probably drips about once every second. Everytime it comes on the PH rises by about .03
Water test results these past 3 testing days show:
Alk Calc Mag
22 Jan 2009 6.00 420 1180
26 Jan 2009 5.00 440 1000
27 Jan 2009 9.00 420 1000 (post all day slow dripping of diluted baking soda water and no kalk doses)

So in four days my Alk dropped from 6KH to 5KH and calcium increased by 20ppm. Magnesium dropped 180ppm in 4 days. I know it's still early and there are only 3 days worth of tests, but how often should I test and then once I determine usage how do I calculate when and where to dose? (May have answered my own question, just use reef calculator)

My water change water tests out around 1100ppm MAG, 440 calcium, and around 9 KH.

It's weird because I am pretty consistent with water changes, like no more than 7 days and a water change. In the makeup water the magnesium is a bit on the low side but calcium and KH is around normal. I didn't think my tank was such a calcium/alkalinity whore but I am guessing it must be, right?

In short:

• How often should I test my water to determine what dosing regimen to follow?
• How should I dose(water change or buy another aqualifter and drip to tank?) *Note, if I could afford a dosing pump I would get one, but they are wicked(hella) expensive.
• Considering my livestock(coral), does it seem normal to have to dose when I water change weekly in a tank this size? (tank link below, 28 gallon?)


Thanks all and sorry for my Reef-Tarded'ness
 
You are not listing a very important number, your salinity. With out that the numbers are fairly useless.

Bring that MG up or you always have problems with CA and ALK.
 
[quote author=badbread link=topic=6089.msg77175#msg77175 date=1233090590]
Whoops, salinity is stable at 1.023
[/quote]

Those numbers don't jive with each other. I'd raise the salinity to reef levels (1.0261), raise you MG as well as your CA.

use this to get back on track: http://reef.diesyst.com/flashcalc/flashcalc.html

and read this: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=6089.msg77176#msg77176 date=1233090871]
You raised your dKh by 4 points in a day?
[/quote]

Well, more like 2 days, is that bad?

What doesn't jive? Are things just way f'd up?
So I slowly start upping my salt level? Like make my next water change batch 1.024 or 1.025? And go up every water change?
 
I'd just mix a super heavy batch and add it to raise you salinity rather then waiting for the W/C.

The levels don't jive as they are not balanced. Read the article, plug you numbers into the calculator be remember the calculator is designed for reef level salinity (1.0261).
 
Ahh, got it. Never realized the calculator was for 1.026 and how big a role salinity played. Is there a danger number of amount of salinity I should stay under per day?
 
All advice from others aside I've made decent jumps like .001 a day :)
 
Ok so stop all dosing (except Mag?) until salinity is at where it should be, tonight I'm doing a water change and I will make that water around 1.024-5 and swap out (~3 gallons.)

After I get the salinity to where it should be I'm going to shoot for a calcium level of 420-440ppm which it seems like the kalk is doing and keeping my KH at around 10. According to the reef calculator my balanced calcium level at 10 dkh is 432ppm.

Now for the magnesium part, should I dose my makeup water up to 1350ppm assuming it will not raise my tank water levels more than 100ppm or should I wait until my salinity is up there?
 
What I shoot for is:

CA: 420
ALK: 8-9 DKH
MG: 1250
Salinity: 10.261

I think Carlos was a bit "tight" on that one. Many people does large amounts of MG at one time, they just make sure it gets mixed prior to hitting the tank (dump in overflow if you have one).

I would get the MG up and add some double strength(density) SW to you tank to go up .001sg per day to get to 1.026. I then would adjust the DKH at that point then the CA. From there I would test for a few days straight to see what my daily demand was and formulated the daily dosings of ALK & CA. MG can be done very few weeks as it doesn't get effected that hard *once* you get it up to the level it should be at. It takes a lot to get it up though. Probably the better part of a 64ounce bottle. (what size tank?). Do you add kalk? what salt brand? CA Reactor?
 
Cool, thanks Gresham!

I have a super strong salt water mix dripping into the tank now, my water change water at 1.025 barely did anything to raise the SG. The bottle in the pic was full about 3 hours ago, just tested the salt level now and it's still a touch below 1.024

I brought the mag in the water change water up to 1350ppm a few hours before swapping out.

The tank is a 28g, no sump, no ca reactor, I dose kalk for 2 minutes every 60 minutes all day with an aqualifter and about 4 feet of head. Salt brand is Coralife Scientific grade salt, I know it's not the best but I've been using it since the tanks were setup and I still have 10 pounds of it left.

IMG_5202.JPG

IMG_5204.JPG
 
So salinity is up to about 1.0245 as of this morning, still doing a super super super slow drip of super concentrated salt water.

As of last night:

Mag: 1200ppm
Alk: 9.5dKH
Calc: 420ppm
Salinity: 1.0245

Now I just wait I guess until the salinity gets up there and test test test!

Thanks again for all your help all!

** EDIT **
Forgot to add that I raised the temp by .5º to 78º and plan on raising it up to 78.5 later this week.
 
I am in the process of setting up a CA reactor (I had it set up, but it leaked at the pump, so I'm fixing it) and I thought I'd check CA and ALK before I set it up, I found my CA to be 320 and my ALK to be ... 3.5!!! Holy crap!

And I did a (10%) water change only a week before!

I'm glad the ALK part of the 2 part solution is only baking soda!

However, I don't quite trust the test kits as they are a bit old, so I'm going to test a freshly mixed batch of salt water to see what the results are.

My Salinity is ~1.025

I should mention that the tank is doing fine even with the low readings. I dose kalk, but not as much as could be dosed due to low evaporation rate. I'm hoping the CA Reactor will maintain levels once I can boost them a bit!

V
 
Damn Vince, good to know. I mean I didn't really have any problems in my tank with things dieing or anything like that. Things were growing very slow but I thought that was normal.

Roc visited my place to pick up a DBTC acan and mentioned how "white" my rock was and how I had no coralline. Before that I just assumed my water changes would keep up with my levels but I was way wrong. I looked into why I had no coralline, started testing and found things WAY WAY off.
 
Yeah, my problem is that I'm really bad with testing. When I first started (like 5 years ago) I kept a log and tested ALL the time. Then as time went one I eventually never tested anything.

Recently, I've had so much algae and aiptasia that I got fed up, but decided that instead of "starting over" I was going to concentrate on good water parameters and better tank maintenance. So I set up my old kalk-dripper, bought a used CA reactor and started to do more regular water changes. I only tested CA and ALK because I was going to install the CA reactor to see my before/after readings and to help tune it.

I think the kalk helps alot, I had the reactor turned off for a while because I wasn't evaporating enough water and the pump (a stupid medical pump) is only capable of working properly at 90ml/hour (lower than that and it seems that RO water backflows a bit). The kalk drip is supposed to help precipitate phosphates as well.

A friend gave me a half jar of purigen, which I tossed into the sump in a mesh bag, and I bought some GFO for the phostphates...also sitting in a bag in the sump. I was gonna put that stuff in my cannister filter...but I just have too many things plugged in near the tank!

So I'm testing now because I'm really trying to clean up the tank and make it nice like those TOTM that I'm so jealous of!

V
 
It blows me away people don't test MG. You can test ALK/CA all you want but you won't be able to maintain them if you don't know your MG.
 
I've tried to test MG with a RedSea kit (yeah I know they're probably crap), however having read the instructions multiple times and trying to be as accurate as possible I could NEVER get a titration color change, and this was with multiple kits. Now I really didn't know how to explain what was going on, if I was simply repeating the same error over and over again, or if the test kits I bought all were shelved for too long and had bad regents.

That being said, I had INSANE coraline algae growth... just unfortunately was all over the fricking acrylic.
 
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