Getting Mg, Alk and Ca fluctuations under control
- Thread starter danh
- Start date
Offer still stands on some premixed Mg. I think the RS stuff is more of a maintenance dose. You need a 60-100 bump over a couple days. Then go back to the RS.
If you take a trip to see Rit or Simon anytime soon I'll get it ready for you.
With the water changes... I'm doing 40%/mo until I get everything dialed in. Then I'll drop down to 20%.
If you take a trip to see Rit or Simon anytime soon I'll get it ready for you.
With the water changes... I'm doing 40%/mo until I get everything dialed in. Then I'll drop down to 20%.
1336 maintaining 1300. 36x.25 =9mg/l.. I'm not sure if I'm leaving something else out but it seems like you're using 9 per week. If my tests are right I'm using almost that per day. Which doesn't seem right because you have a lot more coral in your tank than I do.
I am trying to prove my test wrong... I hadn't really cleaned the vile out and it had some precipitate on the bottom of it that isn't just rinsing out. Maybe that's causing my problem. CA and Alk are staying a little lower also. 8.5 dkh and 380-400ppm. And I've almost doubled the amount of kalkwasser in my ATO.
Aside from infrequent water changes I'm also seeing a LOT of growth in everything. The clown fish have visible growth. All 5 or so of my zoa colonies, torch, 4 pieces of sps and coraline that's spreading like crazy. So I'm trying to understand if my tests are inaccurate, the impact that my windows being opened more is having with evap and in turn kalk dosing and my ph rise.
Apparently my house is pretty sealed. In the evenings with a reverse lit ATS with 20 watts of LEDs my ph was dropping to as low as 7.8. Normally closer to 7.9. My oven being on in the kitchen was having an almost immediate impact on my ph. I started leaving the window beside the tank cracked and it didn't do a whole lot. When opened that window completely and a window on the front of the house so the air could pass through I am getting a good 2/10ths higher. 8.08-8.22 throughout the day.
This is my first season reefing... I knew I would be running in to this kind of thing especially with the kalk in the ato... but I didn't realize how much the CO2 in the house would impact ph.
I am trying to prove my test wrong... I hadn't really cleaned the vile out and it had some precipitate on the bottom of it that isn't just rinsing out. Maybe that's causing my problem. CA and Alk are staying a little lower also. 8.5 dkh and 380-400ppm. And I've almost doubled the amount of kalkwasser in my ATO.
Aside from infrequent water changes I'm also seeing a LOT of growth in everything. The clown fish have visible growth. All 5 or so of my zoa colonies, torch, 4 pieces of sps and coraline that's spreading like crazy. So I'm trying to understand if my tests are inaccurate, the impact that my windows being opened more is having with evap and in turn kalk dosing and my ph rise.
Apparently my house is pretty sealed. In the evenings with a reverse lit ATS with 20 watts of LEDs my ph was dropping to as low as 7.8. Normally closer to 7.9. My oven being on in the kitchen was having an almost immediate impact on my ph. I started leaving the window beside the tank cracked and it didn't do a whole lot. When opened that window completely and a window on the front of the house so the air could pass through I am getting a good 2/10ths higher. 8.08-8.22 throughout the day.
This is my first season reefing... I knew I would be running in to this kind of thing especially with the kalk in the ato... but I didn't realize how much the CO2 in the house would impact ph.
I'm pretty anal about doing tests with clean vials...
I would think that residue in the vials would drive up your number giving you false high readings, I may be wrong.
It won't be a problem but I don't know how good it is if the ato is pumping while your adding the Mg. I know it wont precipitate out like Ca will.
Mg is under control thanks to some help from Adam.
Alk and Ca are still low though. Does anyone else use kalkwasser in their ATO? I feel like too much is precipitating out. I use normal 5g jugs for my container and swap the out. I shake up the 3-6 tsp (increased over time) of kalk, drop in my pump and I put the residual, including precipitate from the old jug in to the new. I figured I was trying to reduce waste. I poured out the last bit of water rather than adding it back to my new jug with my last change out. I figured maybe that was causing the newly added to fall out faster. Then again if you have a normal ATO container I doubt you clean out the precip each time. Maybe I'm not mixing it well enough??
Lastly, my nitrates have been higher than they had been. Over the last 2 weeks or so it's been pegged at 8... and phosphate is <.02. Definitely seems pretty close to zero. I've cleaned my ATS that I had been letting just grow for several weeks and adjusted my skimmer to a little more wet to try to get some more out. I also felt like it might have gone up for about a week of being lazy and feeding mostly pellets.
still on the positive side my LPS, SPS and Zoas are still showing visible growth. I see growth on the zoas daily.
Alk and Ca are still low though. Does anyone else use kalkwasser in their ATO? I feel like too much is precipitating out. I use normal 5g jugs for my container and swap the out. I shake up the 3-6 tsp (increased over time) of kalk, drop in my pump and I put the residual, including precipitate from the old jug in to the new. I figured I was trying to reduce waste. I poured out the last bit of water rather than adding it back to my new jug with my last change out. I figured maybe that was causing the newly added to fall out faster. Then again if you have a normal ATO container I doubt you clean out the precip each time. Maybe I'm not mixing it well enough??
Lastly, my nitrates have been higher than they had been. Over the last 2 weeks or so it's been pegged at 8... and phosphate is <.02. Definitely seems pretty close to zero. I've cleaned my ATS that I had been letting just grow for several weeks and adjusted my skimmer to a little more wet to try to get some more out. I also felt like it might have gone up for about a week of being lazy and feeding mostly pellets.
still on the positive side my LPS, SPS and Zoas are still showing visible growth. I see growth on the zoas daily.
I imagine that there isn't much precipitation out caused by that.
out of curiosity, how have you liked the Kalkwasser overall? I use a similar 5G setup for ATO and I figured the Kalkwasser might be the easiest way for me to get into minimal dosing.
out of curiosity, how have you liked the Kalkwasser overall? I use a similar 5G setup for ATO and I figured the Kalkwasser might be the easiest way for me to get into minimal dosing.
Like we discussed in the pm, I've been looking at switching to Kalk soon and have been reading up on it. I kills 3 birds with one stone Alk, Cal & Ph. Here's a link to the article I sent you last week and a couple excerpts below.
http://www.reef2reef.com/ams/a-step-back-a-step-forward-kalkwasser-dosing.49/">http://www.reef2reef.com/ams/a-step-back-a-step-forward-kalkwasser-dosing.49/</a>
"Calcium hydroxide powder (the kalkwasser powder we buy) isn’t soluble in water, meaning that it won’t dissolve. The powder remains either suspended in the water column or settles out at the bottom. While this powder loses its effectiveness over-time, it never dissolves. Left to settle at the bottom, calcium hydroxide is rather useless for buffering ph and it needs to be consistently mixed with freshwater to remain useful."
"Some aquarists add kalkwasser powder directly to their top off water. Kalkwasser loses its effectiveness for altering ph and calcium/carbonate quickly and often this approach does little, as it may be days before that top of water is added to the tank. Having a large volume of kalkwasser powder consistently creating fresh limewater is a more effective method, even though it requires the use of additional equipment."
I know you want to keep things as simple as possible but I don't know if you're going to get the results you want without adding a piece of equipment and some of the complexity that goes with it. The powder sitting at the bottom of you ATO container isn't doing you any good. If a commercially available stirrer is not in the budget right now maybe something diy is. Either that or look to possibly going the 2-part route.
Again hopefully someone else will chime in with more info.
http://www.reef2reef.com/ams/a-step-back-a-step-forward-kalkwasser-dosing.49/">http://www.reef2reef.com/ams/a-step-back-a-step-forward-kalkwasser-dosing.49/</a>
"Calcium hydroxide powder (the kalkwasser powder we buy) isn’t soluble in water, meaning that it won’t dissolve. The powder remains either suspended in the water column or settles out at the bottom. While this powder loses its effectiveness over-time, it never dissolves. Left to settle at the bottom, calcium hydroxide is rather useless for buffering ph and it needs to be consistently mixed with freshwater to remain useful."
"Some aquarists add kalkwasser powder directly to their top off water. Kalkwasser loses its effectiveness for altering ph and calcium/carbonate quickly and often this approach does little, as it may be days before that top of water is added to the tank. Having a large volume of kalkwasser powder consistently creating fresh limewater is a more effective method, even though it requires the use of additional equipment."
I know you want to keep things as simple as possible but I don't know if you're going to get the results you want without adding a piece of equipment and some of the complexity that goes with it. The powder sitting at the bottom of you ATO container isn't doing you any good. If a commercially available stirrer is not in the budget right now maybe something diy is. Either that or look to possibly going the 2-part route.
Again hopefully someone else will chime in with more info.
When I was using <2.5 tsp of kalk in my 5g of ato water it seemed to be working really well and consistently. I'd check Ca and alk only when I switched out my ATO jug to make sure I was still right on aroun d9dkh and 420 Ca. After this little ATO mishap that was about a month ago and the process to get my Mg back up it just hasn't been working the way it had before.
As I've said here I've made several changes in the last month. The windows have been open almost the entire month which has gotten my ph to stabilize for the most part between 8.1 and 8.25. It had been getting down to 7.9 at night with the windows closed and the tank being in my bedroom... The door is often closed with a CO2 spike just before bed time... Then two adults and sometimes a dog sleeping all night in that room with the door open at that point I believe it was CO2 that was keeping my ph a little lower than expected.
Then opening the windows caused my indoor humidity to rise so less evap, less ATO and less Ca and alk.
The stirrer may be in order............
As I've said here I've made several changes in the last month. The windows have been open almost the entire month which has gotten my ph to stabilize for the most part between 8.1 and 8.25. It had been getting down to 7.9 at night with the windows closed and the tank being in my bedroom... The door is often closed with a CO2 spike just before bed time... Then two adults and sometimes a dog sleeping all night in that room with the door open at that point I believe it was CO2 that was keeping my ph a little lower than expected.
Then opening the windows caused my indoor humidity to rise so less evap, less ATO and less Ca and alk.
The stirrer may be in order............
I considered it all before hand. I think technically speaking the reactor and 2 part have more moving parts... Kalkwasser in the ato has the frequency and amount of ato water as a factor to consider. I will reconsider 2 part early next year.
I have other ideas on how to help I just wanted to see if I was doing something stupid.
I have other ideas on how to help I just wanted to see if I was doing something stupid.
Going back to a smaller ato container would use it up faster and get the Cal & alk back up. But it means filling it more often and you'd still need some 2 part if you need a big adjustment over a few days. Grouper has some for sale and he's not too far from you.
Adding kalk to my ato is out of the question. I use a 32 gallon brute for my storage container...
Adding kalk to my ato is out of the question. I use a 32 gallon brute for my storage container...
