pH and Calcium?

[showtime305]

<span style="color: black;">I've been trying to stabilize my pH, alkalinity and calcium since setting up this 10 gallon tank in February but it’s becoming more difficult with each SPS frag addition. I've been dosing calcium and buffer daily to keep up with the demand. I've also been dosing magnesium, but I don’t test for that so I try to limit the doses.</span>

<span style="color: black;">Here are my past 2 test results:</span>

<span style="color: black;">05/03/07 ph - 7.90 dKH - 7.84 cal - 340 - tested mid-day before dosing</span>
<span style="color: black;">05/11/07 ph - 7.88 dKH - 11.76 cal - 360 - tested mid-day (doubled my alk dose the night before)</span>

<span style="color: black;">I'm going to dose calcium tonight but skip the alk dose. The only concern I have with this is my pH dropping to low tonight. </span>

<span style="color: black;">A few weeks ago I removed a handful of macro and added new carbon. Since then my pH won't even raise more than .03-.05 pH units while the lights are on, but it drops pretty quick once the lights go off. At first I figured the carbon was depleting my oxygen level causing the drop in pH, but after removing it, the pH remained low. I really underestimated the effectiveness the macro had on my pH. There’s more growing in there now, so I hope it’s able to assist pretty soon. </span>

<span style="color: black;">I will eventually move to a kalk reactor once I get another ATO and reservoir. I don't know if I should try to drip kalk now or go from some sort of 2 part solution. My current strategy is failing me. I'm going to pick up a mag test kit and new alk and cal test kits so I can do some daily testing done over the next few days. What test kits do you guys recommend?</span>

 

[victor626nj]

salifert

 

[family reefer]

Do not add buffer and Calcium in the same day. The CA will drive the PH down. Alternate between the two. CA one day and buffer the next. Hope this helps.
Scott

 

[showtime305]

family reefer;40662 wrote: Do not add buffer and Calcium in the same day. The CA will drive the PH down. Alternate between the two. CA one day and buffer the next. Hope this helps.
Scott

I was alternating my alk and cal dosing prior to daily dosing. I guess I can switch back to that method while I'm doing my daily testing. I really need to fingure out what my daily cal and alk demands are.

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[cameron]

Also test and dose mag as needed. Lack of mag can cause bonding problems in a tank.

 

[ouling]

Mag and Calcium is usually 3:1. If you keep dosing mag and calcium and adding buff, you are just over dosing and everything and wasting money.

Adjust like this. Test Alk, and Calcium only. If your calcium is low and can't be raised anymore, then you test and adjust Mag. If you add too much cal and mag and things starts of "snow storm" then it means calcium and mag is bonding with your carbonate and draining out your ALK and thus gets unstable pH.

Day after you adjust the pH and the Alk MODERATELY. If you add too much then your calcium and mag you added yesterday is gone again; thus the cycle continues.

You probably now have enough calcium and mag in your tank to last you a few weeks. Calcium and mag used will be replinished by what has snow stormed out.

 

[showtime305]

<span style="color: black;">Ok. The pH got up to 7.89 while the lights were on yesterday and dropped to a low of 7.79 last night. This is actually not a bad swing, but I guess tonight I will see how far the pH drops. </span>

<span style="color: black;">05/12/07 ph-7.80 dKH-10.64 cal-360 – cal dosed 5g (should raise cal 12 mg/l) on night before test)</span>

<span style="color: black;">Base on my results from yesterday. It looks like my alk is dropping about 1dHK unit per day. CAL stayed the same, so I’m guessing I’m losing 12 mg/l per day. One more day of testing should give me a rough estimate of my daily requirements.</span>

 

[tdwyatt]

Just drip kalk as a balanced Ca++ and alkalinity supp instead, rather than doing the two part supplement on alternating days, use it to replace your evaporative top off each day. For a small tank, kalk is the supplement of choice, as it will maintain balance in supplementation of your hermatypic elements rather thn a see-saw of calcium and alkalinity highs and lows.

Salifert kit for sure for testing, and do water changes rather than trying to chase numbers for the magnesium, especially in such a small system.

HTH

 

[victor626nj]

dont worry my ph tests 7.9 at night but 8.1 during day light i just got two new frags and everything is happy just do a water change or does with 2 part ..good luck

 

[showtime305]

<span style="color: black;">I checked a few LFS for Salifert cal, mag and alk test kits but I didn't find any in stock. Since my cal and alk test kits was done, I picked up a new cal/mag test kit made by Tropic Marin and a chepo tetra alk test kit (I would have went for more quality but the two stores I visited today only have these kits.:doh: ). Here are the results from my testing.</span>

<span style="color: black;">05/13/07 ph-7.83 dKH-10.08 cal-N/A - No dosing since 5/11</span>
<span style="color: black;">05/14/07 ph-7.88 dKH-13.00 cal-384 mag-1240 - No dosing since 5/11</span>

<span style="color: black;">The test kits that I was using for cal and alk were made by Nutrafin. The Tropic Marin cal test shows a higher cal level even though I didn't dose cal since 5/11. Is it safe to assume the Tropic Marin kit is a more accurate test kit? As for the alk, it's possible that the 13dKH reading is accurate considering that I had dosed buffer several time to drive my pH up. I'll probably fork up some money for a better alk test kit or does anyone know which store will test this water for me so I can confirm the accuracy of the Tetra test kit.</span>

 

[cameron]

Kalkwasser is your friend here as someone said above. I would start with 1 tsp per gallon of top off and move up to 2 if needed. It is easy and should jack up your params. You may still need to dose some here and there, but nothing too serious. You can probably switch to Seachem ReefComplete as a supplement if kalkwasser doesn't get you there since you won't be dosing that much daily/semi-weekly so it won't be that costly.

 

[showtime305]

Yeah. I'm currently planning a kalk dosing system that I'll be able to move over to my other nano once it's up and running. I need to find a good but cheap peristaltic pump.

 

[jessezm]

Kalk was my solution to this very problem in my 10g nano, though toward the end of it's life I stopped dripping kalk and was using seachem supplements. I also stopped testing altogether as I could pretty much tell exactly what was going on and what needed to be dosed using my spidey senses... But it took a while to get there, and once I did, a nice piece of real estate became available in the dining room and I upgraded to my current 200g.

One thing that Tom (TdWyatt) mentioned in one of his excellent lectures to the club on pH/Alk/Ca issues was that the CO2 levels in the surrounding air around a tank can have a major impact that you may not be aware of. For example, I had my nano in my kitchen, and when we did a lot of cooking in the evening, my pH would drop. because our kitchen is one of the most used rooms in our house, this was a pretty constant problem which was tough to overcome. The Kalk helped a lot but I still struggled keeping my pH up. Macro in the HOB filter on a reverse light cycle helped with the swings, but I did have to add buffer every other day on top of the kalk. The problem with a tank that small is that you do not always evaporate enough water for kalk topoff alone to maintain CA and Alk levels. One solution if you run into this problem might be to blow a fan down on your tank in order to evaporate more water. These at least were some of my experiences with a 10g LPS/SPS tank.

 

[showtime305]

I'm using a fan to cool the tank now so the evaporation is pretty high. I should have enough avaporation to get a good amount of kalk into the tank. I've done the oxygen test with limited results. It's probably time for me to get some windows open again so I'll see if that help get the pH levels up.

 

[ouling]

100% water change solves everything. You have a small tank so it's easy. I wish I can do 100% without flooding my house.

 

[suasati]

flaco626nj;40659 wrote: salifert

Go with leMotte, salifert is junk, I will never buy another one...

 

[cameron]

SuAsati;42207 wrote: Go with leMotte, salifert is junk, I will never buy another one...

I will agree LeMotte are great test kits, but Salifert is a good test kit and considered the industry standard for most advanced reef keepers. I know many of the experts over at ReefCentral swear by them as well.

 

[suasati]

Cameron;42233 wrote: I will agree LeMotte are great test kits, but Salifert is a good test kit and considered the industry standard for most advanced reef keepers. I know many of the experts over at ReefCentral swear by them as well.

In the past few months several test kits have been released to the market that are all showing outrageously high readings on alk and calcium. It is just pure junk. I would have better accuracy with dip sticks than to pay 23bucks on a testkit that shows wrong readings.

 

[cameron]

SuAsati;42328 wrote: In the past few months several test kits have been released to the market that are all showing outrageously high readings on alk and calcium. It is just pure junk. I would have better accuracy with dip sticks than to pay 23bucks on a testkit that shows wrong readings.

I went and researched the problem you are describing and it appears some newer alk test kits may have a problem, but people aren't sure yet. Keep in mind practically every kit has been prone to error at some point or another. Here are a few head to head tests that actually show Salifert to produce more accurate numbers than even some higher rated test kits like Lamotte:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=5639100#post5639100">http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=5639100#post5639100</a>

[IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=5639100">http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=5639100</a>

To my knowledge the best kit to get right now is the Elos kits as they are tested to NIST standards. Personally, I still use and recommend Salifert even if one series of Alk tests may be having a problem. Salifert test kits have been proven over time to be reliable and independant tests have shown it is one of the more accurate test kits... hardly junk.

 

[suasati]

After 2 alk test kits, and 1 calcium test kit..... being totally off.... where alk was about 2dKh off(which is a big deal when you are trying to keep the alk at 7dKH) and ca was 60ppm off, I have turned away from salifert which I did recomend in tha past to others, now I feel guilty for doing that.
You still want to use it, be my guest, but I would advice anyone who is serious about knowing where their tank stands to stay away from it, if you are not serious about the parameters, save your money and buy the dipping type.

If it is so realiable, give me one good reason why two test kits bought at 4month intervals from two different vendors, are so screwed up?

Cameron;42357 wrote: I went and researched the problem you are describing and it appears some newer alk test kits may have a problem, but people aren't sure yet. Keep in mind practically every kit has been prone to error at some point or another. Here are a few head to head tests that actually show Salifert to produce more accurate numbers than even some higher rated test kits like Lamotte:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=5639100#post5639100">http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=5639100#post5639100</a>

[IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=5639100">http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=5639100</a>

To my knowledge the best kit to get right now is the Elos kits as they are tested to NIST standards. Personally, I still use and recommend Salifert even if one series of Alk tests may be having a problem. Salifert test kits have been proven over time to be reliable and independant tests have shown it is one of the more accurate test kits... hardly junk.[/QUOTE]