Got a situation thats got me stumped. Probably a newbie question. For the last few weeks my PH has been a fairly steady 8 and dkh has been 6 without dosing. What I've been running into is that if i dose enough buff to get the dkh to 9 i will overshoot my PH. I took some water out and dosed it enough to get a 9 dkh and my PH hit 8.6+. The test kits were API. I'm going to get another test kit (not API) this weekend and make sure that its not a bad kit. I use Seachem B-ionic for my ph/alk dosing and change out 5 gallons a week on a 55g tank and I've been using Oceanic salt which comes out to a 7 dkh freshly mixed. I am changing to H2ocean when my supply runs out. I was wondering if y'all have any thoughts/ideas on what i need to do to get my dkh up without overshooting the ph. Is it time for a Kalk drip, calcium reactor or am i missing something that should be obvious to me? my other params are; ammo-0, nitrate-2, nitrite-0, phos-0, mag-1300. Calcium-440.
Ph Dkh question
- Thread starter tgray3
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really only safe to raise it at most of 1.4dkh a day.. I shoot for about 1 or less per day
A 5gal WC isn't really a lot on a 55g. I'd personally </em>change out more at a time, like 10, 12 or even 15 gals at a time. Even with less frequency in WCs, it would be a significant enough change to see more deference in your water chemistry.
Supposedly people are getting great results from Seachem Salt, but I've found regular WCs with IO to be all it really takes.
Just FWIW, I've regularly changed out 50% of my water on many different tanks with no adverse effects.
Supposedly people are getting great results from Seachem Salt, but I've found regular WCs with IO to be all it really takes.
Just FWIW, I've regularly changed out 50% of my water on many different tanks with no adverse effects.
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IMO work on raising your Alk to about 9 and add Mag, I would skip several calcium doses. Bring your water to me this weekend and I bet you will be where you want to be.
Thanks, A few of us are planning a trip to the store this Sunday. I'll bring some water.
Thanks for all the advice here. I guess it won't be any more trouble to change out 10 or 15 gallons than it is for 5 gallons, I'll start that and get some results from Chris on Sunday and go from there. I Appreciate the advice.
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If you're using Seachem Marine Buffer, your pH may shoot up to 8.6, but should settle back down to 8.3-8.4. This is due to the inclusion of borate in that specific buffer. Borate is great at stabalizing pH above 8.0 because of its pk value of 9.2.
That buffer also contains carbonate(pk pf 8.6) and bicarbonate (pk of 7.8). They do this blend to stabalize and raise the pH. Just don't dose so much in the future. Always slowly change your parameters.
That buffer also contains carbonate(pk pf 8.6) and bicarbonate (pk of 7.8). They do this blend to stabalize and raise the pH. Just don't dose so much in the future. Always slowly change your parameters.
