What am I missing here Alk rising (1 Viewer)

[Ostentum]

So, over the past couple weeks my alkalinity has been creeping up, but my coral load has increased. Calicum is at 450 mag is around 1600, alk has risen from 9.25-10.64. I took the Calcium reactor offline when it started to creep up. The only difference in the tank is the addition of Reef Vitality by Fauna Marin but that shouldnt have any effect on alk, unless one of the biopolymers is causing it. So thoughts on what is increasing my alk. Could it be CO2 build up in the house decreasing the ph in the water causing some dissolving in the tank, kinda like a reaction that happens in the CARx? Note is that my skimmer is rated for 1300g on a 300g system. Now my salinity was a little higher than I would like it at 1.026. I did order some new alk reagent and I test it weekly. I will test it again today. I removed about 5 gallons of water last night and will let the ATO fill it back up today, which should decrease my salinity and alk. Thoughts??

 

[flipside]

Only thing I can think of is maybe the test kit... Would be interested what to see what you get after the new reagent shows up. Weird though...

 

[steveb]

That is weird... I don't think its CO2 decreasing PH. It would need to be in 6'ish (6.5 - 6.7) range for that to occur, which I would think would be pretty detrimental to the corals and would be evident.

 

[porkchop]

So, over the past couple weeks my alkalinity has been creeping up, but my coral load has increased. Calicum is at 450 mag is around 1600, alk has risen from 9.25-10.64. I took the Calcium reactor offline when it started to creep up. The only difference in the tank is the addition of Reef Vitality by Fauna Marin but that shouldnt have any effect on alk, unless one of the biopolymers is causing it. So thoughts on what is increasing my alk. Could it be CO2 build up in the house decreasing the ph in the water causing some dissolving in the tank, kinda like a reaction that happens in the CARx? Note is that my skimmer is rated for 1300g on a 300g system. Now my salinity was a little higher than I would like it at 1.026. I did order some new alk reagent and I test it weekly. I will test it again today. I removed about 5 gallons of water last night and will let the ATO fill it back up today, which should decrease my salinity and alk. Thoughts??

Sometimes I think Im pretty smart. Sometimes I think Im a "real" reefer...and then, someone posts something like this and I realize how much of an amateur I am. LOL!!!

 

[Ostentum]

I like to think I know alot after a decade in the hobby, but stuff like this puts me at a complete loss other than bad reagent in test kit. I am trying to come up with other answers other than bad test kits lol but just cant come up with one.

 

[lesd]

Did calcium creep up a little too? My experience is that small changes in Calcium can be accompanied by large changes in Alk. Also, if your reactor is on a pH controller you may want to calibrate the probe. What about your flow rate through the reactor?

I've also notice that GFO can cause alk to drop, so maybe your GFO got depleted?

 

[Ostentum]

That's a possibility les but the crazy thing is that both the Gfo and reactor have been offline for a week. Going to calibrate the ph probe again tonight when I hook my new seneye up

 

[rlpardue]

I'm going to go out on a limb here - I've read posts similar to this before where somebody added a number of new corals and their alk uptake suddenly dropped. Speculated causes would perhaps include some die-off of organisms that came in on the corals/rock and increased allelopathy between old corals and new ones. Both those processes could lead to less coral growth and alk usage. How many new corals were added?

 

[Ostentum]

about 10 frags. but it had been creeping up steadily for a week and these were added Saturday. Granted we are not talking huge leaps in an increase its been steadily going up from 178-190, when I want it more like 170.

 

[steveb]

is your ph dropping below 7.7? I just read an article and indicated that CaCO3 would start to dissolve at that Ph although much slower than 6'ish range.

 

[Ostentum]

well its down to 180= 10.08 so its down from yesterday. well since i connected the seneye it says my ph is 8.48, Nh3= .003 and temp is 76. Will test again tomorrow hopefully I have enough reagent. That way I can tell what my theoretical usage is and can determine what it will be by the end of the week when my reagents should be here.