Low alk, need to balance before dialing in cax

[zenn]

I plan on setting up and dialing in a calcium reactor later this week. I have a bit of a low alk problem that I believe I need to fix before I start up the cax though.

Currently: alk=6.7dKh CA=440ppm

My theory is that I should do water changes to lower the CA a bit, and then dose baking soda to raise alk. Is this a good? Or is there a faster way? I've got the two part C-Balance available for use as well.

 

[jezzeaepi]

Water changes will always work and will leave you with a more ionically balanced water.
I dont like mixing up tons of batches of SW though, so what I would do is very very slowly add the alk part of the C balance to get your alk back in balance. By doing this you will percipitate out some small amount of calcium(by adding the alk component quicker, you will percip out more calcium which you dont want to do) which by the time you have your alk up high enough should lower your calcium to the target range.

 

[zenn]

ok, i've got my CA lowered to 380-390. The alk is rising, and I measured it around 7.4 today. I just did a large waterchange, and am going to dose the alk part of C-Balance tomorrow. I hope this puts me over 8dKh by tomorrow evening.

Here's another problem i may have just uncovered. My magnesium seems low. I got a reading of 1130ppm tonight. It should be between 1300 and 1500, so how do i raise that? It's my understanding that low Mag. will make it difficult to keep alk/CA balanced.


Now for the kicker, my CA reactor will be operational by Thursday evening. Should I attempt to start it up? Should I make sure my CA/alk is perfectly balanced first before starting the cax, or is there a little room for error?

 

[jezzeaepi]

Your magnesium is low, which will make it impossible for you to raise your calcium much beyond where its at at the moment. You defintly want to get this back up to 1300. Getting magnesium up can be difficult because of the sheer volume of supplement you need to add. Are you familiar with this website:
http://reef.diesyst.com/
You can input all your info and it will tell you exactly how much you need to add to get your levels to where you want them. You will notice that no matter what supplement you use, you are gonig to need a ton of it to get you to 1300. This is where a 15-20% water change with some higher then normal magnesium levels will make things a lot easier. Get your WC water to like 1400ppm mag.
You can raise your mag to 1300 without the WC way but trust me it will take you much longer, cost more, and precip out more alk/calc which will in turn make you dose more of those, etc etc.


Once your mag is back to 1300+ you can go back to dialing in your alk/calc. There is no "right" level to be at, but a lot of people seem to prefer about
425ppm calc, and 10dkh. Onve youve got those both where you want, you can set up your calcium reactor and let it take care of the dosing. You may have to use your 2 parts in the future to make minor adjustments, because sometimes tanks dont use alk and calc evenly. Now your dosing worries are reduced to weekly monitorings.

PEace

 

[DonW]

Mg only needs to be three times ca so your not off by enough to make any real difference.

Don

 

[jezzeaepi]

Right, but 1130 / 3 = 376.

No way hes going to get his calcium to 400+ before he fixes that. I should know, I jsut spent 2 weeks trying to get my ca/alk up high enough only to realise my mag had fallen behind just a little, but it was enough to make it imposible for me tog et my ca beyond 375. Fixed my mag, then 400+ no problem.

 

[DonW]

Right, but 1130 / 3 = 376.

No way hes going to get his calcium to 400+ before he fixes that. I should know, I jsut spent 2 weeks trying to get my ca/alk up high enough only to realise my mag had fallen behind just a little, but it was enough to make it imposible for me tog et my ca beyond 375. Fixed my mag, then 400+ no problem.

3 x 400 is only 1200 the difference of 70 is not going to make a bit of difference. My ca is rock solid at 450 my mg never goes above 1200 it not necessary. The resolution of the test kit is probably off by more than that.

Don

 

[jezzeaepi]

Well I can offer nothing else then my personal experience with not being able to raise my alk and calc for weeks, then I boosted my mg from 1100 to 1300 and it went up just fine. Science or not, thats exactly what happened.

 

[zenn]

I don't know why, but my CA has dropped very quickly. Only last weekend it was up around 440...now down to 390. The alk has been raised to approx. 7.5.

I've got a little ways to go but the alk is close. I want to hit 8.5 or 9 before i dial in the reactor. I just hope I can keep my CA high enough in the process.

 

[DonW]

I don't know why, but my CA has dropped very quickly. Only last weekend it was up around 440...now down to 390. The alk has been raised to approx. 7.5.

I've got a little ways to go but the alk is close. I want to hit 8.5 or 9 before i dial in the reactor. I just hope I can keep my CA high enough in the process.

440 to 390 over a week is pretty low consumption, not that bad. Do you dose ca additive daily?

Don

 

[zenn]

440 to 390 over a week is pretty low consumption, not that bad. Do you dose ca additive daily?

Don

i was for a while, until it got out of wack and then i quit all together. I haven't been dosing CA for the last two weeks. After reading some of the information, I decided lowering CA was what I needed to do in order to raise alk. So i'm trying to get the alk up, before i start dosing CA again.

 

[DonW]

i was for a while, until it got out of wack and then i quit all together. I haven't been dosing CA for the last two weeks. After reading some of the information, I decided lowering CA was what I needed to do in order to raise alk. So i'm trying to get the alk up, before i start dosing CA again.

It can fall pretty quick. Its alot easier to cut your dose in half if you dont have time to check it every day. You want to keep things stable and stop the highs and lows.

Don

 

[zenn]

I think i'm going to do another 15%water change this weekend. I just did one yesterday, but I think another one will help balance out things.

In just checked my CA again just now, and it's at 360. It's obviously falling. Alk has remained remained relatively stable at 7.5 dKh. I'm going to dose more arm and hammer before I go to bed. If I can get that up to 9dKh, and my mag. up to 1200 or 1250...then i raising CA should be easy. However, I did also dose both parts of C-Balance tonight to help keep my CA from getting to low.

If i can get all this balanced out by saturday or sunday, i'll start up the cax. It's going to take a little self restraint not to plug in my big new toy(cax) for another 3 days.

 

[zenn]

Parameters as of yesterday evening were:

Mag 1300ppm
CA 420ppm
alk 9.5dKh

Since everything looked balanced, and I finally got the Geo to work(Eheim pump leaked for a while) I fired up the reactor last night. It has a PH controller on it to keep the PH between 6.6 and 6.9. I'm using CRM (large) media.

I wanted to post what I've done so far to get a little feedback about how I'm doing.

I've set the c02 at approx. 90bpm. The effluent drip rate is at 50ml/m. As of now, I don't know how things have changed since I plugged in the reactor, but tonight I'll test alk, ph and ca to find out if things have changed.

Calcium load is low to medium. I've got a crocea clam (5"), hydnophora, monti cap, acro millie and acro digitata frags in there. I've also got torch, candycane and hammer corals for LPS(medium sized except the hammer which is small).

Question is, is this a good starting place for effluent drip rate? And also, I woke up this mornign to find the effluent drip had stopped. apparently air had gotten trapped in the reactor. I'm thinking the feed pump, which I put in the sump, is drawing in air bubbles to the reactor. SHould I just move the feed pump to the fuge or somewhere where there is less bubbles?

TIA

 

[DonW]

Parameters as of yesterday evening were:

Mag 1300ppm
CA 420ppm
alk 9.5dKh

Since everything looked balanced, and I finally got the Geo to work(Eheim pump leaked for a while) I fired up the reactor last night. It has a PH controller on it to keep the PH between 6.6 and 6.9. I'm using CRM (large) media.

I wanted to post what I've done so far to get a little feedback about how I'm doing.

I've set the c02 at approx. 90bpm. The effluent drip rate is at 50ml/m. As of now, I don't know how things have changed since I plugged in the reactor, but tonight I'll test alk, ph and ca to find out if things have changed.

Calcium load is low to medium. I've got a crocea clam (5"), hydnophora, monti cap, acro millie and acro digitata frags in there. I've also got torch, candycane and hammer corals for LPS(medium sized except the hammer which is small).

Question is, is this a good starting place for effluent drip rate? And also, I woke up this mornign to find the effluent drip had stopped. apparently air had gotten trapped in the reactor. I'm thinking the feed pump, which I put in the sump, is drawing in air bubbles to the reactor. SHould I just move the feed pump to the fuge or somewhere where there is less bubbles?

TIA

Your co2 count is high. Thats probably why it stopped flowing.

Don

 

[zenn]

Even with the PH controller? The solenoid shuts off the flow if the ph gets too low. In the GEO instruction manual, he suggested starting out at 90bpm. Unless I read that wrong.

I'd also like to note, that I would get the bubble count set to 60bpm, and then after awhile it woudl just keep slowing down and slowing down until it stopped (solenoid set to open). So I opened the adjustment valve much more and used the needle valve to tone back the bubbles a bit (I'm using the milwaukee regulator with a large adjustment knob, and a separate needle valve for fine tunning). I haven't figured out how to get a consistant bubble rate other than this way.

 

[DonW]

You may be sucking in air. Check your co2 lines with soapy water.

Don

 

[zenn]

will do. thanks for the help. i'll post updated number tonight.

 

[zenn]

You may be sucking in air. Check your co2 lines with soapy water.

Don

Well, I corrected the air problem. I'm pretty sure it's because my bubble rate was too high. I found this out by closing the co2 and all the air bubbles didn't come back. SO i've adjusted bpm back to 30. However, I have a new problem

Tested the tank just now and here's what I've got:
CA = 380
Mag = 1230
Phosphates = 0
and....
ALK = 18

Apparently I was just dumping alk into the tank with the CAX. So I shut off the co2 for now. And I dosed turbo CA. So hopefully, i'll do a water change this weekend, and dose some more turbo CA, and the alk will start to fall. I don't know how it got out of control so fast. I tested it twice because I thought...this can't be right...well, it was. 18dKh...not good.

 

[DonW]

Yup a ca reactor can do that. Do some big water changes and cross your fingers. Once you get it back in line set you effluent rate at about 200ml a minute. Then add 10bpm co2. Watch your tank parameters if they fall dose manually and add another 2bpm. Give this a shot.

Don