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Billybeau1
07/09/2007, 01:12 PM
As if you guys haven't got enough to do, I have a puzzling situation.

Over the last few weeks my evaporation rate has increased so I have been dripping limewater to match evaporation. 2 tsp per gallon. and to keep my pH up because the house is closed up due to it being extremely hot here lately.

Keep in mind while reading this that this is a FO tank. :)

Anyways, my calcium generally runs around 400 or so and alk around 11-12 dkh. I tested my tank this morning and my tank is at 475 calcium and 15 dkh alkalinity. All I added was limewater over the last couple of weeks, No other supplements. Last water change was 2 weeks ago.

So, being the testing fool that I am, I tested the calcium and alkalinity of the limewater solution. Calcium 540 ppm and alkalinity about 80 dkh.

I thought kalkwasser was not suppose to raise calcium or alkalinity. (or so I've been reading). My testing says otherwise.

Here is another interesting tidbit. Just for giggles, I tried to test the magnesium in the limewater solution. Of course I could not get a reading as it was a strange dark red color and just got darker with the addition of the Mag 3 reagent. So, I took 2 ml of my tank water and tested mag. It was the usual 1320 or so. Then I took 2 ml of my tank water and added 3 drops of limewater to the solution and mag actually tested about 300ppm lower. :eek1:

Is it just the calcium hydroxide that masked the test kit or is it possible that calcium hydroxide actually lowers magnesium ?

BTW, the lime I use is Seachems Reef Kalkwasser which is supposed to be pure calcium hydroxide.

Needless to say, I have stopped dripping limewater. :D

bertoni
07/09/2007, 01:22 PM
I don't see any reason why limewater can't increase the calcium and alkalinity level. It's done so in my tanks. Just dial back the dose. Limewater tends not to raise calcium and alkalinity because it's very dilute, and the higher pH often encourages more calcification.

The limewater might have temporarily precipitated some magnesium hydroxide from your sample or otherwise interfered with the test kit. Personally, I wouldn't worry.

sjm817
07/09/2007, 01:49 PM
I agree. I have seen limewater raise mine. If it is adding more ca/alk than is being used, it will go up. My evaporation has gone way down I assume because of the higher humidity. I also struggle with low PH. I keep my ca/alk @ 420/9.6 or so, but PH is on the low side, 7.8 - 8.1.

fish02
07/09/2007, 05:20 PM
My pH on the low side is 7.57 to 7.6 at 10 am and 8.18 to 8.21 at 10 pm. I get jealous of you guys and gals that bottom out at 7.8. I just got some of that Seachems Reef Kalkwasser to hopefully stabilize the pH. The tank is only 20 gallons total volume. I'm also going to try a small 5.5 gallon on reverse light schedule to see if that helps. I dose c balance and I see an instant change up in pH when it passes my pH probe. It doesn't really bother me because I have crazy polyp extension from my SPS and awesome expansion from my LPS even at night. The thing that bothers me is that it may slow growth of my SPS. Don't mind me, like I said I am jealous of you guys and gals that bottom out at 7.8.

Boomer
07/09/2007, 10:24 PM
Billy

I dito Jon not much to add but what is the pH and Temp of the tank.

Fish

I don't buy that pH are you sure it is right ?

fish02
07/10/2007, 09:10 AM
I don't want to hijack a thread so I will start a new one later but yeah I am 100% sure. At 10 am this morning my pH was at 7.62 according to my last week calibrated american marine pinpoint pH controller with a 1 year old probe. I also verified this by API pH test High range and low range, 7.6ish for both just this morning. Calcium is 460 and KH is 7 drops with API test. To give you some idea as to how much the pH swings, at 3am the pH was 7.57, at 10am pH was at 7.62, at 11am (an hour after 150 watt 10k hqi is on) the pH is at 7.7 according to the probe. By 10 pm the pH will be 8.18 to 8.20. I read that article and left windows open for two days and no change in pH swing. The pH definitely changes when I add part B of C-Balance.

Like I said before I don't want to hijack this thread so I will start one later called Bertoni and Boomer part II.

Forgot to mention, ORP on a recently calibrated AM pinpoint ORP controller is 347.

Boomer
07/10/2007, 09:43 AM
Fish do you have lots of macro alage in your tank

fish02
07/10/2007, 10:54 AM
No macro algae in my tank. I used to but it decided to pop up under my live rock and without enough light it died. I just have a little bit of hair algae which is coming out later today during my water change

The other thing I guess I should mention is that phosphates are 0 or darn close to it and nitrates are the same. I run a coralife super skimmer (65 gallon model) in "strip mine" mode. Also now the pH is at 7.85.

I think I should set up a reverse lit fuge maybe that would help limit the swing on the pH.

Right now, for chemical filtration, I have SeaChem's purigen and sea gel. Soon I am going to put in Hypersorb.

Billybeau1
07/11/2007, 10:14 AM
fish, you can use my thread. It's all good. :)

Boomer, pH was 8.25 when dosing but since I stopped its back down to 8.03 Temp is always 79 to 80 deg

Cold front came through last night so I'm able to open the house up today. pH is on the rise. :D

Boomer
07/11/2007, 11:12 AM
Billy

All I can say as it looks like an overdose some how. If you would have precip'd Mg(OH)2 then the Mg++ would be down as would the Alk in the tank. As far as the test on the 2 ml , Jon is correct it precip'd Mg(OH)2.

I thought kalkwasser was not suppose to raise calcium or alkalinity. (or so I've been reading).

Don't know where you got that from even Randy's's articles talk about just dosing Kalk if the tanks demands are met. Many only dose with just kalk. An you have very little, if any, demand for Ca++ so it should slowly rise. About the only bad thing you see about kalk is that it is most often the case where kalk spikes the pH and or Alk in some systems. If you raised your Alk 5.6 dKH the Ca++ will rise 40 ppm. And that is kinda all in line with your tests, so = overdose is what took place IMHO.

Calcium 540 ppm and alkalinity about 80 dkH. = 80 /2.8 x 20 = 571 ppm Ca++

11-12 dkH. I tested my tank this morning and my tank is at 475 calcium and 15 = 4 dKH /2.8 = 1.43 x 20 = 30 ppm Ca++ + 400 = 430 Ca++.

which seems to me your Ca++ kit may read about 30 ppm to low.

fisho2

The only thing I can tell you is that something in your tank is generating crap loads of CO2 if your pH kits/ meter are correct. I do not think I have ever seen a marine tank with a pH that low. All your reading indicate photosynthesis is going on. Only photosynthesis can do this. Unless maybe at night you shut something on your system down like the skimmer.

Billybeau1
07/11/2007, 11:23 AM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10318336#post10318336 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Boomer
As far as the test on the 2 ml , Jon is correct it precip'd Mg(OH)2.

And that is kinda all in line with your tests, so = overdose is what took place IMHO.

which seems to me your Ca++ kit may read about 30 ppm to low.



I'll buy that :D

Don't tell Habib my kit is 30 ppm off. I think it's user error. :lol:

fish02
07/11/2007, 06:00 PM
Yeah, when I first saw my pH that low I just about freaked out. Tonight I am going to try that borax pH thing to verify the reading of my pH controller, but the colorimetric tests kinda verified it's readings. The reason I got the pH controller in the first place is because I was having kind of a hard time figuring out what the true color was plus I can monitor it all the time.

My skimmer is left on 24/7 except for an hour every other day when I feed my corals, 2 clams, and 2 fish. Before I hooked the skimmer up I noticed that my fish would breathe really fast in the morning and normally in the afternoon, now their breathing is normal all of the time. The rapid breathing lead me to think excess CO2, which is why I got the protein skimmer.

just to give you an idea of the rate of drop in pH after lights out, within a half hour it is down .03 to .04 (actinics are off 1hr after main light). Then it drops from there. If I graphed it the horizontal asymptotes would be 7.6ish on the low side and 8.2ish on the high side.

On another note I noticed a thin film of weird tough to scrape of algae (not coralline) forming on the glass. That might be a major contributer to the problem.

When I get a chance I am going to get a different brand of pH test kit to verify against the other 3 tests already. I also might get an O2 test kit or meter (the meters are crazy expensive though) and test the oxygen level at 3 am. I am also going to buy some chaeto, since no LFS sells any, and figure out how to rig up a below tank 5.5 gallon tank fuge in hopes of that helping with my pH swing.

The weird thing is that all of my corals look great at night and all of my LPS, except my Acan Sub and hammer, are screaming "FEED ME!". My SPS are crazy with their PE at night and day and have excellent color, even better than in That Pet Places' tanks (that's my lfs and it's an hour and a half away).

I am into the tech of this hobby so I will probably end up getting the American Marine O2 monitor. I sooooo want an aquarium controller though just to minimize the bulk of all the different pieces of equipment. I can't wait to get an Ozotech P303 or Poseidon ozone generator!

Anyway I really appreciate the adivce and help you guys are giving to everyone on these forums no matter how weird the problem seems to be.