High ALK in Newly Mixed Salt Water (Red Sea CP )

[AugustWest]

I mixed up 15 Gallons of Salt Water for a water change. It's Red Sea Coral Pro, which I switched to recently from Reef Crystals.

I tested the water with my Hanna Alk Checker and got a reading of 261 PPM or 14.616 dkh !

My tank is at 162 PPM or 9.072 dkh. Is it ok for me to do a water change with this high Alk water ?

I change 15 Gallons out of a total water capacity of 80-85 Gallons every 2 weeks and this will be my 4th water change since switching Salts.

This is the first time I tested the new water first but I did notice that my Alk was higher than normal after my last water change. Tested at 182ppm or 10.2 dkh.

Just wondering if this water change will spike my Alk too much ? Anybody else have issues with the Red Sea Coral Pro ?

Thanks

[slee013]

don't do it!! I made that mistake..

and now my alk is at 12, when it used to be stable at around 9...now, i'm just waiting for it to naturally drop back down, while watching my corals suffer :(

[bertoni]

A 10% change likely would be okay, but I'd hold off on larger changes until the issue has been resolved. You might need to mix up the dry salt a bit, or you might have gotten a bad batch.

[rich19020]

I had the same issue with the Red Sea Pro so I switched to just the regular Red Sea and now my KH reads between 9-10 each week. Took time for it to lower again.

[Martin Kuhn]

I've tested a batch of the "new" Coral Pro to be integrated into AquaCalculator, coming from the new black buckets (formerly white buckets). Reason was that i was informed that Red Sea might have changed their salt recipe.

what i can confirm is that especially Alk is higher than before.
i measured 11,5 dKH for the "new" whereas to lots of the "old" had just around 8 dkH. However, for an enriched Pro-salt this is not to bad as i think!

also Mg concentration is higher (new 1350, old ~1250)
Ca roughly the same (new 440..450, old 460..470)

(all of my measurements normalised to a salinity of 34,8 psu!)

Amount of salt need for waterchange to the same salinity is now (~39g / Liter for 34,8 psu) a bit higher than for the "old" version (~38 g/Liter for 34,8 psu).


regarding the Ca/Mg/Alk levels, in my eyes this salt is really "pro" and also well balanced. For tanks with only some SPS and where Ca/Alk/Mg is not steadily added (Balling, Ca reactor, ..) it might be even ok to hold it on a good level by waterchanges only

best regards
Martin

[AugustWest]

So I guess I should just dump the water ? Can I figure out, knowing those numbers, what my alk would be after a 15 gallon water change?
Maybe I could just stop dosing Alk ( BRS Recipe #1 ) for a couple of days?

Seems like a waste, its a brand new bucket that I ordered on line, its not like I can just return it.

[AugustWest]

Disregard. i dumped the water, Not worth the chance. Thanks for the help.