fairladyZ
05/26/2013, 03:40 PM
Sorry for the long thread but i'm going to try to be as detailed as possible to try to get to the bottom of this.
So i had a thread in the New to the Hobby section about battling low Ph and Alk. Got some good advice in there and was pointed to the reefkeeping article and a recipe to increase Ph and Alk, I baked baking soda and added 4 oz's every night 2oz at a time to the highest flowing spot in my sump, well i can bring the Ph and the alk up slowly, but as soon as i stop alk drops right back down.
A little back story and info on the tank. it's a 90 gallon drilled with 40 gal sump that is about half full, It has 100lbs of sand 20 of which was live, it has about 80lbs or live rock with about 20 of it being live at the time. Tank has been up and going for just over 2 months, it cycled in the first week and i added a cleanup crew. Started with 5 hermits, emerald crab, and a turbo snail. Since i've added about another 12 hermits, another emerald crab, 3 peppermint shrimp, 6 nassarius snails, 4 astrea snails. Hithhikers i've seen are a handful of bristleworms, a peanute worm, a couple stomatella snails, astrenia starfish, 1000+ pods. I have about 8 heads of eagle eye zoa, 1 head yuma ricordia, 1 head watermelon mushroom. In the refugium i have a handful of algae that i got form the LFS i think it mainly consits of Calupra with some chaeto aswell.
Equipment in the tank is 2 hydor koralia 1500's, 2 aqueon heaters, vertex in-100 skimmer, via aqua 3600 return pump, zoomed reef/sun light on 24/7 over the refugium, Apex light, ATO built with autotopoff floats using apex, Current 4' t5HO fixture 2 whites, and 2 atinics, exoxotic blue stunner strip.
Started the tank with LFS salt mix water with their RO/DI machine. Went about a month with just them testing my water. After the initial cycle after the first week i got a diatom bloom which lasted about a 1.5 weeks and then it subsided, I then got a decent GHA outbreak that lasted about 3 weeks and has now passed, Now i am having issues with Cyano popping up on the sand at first but has now started spreading onto the rocks. I went the first 1.5 months without doing a water change as advised by LFS. After i installed the apex and PH probe and got it calibrated it was brought to my attention on here that my Ph was to low at 7.6 So i began aerating the room the tank is in by leaving windows open, putting a fan in the room and opening the glass tops the tank came with. The current light sits on the glass tops so i cant' remove them all the way so i just open them up, i've tried to aim the powerheads up to the surface to agitate but it seem the cyano gets worse without the powerheads pointed down. I don't have an air pump so i can't test a cup of water outside but with how aerated the room is now as i leave the window open 24/7 aswell as the stand open so the sump can breath with a fan in the stand blowing onto the water too. I stated doing 10 gallon water changes just to replace some of the 1.5month old water in the tank, I purchased red sea coral pro salt and mix it to 1.025. After running baked baking soda for a week by adding 2 oz at a time 4 oz's a day i got Ph to about 8.2 and once i stopped Ph will level out around 7.9 at night and up to around 8.08 at high point of day. I did 3 weekends in a row of water changes and Ph would stay the same and so would alk, by the end of the week my alk would be down to about 5.8dKH. I would dose the baking soda and get it back up to around 8 then do a water change. So finally i decided i would do a big water change this weekend. Stated the week with alk around 5.8 and after dosing thru the week got it to about 7.8 again and did the water change yesterday, I replaced 25 gallons of water. 20 minutes after the water change i tested alk and it came out to about 9.3dKH. Ph was at 8.14 I thought perfect right where i want it so i can setup my ATO with a 5 gallon jug i had made the night before with 3 teaspoons of kalkwasser in it, figured i would start light on the kalk, my aqualifter pump kicks on about every hour for about 1 minute to top off my sump with the kalkwasser, during NONE of that time would my Ph rise or notice any changes. So this morning right around 20 hours after the water change i check alk again and it's already down to about 8.5dKH, so i immediately switch the 5 gallon jug for another i had that i made up lastnight that had 5 teaspoons of kalk in it hoping that can stop the decline.
I did check the red sea salt when i made my first batch and everything was on target with what is advertised, i didn't have a mag test kit then so wasn't sure on that. Since i have purchased a red sea mag pro test kit and tested my tank earlier this week and it was 1480.
Last i tested my tank for everything was as follows.
Ph 8.11
Temp 78.1
Salinity 1.025
Nitrate 0
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
phosphate .1
calcium 420
magnesium 1480
alk dKH (tested earlier today)
All the other tests were earlier this week. Using the API test kits except magnesium and alk i have red sea pro, alk i do use the API test just to get close to what it is, if i need exact numbers on alk i'll use the red sea kit.
So i don't have a high demand for alk in my tank as i have almost 0 liverstock, i don't have any coraline, and only thing growing in the tank that i don't want is cyano. I'm at a loss.
Again sorry for the novel but figured i would try to post the most info i can. Hopefully someone can give me an idea or what to do to stop my alk dropping off at such a rapid rate.
So i had a thread in the New to the Hobby section about battling low Ph and Alk. Got some good advice in there and was pointed to the reefkeeping article and a recipe to increase Ph and Alk, I baked baking soda and added 4 oz's every night 2oz at a time to the highest flowing spot in my sump, well i can bring the Ph and the alk up slowly, but as soon as i stop alk drops right back down.
A little back story and info on the tank. it's a 90 gallon drilled with 40 gal sump that is about half full, It has 100lbs of sand 20 of which was live, it has about 80lbs or live rock with about 20 of it being live at the time. Tank has been up and going for just over 2 months, it cycled in the first week and i added a cleanup crew. Started with 5 hermits, emerald crab, and a turbo snail. Since i've added about another 12 hermits, another emerald crab, 3 peppermint shrimp, 6 nassarius snails, 4 astrea snails. Hithhikers i've seen are a handful of bristleworms, a peanute worm, a couple stomatella snails, astrenia starfish, 1000+ pods. I have about 8 heads of eagle eye zoa, 1 head yuma ricordia, 1 head watermelon mushroom. In the refugium i have a handful of algae that i got form the LFS i think it mainly consits of Calupra with some chaeto aswell.
Equipment in the tank is 2 hydor koralia 1500's, 2 aqueon heaters, vertex in-100 skimmer, via aqua 3600 return pump, zoomed reef/sun light on 24/7 over the refugium, Apex light, ATO built with autotopoff floats using apex, Current 4' t5HO fixture 2 whites, and 2 atinics, exoxotic blue stunner strip.
Started the tank with LFS salt mix water with their RO/DI machine. Went about a month with just them testing my water. After the initial cycle after the first week i got a diatom bloom which lasted about a 1.5 weeks and then it subsided, I then got a decent GHA outbreak that lasted about 3 weeks and has now passed, Now i am having issues with Cyano popping up on the sand at first but has now started spreading onto the rocks. I went the first 1.5 months without doing a water change as advised by LFS. After i installed the apex and PH probe and got it calibrated it was brought to my attention on here that my Ph was to low at 7.6 So i began aerating the room the tank is in by leaving windows open, putting a fan in the room and opening the glass tops the tank came with. The current light sits on the glass tops so i cant' remove them all the way so i just open them up, i've tried to aim the powerheads up to the surface to agitate but it seem the cyano gets worse without the powerheads pointed down. I don't have an air pump so i can't test a cup of water outside but with how aerated the room is now as i leave the window open 24/7 aswell as the stand open so the sump can breath with a fan in the stand blowing onto the water too. I stated doing 10 gallon water changes just to replace some of the 1.5month old water in the tank, I purchased red sea coral pro salt and mix it to 1.025. After running baked baking soda for a week by adding 2 oz at a time 4 oz's a day i got Ph to about 8.2 and once i stopped Ph will level out around 7.9 at night and up to around 8.08 at high point of day. I did 3 weekends in a row of water changes and Ph would stay the same and so would alk, by the end of the week my alk would be down to about 5.8dKH. I would dose the baking soda and get it back up to around 8 then do a water change. So finally i decided i would do a big water change this weekend. Stated the week with alk around 5.8 and after dosing thru the week got it to about 7.8 again and did the water change yesterday, I replaced 25 gallons of water. 20 minutes after the water change i tested alk and it came out to about 9.3dKH. Ph was at 8.14 I thought perfect right where i want it so i can setup my ATO with a 5 gallon jug i had made the night before with 3 teaspoons of kalkwasser in it, figured i would start light on the kalk, my aqualifter pump kicks on about every hour for about 1 minute to top off my sump with the kalkwasser, during NONE of that time would my Ph rise or notice any changes. So this morning right around 20 hours after the water change i check alk again and it's already down to about 8.5dKH, so i immediately switch the 5 gallon jug for another i had that i made up lastnight that had 5 teaspoons of kalk in it hoping that can stop the decline.
I did check the red sea salt when i made my first batch and everything was on target with what is advertised, i didn't have a mag test kit then so wasn't sure on that. Since i have purchased a red sea mag pro test kit and tested my tank earlier this week and it was 1480.
Last i tested my tank for everything was as follows.
Ph 8.11
Temp 78.1
Salinity 1.025
Nitrate 0
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
phosphate .1
calcium 420
magnesium 1480
alk dKH (tested earlier today)
All the other tests were earlier this week. Using the API test kits except magnesium and alk i have red sea pro, alk i do use the API test just to get close to what it is, if i need exact numbers on alk i'll use the red sea kit.
So i don't have a high demand for alk in my tank as i have almost 0 liverstock, i don't have any coraline, and only thing growing in the tank that i don't want is cyano. I'm at a loss.
Again sorry for the novel but figured i would try to post the most info i can. Hopefully someone can give me an idea or what to do to stop my alk dropping off at such a rapid rate.