Calc,Alk,PH issues

[ashr]

Hey all

So I have been having some algae issues with my tank lately and lost some corals but I've been busy and a little out of touch with my tank so I didn't notice some of levels were off. My doser has been having issues with the Calc and not adding enough and my ALk was being added way more.

Calc is around 300
Alk is about 11
PH is 8.7

what would be the best way to lower my PH at this time as it is way to high. I've stopped dosing Alk and will replace all my hoses for everything.


any thoughts?

[dreef]

I'd say get your calc up,alk will come down,hense your ph will drop.

[asylumdown]

Do it slowly. with alk that high if you start adding a bunch of calcium it's just going to precipitate out all over everything and fry your pumps. I once had a similar situation and caused extra problems for myself when I started adding calcium to get the levels up, didn't see them budge - because it was precipitating out almost instantly - and made it worse by increasing my dosing rate of calcium even more to try and compensate. I didn't realize what was happening till my protein skimmer, return pump, and power-heads all failed in the same week.

My preferred method for correcting things when they get out of whack like that now is through multiple water changes with replacement water that has the correct ratio of calcium to alkalinity, and only starting to use a doser again when things are at a stable and desirable ion ratio.

[ashr]

That is great advise, thank you both. I was going to stop adding Alk from my doser and just does Calc a bit longer, so I guess I will stop doing that all together or just add small amounts. I will be doing water changes a couple times this week in slow doses.

Would it be smart to add PH buffer to left lower the PH a bit? I dont want it to run to high for to long as I have lost a SPS colony all ready.

Should I keep dosing my Mg and just do the Calc in small doses?

Thanks again

[ashr]

Does this really work to help lower the PH?

Add carbon dioxide in the form of bottled soda water to try lowering the pH level in your tank. Add 6 mL of soda water per gallon of water in your aquarium to reduce pH by approximately 0.3 units. Be sure to use an unflavored soda water that is free of phosphates. This is an instant fix --- unlike adding additional aeration, which will take time.


Add 1 mL of distilled white vinegar per gallon of tank water; it will instantly reduce the pH by 0.3 units.

[FragIt Dan]

Your pH is essentially regulated by ambient CO2. With sufficient buffering capacity (dKh), which you have, there is nothing you can add to your tank that will cause a shift in pH that will last more than a few hours. With your Ca as low as it is, I would suggest your coral loss was as a result of insufficient Ca. IMO, your alkalinity is fine (8-12 dKh is often quoted as a desired target), but getting back to your original question of pH... I would offer three potential explanations, and IMO, they are the only three. Either your test kit is wrong (my vote is here), you have a million plants in your home that are sucking the CO2 out of the air, raising the pH of your tank, or your top off water is strongly basic (high pH). If your top off water has high pH, let it air out for a day before using it (you should be doing this anyway to allow the chlorine/chloramine to off gas), your tank will drop back down to normal pH on it's own. If your house is full of plants, you would expect large swings on pH from day to night as your plants switch between CO2 uptake and release. If your test kit is wrong then there is no problem. Really, just stop testing for pH. If your dKh is testing above 6 or 7, your pH will be fine. I think if you ask around, you will find people would say your coral loss was due to insufficient Ca. Rectify this by raising it about 20ppm/day and you will be fine. You can spread the dosing out with your doser so it will not ppt out on your pumps. I think you would be fine to even raise it by 40 ppm/day if you spread it out over several doses, but that's just me. Good luck,


Dan

[Myka]

Woah, don't mess with pH directly like that, you're just asking for (potentially really big) problems. Directly altering pH won't last long anyway, only a few hrs.

How are you testing pH? If you're using a typical pH test kit then your readings are unlikely to be particularly accurate (and definitely not accurate enough to be messing with vinegar or soda water). If you are using a digital pH meter (good!) then check the calibration as I find some meters lose calibration 2-3 times per year. I have a hard time believing your pH is at 8.7.

Also, alkalinity at 11 dKH is not overly high, some people keep their reefs this high all the time. You do need to raise calcium though, and as you raise the calcium the alkalinity will drop. If you do it slow enough you won't cause precipitation at only 11 dKH. If you raise calcium up to 420 ppm over the next 2 days this should solve your low calcium problem and your high alkalinity problem without a hitch.

Sometimes, causing precipitation is a good way to lower calcium and alkalinity. Awhile back I accidentally hit the "random" button on the timer for my doser. I didn't notice I hit that button and it was like that for 2 days before I noticed the tank "looked funny". So I tested everything and alkalinity was 18 dKH. Since the tank was at this elevated alkalinity for a short time I added a bunch of calcium to precipitate it all out of the water. This worked well, and the result was calcium 440 ppm and alkalinity 11 dKH which was much better. The fish and corals did not mind this because the tank had the high alkalinity just for a short time. This did not ruin any of my pumps. Everything had a white dusting (including the glass lol), but a waterchange afterwards, and a quick rinse of the pumps (it wasn't hardened on the pumps, it came off easy) and all was good.

[ashr]

Thank you both for those replies, they have helped me make up my mind on what to do.

I just replaced all my RO/DI filters and risen. I will be doing small water changes and also keep dosing my Calc to help bring it up. Once im home again tonight I will test it all again!

Thanks again

[ashr]

Checked my levels last night again..
Im pretty sure my doser was not adding Calc or was plugged.. :cry:

Calc 220
Alk 11
SG 1.28
PH 8.4


SO yeah.. I need to make sure my doser is working for my calc..

[FragIt Dan]

That Ca level seems impossibly low, I would check that again if I were you,


Dan

[ashr]

My Calc level is still under 300.. I really need to do something before i lose more SPS. :(

Anything with polyps on the out side ( fuzzy ) are just peeling off. pretty sad to see :(

[FragIt Dan]

Just keep increasing your dose until it starts to climb. I ended dosing 10x the base recommendation in order to keep up. Sounds like you have to do the same. When your corals eventually get healthy again expect to increase your dose again as they start to grow. For comparison, I am dosing about 25g anhydrous CaCl/day into a 90G heavily stocked with sps. You can look up the reef calculators to compare that with your dosing. Quick solution ... double your dose every day and test every day until you see it rise.


Dan

[ashr]

That's what I was thinking also.. It just does not seem to be going up so I will double it for a couple of days and go from there.

Thank you

[Myka]

You should have had calcium up above 400 ppm within just a couple days. Test, dose, wait 1 hour for mixing in the tank, then test again. Then use those numbers to calculate how much you need to add to raise calcium by 50 ppm. Add the difference so you get the calcium up 50 ppm today. The dosage information on the bottles are simply somewhere to start, they are not written in stone by any means.

[asylumdown]

Just keep increasing your dose until it starts to climb. I ended dosing 10x the base recommendation in order to keep up. Sounds like you have to do the same. When your corals eventually get healthy again expect to increase your dose again as they start to grow. For comparison, I am dosing about 25g anhydrous CaCl/day into a 90G heavily stocked with sps. You can look up the reef calculators to compare that with your dosing. Quick solution ... double your dose every day and test every day until you see it rise.


Dan

Unless he's resolved his sky high alkalinity and pH issues, doubling up on the rate he adds calcium is just going to cause calcium carbonate to precipitate out all over everything.


My Calc level is still under 300.. I really need to do something before i lose more SPS. :(

Anything with polyps on the out side ( fuzzy ) are just peeling off. pretty sad to see :(

Have you been able to get your alk and pH down? Losing corals might also be related to those parameters.

I'm not sure what your current parameters are, but it's really important to understand a little bit of the chemistry that's occurring in your water. It's not as simple as simply 'calcium low, add calcium', or 'alk low, add baking soda' if you've been dosing these chemicals at a significantly unfavourable ratio for any period of time, which a malfunctioning doser can do easily. Things like ion saturation, pH, and the ratio of carbonate to bicarbonate in your water (which is very strongly linked to pH), and the solubility of calcium carbonate all determine whether the extra calcium you put in will change the levels you see in your water, or simply end up as a film of calcium carbonate slowly eating away at your pumps. Remember, while calcium is a 'thing' that you measure directly, alkalinity is not a 'thing' in and of itself. It is a measurement of the cumulative interactions of a series of other, complex things, of which carbonate and bicarbonate play a major, but not exclusive role.

There's a really good primer on this in reefkeeping magazine: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

Important points from that article:

1. When you dissolve 'alk' solutions, you're dissolving either sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate in most cases. However, once either of those compounds are dissolved, the carbonate part will become bicarbonate, or the bicarbonate will become carbonate based on a whole bunch of complicated reactions and conditions, but the most important of which being the pH of your water. Regardless of what you've been adding to your water (sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate), the major part of your 'alkalinity' will always be made up of a ratio of carbonate and bicarbonate ions, as they can pick up or drop the hydrogen ion pretty easily in solution.

2. The higher the pH, the more carbonate vs bicarbonate you will have in your water. At the pH you listed in your opening comment, your water will favour carbonate over bicarbonate to the extreme.

3. Calcium carbonate is MUCH less soluble in water at a higher pH. This is because carbonate is so favoured at higher pH's (vs bicarbonate), so calcium ions are way more likely to 'bump' in to carbonate and react. Simply driving the pH of a tank up can be enough to drop your calcium and alkalinity concentrations through the floor, regardless of any process that's occurring.

4. Calcium and carbonate ions are always entering and leaving solution, regardless of if you're adding supplementation or not. At equilibrium in an unsaturated solution, the rate at which they react, form a solid, then dissolve again is equivalent, meaning you'll never get a precipitation. However, like with pH, the solubility of calcium carbonate is also tied to the alkalinity of your tank (partly due to the fact that alk and pH are related, but alkalinity is more complicated than that). Calcium carbonate is less soluble at higher alkalinities, which means that at higher levels of alkalinity, the amount of calcium that can be kept in solution is lower. To quote reef keeping:

"Lower calcium carbonate solubility at higher alkalinity implies that precipitation of calcium carbonate can be more extensive. In other words, as the alkalinity rises, the amount of calcium that can be kept in solution without precipitation decreases.

This effect is why, for example, maintaining a very high alkalinity can lead to excessive precipitation of calcium carbonate onto objects such as heaters and pumps. Likewise, as the alkalinity is reduced, the amount of calcium that can be kept in solution without precipitation is increased."

The gist is, if your alkalinity and pH are both still really high, you can add calcium until the cows come home, but you won't start seeing the levels of calcium in solution rise until the addition has caused so much calcium carbonate to precipitate out of solution that you're alk and pH both start to fall. In the process however, you will have shaved years off the life of your powerheads, return pump, and heaters, if not caused them to fail already.

You need to get pH and alk down to 'normal' levels before you start messing with calcium. The easiest, safest, and fastest way to do that is through a series of water changes with a properly balanced salt mix.

[ashr]

Thank you all for the info and tghe great write up. To be honest I will have to read it a couple of times to get the full idea of whart that all means. In the mean time i will be running 5-10 gallon water changes per day and see how that helps me. Thanks again for the great write up. It has been a huge help

[Myka]

Unless he's resolved his sky high alkalinity and pH issues, doubling up on the rate he adds calcium is just going to cause calcium carbonate to precipitate out all over everything.

No it won't. He was only at 11 dKH. Dosing 50 ppm calcium from <300 ppm calcium absolutely will not cause precipitation. If he added 120+ ppm calcium in one shot to 11 dKH alkalinity, then yes that would probably cause precipitation. 11 dKH is not very high. Go read my first post. In fact, the Randy Holmes-Farley article you posted even lists 11 dKH within his recommended concentration. :eek:

Plus, I don't believe his pH reading was accurate. pH of 8.7 is very difficult to achieve in reef aquaria. Besides, alkalinity doesn't directly affect pH anyway.

You need to get pH and alk down to 'normal' levels before you start messing with calcium. The easiest, safest, and fastest way to do that is through a series of water changes with a properly balanced salt mix.

Calcium and alkalinity work together like a teeter totter. If you add calcium, alkalinity will go down. If you add alkalinity, calcium will go down. I guarantee if he raises his calcium slowly from <300 ppm to 420 ppm in 3 doses over the next 2 days his alkalinity will drop from 11 dKH to about 9 dKH, and there will not be any precipitation.

calcium carbonate to precipitate out of solution that you're alk and pH both start to fall. In the process however, you will have shaved years off the life of your powerheads, return pump, and heaters, if not caused them to fail already.

This is simply not true. Getting precipitation on pumps will not cause them to die prematurely. Leaving precipitation on the pumps, just like leaving "natural" buildup on the pumps by not cleaning them often enough can cause premature failure, but it's not like you flick the switch and the bulb bursts.

[FragIt Dan]

+1 on what Myka says... I would have to respectfully disagree as well. I think Myka nailed it with his comments below...

No it won't. He was only at 11 dKH. Dosing 50 ppm calcium from <300 ppm calcium absolutely will not cause precipitation. If he added 120+ ppm calcium in one shot to 11 dKH alkalinity, then yes that would probably cause precipitation. 11 dKH is not very high. Go read my first post. In fact, the Randy Holmes-Farley article you posted even lists 11 dKH within his recommended concentration. :eek:

Plus, I don't believe his pH reading was accurate. pH of 8.7 is very difficult to achieve in reef aquaria. Besides, alkalinity doesn't directly affect pH anyway.



Calcium and alkalinity work together like a teeter totter. If you add calcium, alkalinity will go down. If you add alkalinity, calcium will go down. I guarantee if he raises his calcium slowly from <300 ppm to 420 ppm in 3 doses over the next 2 days his alkalinity will drop from 11 dKH to about 9 dKH, and there will not be any precipitation.



This is simply not true. Getting precipitation on pumps will not cause them to die prematurely. Leaving precipitation on the pumps, just like leaving "natural" buildup on the pumps by not cleaning them often enough can cause premature failure, but it's not like you flick the switch and the bulb bursts.




Dan