Alternate KH Ideas

[nickg]

Hey guy's,
I'm having a real hard time raising the alk level. I'm dosing the tank every day with Kent pro buffer. The KH reading is staying between 6 & 7. I stopped adding calcium, and that level is slowly going down. Still above 400. Maby someone else has had this problem? Could magnessium be in question? If theres a better solution then adding pro buffer, I am not aware of it. I'm getting worried. Already had a plate coral die . And my lps corals aren't getting as full as they used to. This is all very sad to me. Thank you very much for any suggestions! I can't sit back and watch these guys dwindle.

[Doug1]

Is that DKH? Which test kit are you using?
Have you been doing water changes? What kind of bioload in the tank. Feeding a lot? Alk tends to drop as carbonic acid is formed from respiration and the breakdown of waste or excess food.
I would start a series of water changes with new SW mixed at least 24 hrs. Check th alk of the new mix, and maybe cross check it at LFS or with another reefer if you have one nearby

[nickg]

I can answer all this. Yes it's dkh. I can't rember the brand of the test kit, but it's got the fish doc pic on the box. I got a purple tang, 2 perc clowns, 3 pijama cards, jawfish, xenia, bubble, 2 frogspawn, various polyps, a couple shrooms, various hermits and snails, brittle star, serpent star, and three peppermint shrimp (no more aptasia thanks to them). I feed half a cube of frozen prime reef, and a sprinkle of Omega One marine flakes once a day. I do a 10% water change at the beggining of each month, and get water tested 2 times a week. I test KH every day. I use salt mix from lfs, which is .025 salinity, and KH of around 14. I top off with only RO water. I wish there was more people around here that did this hobby, but so far you guy's are the only people I've found I can talk to. Guy's at lfs, are very busy and sometimes seem more interested in me spending $$ than helping with problems. Thanx for all the help I've got here! I hope I in some way can help others to.

[Spanky]

Nick,

If this is a small tank (I'm sorry I couldn't find the size) you could have enough load that it's eating up your buffer that quick. We do and have good results with the equivalent of Kent Super Buffer.

Jerel

[Doug1]

Ya Jerel, thats kinda where I was headed
Nick do you have a good skimmer on the tank?

[nickg]

Sorry,
It's a 55 gal, 4 110 watt uri vho bulbs, I run a excalibur hang on the back skimmer, which seems to do a pretty good job. As far as the cap fill with black skunk water pretty quick.

[Doug1]

If you are getting that much out of an Excalibur, you would faint to see what a serious skimmer would do. Kinda like vacuuming house with a little hand vac

[Lock]

I use to have Alk problems until I built a calcium reactor. The reactor maintans the Alk as well as PH. I never have any problems any more. Here is a picture of the one I built. If you are interested in trying to build a reactor (Much cheaper than buying one) the plans for the one I have are at this web site.
http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/a.../2/default.asp

[Doug1]

tag for archive