What should I do about the alk? Just try to hand dose and see if it remains an ongoing issue / then buy a doser if it remains a problem? I wouldn’t have a problem remembering to hand dose every other day if I needed to. Every day at the same time might be a problem considering I work 24 hour shifts occasionally.
You could hand dose a two part additive, but you need to test daily until you determine your tanks usage so you will know how much to dose. Once you know what to dose you need to spot check at least weekly because as your corals grow your alk demand will change.
You can dose every couple of days if your tank stays relatively stable. Softies and LPS are not usually as sensitive as SPS, but stability is always best.
What two part would you use? I have baking soda I can use for now to raise alk only since my calcium is fine.
[quote=“Kyle Mench, post:403, topic:9128”]
What two part would you use? I have baking soda I can use for now to raise alk only since my calcium is fine.[/quote]
You can use a calculator to determine how much baking soda to add
http://www.reeftime.com/reef-chemistry-calculator.asp
But make sure you adjust slowly so you don’t stress your corals. There are other calculators but I have used this one before.
[quote=“Kyle Mench, post:403, topic:9128”]
What two part would you use? I have baking soda I can use for now to raise alk only since my calcium is fine.[/quote]
I forgot to add that I have used ESV and also BRS 2 part in the past.
I am still using reef fusion 2 part. You can pick up a cheap 2 part doser like I got for around $60 new on Amazon. I mark the bottle I use for my holding container to make sure the doser is working properly every morning after the last dose has been done.
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VOS brand water bottles are covenienot too 
I added some salt last night to bring it up to 1.025 and added 1 tsp of baking soda. Alk is now about 7.5 If my calcium levels are fine, should I get a doser with two part? Or just hand dose baking soda? I’ll monitor how fast the alk drops for the next two days and see what the demand is. It wouldn’t bother me to hand dose every other day or so, but if I had to dose daily I would just get a doser.
Alk hasn’t changed since I dosed the baking soda on Saturday. It’s remained right around 7.5. Is there anything that could’ve caused a short-term drop in alk? I’ll keep monitoring the levels, but I’ll admit I’m a bit perplexed by the whole thing.
More often than not it is testing error. Calcium and alkalinity are used together. I forget the ratio but if they both test as stable you should be good.
If I’ve added two tsp of baking soda and it’s still only testing as 7.5 I would assume I was low on Saturday though? I even tested it twice with the Red Sea kit Saturday and then again with the API kit. API changed colors between 6 and 7 dKH and the Red Sea gave me about 6.5.
I’m not sure how much “punch†is in a teaspoon of baking soda. It might be quite small. Do you know?
Looks like that should have been 1 dKH in a 75g. So your test seems right. Demand is likely lower than you can measure with your kit.
Right, I added 1 tsp of baking soda hoping to raise the dKH by about one. Didn’t want to raise it too much in one day. I guess I’ll just keep an eye on the dKH and see how it goes? Weird that it was 6.5 though… I had done a water change the weekend before like usual.
How big of a change and what salt do you use? If your salt mixes up to say 9dKH and you did a 10% change you’d only raise the alk by 0.25dKH.
Math:
75g tank
10% @ 9dKH = 0.9dKH
90% @ 6.5dKH = 5.85dKH
10% + 90% = 6.75dKH
I was using RC for a while, but got some Kent salt on sale. I didn’t check the dKH of the Kent once it was mixed up honestly. I normally do a 11% change (10G out of total 90G volume ) bi-weekly. I will admit the last time I had checked my dKH before Saturday 2/10 was about a month prior on 1/17. Between these two checks 2 water changes had been done. I guess it could’ve creeped down over a month, although I hadn’t noticed it creeping down between any of my other checks.
11/15 dKH 8
12/23 dKH 7.7
1/17 dKH 7.6
2/10 dKH 6.5
Possibly a slight trend downward and then maybe the switch from RC to Kent stopped the larger alk boost I was getting? I’ll check alk like once a week from here on out at a minimum I guess z<>z
I stopped using RC do to the high alkalinity. I’m gonna give Coral Pro a shot when I fill the 220g
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I used Red Sea in the Blue Bucket to fill my 180g and it measured 8.0 dkh. this was the first time I have ever tried it and I think I am going to buy another bucket.
Definitely go with the blue bucket. I have the black bucket and it mixes to 11 DKH. ::hitsthefan::