stevil November 10, 2006 Share November 10, 2006 (edited) I was finishing up a water change I started last night, leveling off my water etc... My kalk drip was slow, so I sped it up.. way too much... about 3/4 gallon of kalk dumped in and took my pH from 8.1 to 8.4, although just in the last 5 minutes it's dropped to 8.35. I think i literally just caught this Should I be concerned? Any suggestions? I just mixed up new water, so I don't have any aged water I could do a water change with (and it would be only 5 gallons, but could make more). Edited November 10, 2006 by stevil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dandy7200 November 10, 2006 Share November 10, 2006 I was finishing up a water change I started last night, leveling off my water etc... My kalk drip was slow, so I sped it up.. way too much... about 3/4 gallon of kalk dumped in and took my pH from 8.1 to 8.4, although just in the last 5 minutes it's dropped to 8.35. I think i literally just caught this Should I be concerned? Any suggestions? I just mixed up new water, so I don't have any aged water I could do a water change with (and it would be only 5 gallons, but could make more). IMHO you will be fine, kalk will always immediatly raise Ph quickly and then stablize soon thereafter. 8.1 to 8.35 is on the upper end of the maximum change in a day but, I think you will be fine. Did any of your corals respond negatively? How much kalk do you normally drip? If it is the 3 quarts then I definetly would not worry to much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowerseller November 10, 2006 Share November 10, 2006 I think the same. Your PH will drop back to it's norm in no time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevil November 10, 2006 Author Share November 10, 2006 Ok - good to know. My kalk drip is very irregular, since it's all manual right now. I'm trying to get into a rhythm of 1 gallon per day, but this was the first drip I've had going since last week. Plus I'm taking a v e r y slow wean onto it so I don't do something stupid by accident (like dump a gallon in ). I don't have a ton of SPS coral yet, most of what I'm trying to do is ensure that I have adequate calcium and alkalinity to support more SPSs. Nothing in my tank 'freaked out' that I can tell. My ph has been pretty stable at ~8.1 for the past 3-6 weeks, my alk has continued to drop/stay low (was 1.25 last time I measured, hasn't been higher than 2 in months), and I've not been able to drive my calcium up above 360. I'm certain it's because I'm not adding enough kalk (definitely not enough to replace my evaporation). Think I need to revisit the kalk-reactor build or buy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dandy7200 November 10, 2006 Share November 10, 2006 what is your mg levels? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevil November 10, 2006 Author Share November 10, 2006 what is your mg levels? My one and only magnesium test on oct 14 had it at 1005. What's the connection? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dandy7200 November 10, 2006 Share November 10, 2006 My one and only magnesium test on oct 14 had it at 1005. What's the connection? Basically Mg coats the calcium and allows it to supersaturate the water, without enough of it the excess calcium simply precipitates. 1005 falls into the catagory of not enough and is without a doubt in my mind why you cannot get you Ca above 360. FWIW 1005 is not far from what IO test out of the box and Kalk does nothing to suppliment it. You need to get it around 1300 with some type of suppliment and do it over the course of a week or so, then you will have no problem getting your Ca up to where you want it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevil November 10, 2006 Author Share November 10, 2006 Hmmm.. Well this morning its down to 8.0, which is typical for my am reading. Flow in my sump is a bit restricted at the moment (I put a 5 gallon tank in my 20 gallon sump as a poor mans refugium). I wonder if that had something to do with the reading... If the kalk dumped in, but wasn't rapidly mixing or being removed from the sump then perhaps that's why I got the higher reading. I'll check it again tonight, and run a full suite of tests and see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie97L November 10, 2006 Share November 10, 2006 steve- watch that linckia... they don't like abrupt changes. mine ate nori that was rubberbanded to a rock last night!! (just as an aside). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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