Question: how to lower ALK
- Thread starter happyreefer
- Start date
What is your Ca? What happened — you overdosed? Just be patient and don’t do anything drastic and have swings.
You can do WCs to slowly knock them down. Depending on consumption rate, you just don’t do anything and corals and coralline algae will absorb Alk. My 150g SPS-dominant tank can go thru 1.5dKH in 24hrs.
You can do WCs to slowly knock them down. Depending on consumption rate, you just don’t do anything and corals and coralline algae will absorb Alk. My 150g SPS-dominant tank can go thru 1.5dKH in 24hrs.
Just let it drop naturally, trying to correct it quickly will probably lead to problems. Keep nutrients up, as they will give you a little buffer. Stop 2 part or whatever you use to for alk/ca. It should only take a couple days for it to get back to normal and you can ease into your normal dosing/additions until you get to normal. Mine spiked to 15dkh in a few short hours, I just shut off my CaRx and kalk for 5 days, then resumed everything at a lower amount until it stabilized. I only lost a tiny frag of lokani, everything else was just fine.
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Oh that sucks. No, I'm currently using Redsea blue bucket.
Gotcha, that's what I thought just let it go. To be open I did panic a bit and wanted to see if there was a faster way to lower the ALK without lowering the nutrient. I feel like I don't have enough fish in the tank right now so lowering the nutrients is absolutely out the question. Just curious if there was another way. Thanks
I'd hate to admit it but I'm currently doing 14 hours photoperiod
but that was a good info. Thank you
I didn't know nutrients give buffer to ALK, that's good to know. I heard that if you have high nutrients then your tank can handle more par. I think what he was trying to say is that higher nutrients can buffer high par. I took some water out of the tank the other day and replaced with RODI. I did stop dosing a few months ago and no longer use ATO with kalk-wrasser, it's just RODI for now. Yeah, I just going to leave things alone. Thanks for the comment
That's really high. The problem is that I'm just a few clicks below. Really sucks.
Adding CA, in some instance, is one thing that can offset ALK. Thanks so much!
Gotcha, that's what I thought just let it go. To be open I did panic a bit and wanted to see if there was a faster way to lower the ALK without lowering the nutrient. I feel like I don't have enough fish in the tank right now so lowering the nutrients is absolutely out the question. Just curious if there was another way. Thanks
I'd hate to admit it but I'm currently doing 14 hours photoperiod
but that was a good info. Thank youI didn't know nutrients give buffer to ALK, that's good to know. I heard that if you have high nutrients then your tank can handle more par. I think what he was trying to say is that higher nutrients can buffer high par. I took some water out of the tank the other day and replaced with RODI. I did stop dosing a few months ago and no longer use ATO with kalk-wrasser, it's just RODI for now. Yeah, I just going to leave things alone. Thanks for the comment
That's really high. The problem is that I'm just a few clicks below. Really sucks.
Adding CA, in some instance, is one thing that can offset ALK. Thanks so much!
Oh that sucks. No, I'm currently using Redsea blue bucket.
Gotcha, that's what I thought just let it go. To be open I did panic a bit and wanted to see if there was a faster way to lower the ALK without lowering the nutrient. I feel like I don't have enough fish in the tank right now so lowering the nutrients is absolutely out the question. Just curious if there was another way. Thanks
I'd hate to admit it but I'm currently doing 14 hours photoperiod but that was a good info. Thank you
I didn't know nutrients give buffer to ALK, that's good to know. I heard that if you have high nutrients then your tank can handle more par. I think what he was trying to say is that higher nutrients can buffer high par. I took some water out of the tank the other day and replaced with RODI. I did stop dosing a few months ago and no longer use ATO with kalk-wrasser, it's just RODI for now. Yeah, I just going to leave things alone. Thanks for the comment
That's really high. The problem is that I'm just a few clicks below. Really sucks.
Adding CA, in some instance, is one thing that can offset ALK. Thanks so much!
Gotcha, that's what I thought just let it go. To be open I did panic a bit and wanted to see if there was a faster way to lower the ALK without lowering the nutrient. I feel like I don't have enough fish in the tank right now so lowering the nutrients is absolutely out the question. Just curious if there was another way. Thanks
I'd hate to admit it but I'm currently doing 14 hours photoperiod
but that was a good info. Thank youI didn't know nutrients give buffer to ALK, that's good to know. I heard that if you have high nutrients then your tank can handle more par. I think what he was trying to say is that higher nutrients can buffer high par. I took some water out of the tank the other day and replaced with RODI. I did stop dosing a few months ago and no longer use ATO with kalk-wrasser, it's just RODI for now. Yeah, I just going to leave things alone. Thanks for the comment
That's really high. The problem is that I'm just a few clicks below. Really sucks.
Adding CA, in some instance, is one thing that can offset ALK. Thanks so much!
Two things that help alk swings and tend to mitigate any negative issues that may arise are slightly elevated nutrients (mainly PO4) and higher pH values. Now have a spike or sudden drop with PO4 and it creates havoc, especially with sps. It’s a common myth that alk spikes cause burnt tips, but that’s not the case, it’s usually related to PO4 levels. Take a tank with really low PO4 and have a fluctuation with alk, lighting, etc and you will most certainly have issues. I never worry about nitrate or nitrogen, especially if you’re feeding your fish enough, as their urea is the main source of nitrogen for corals. If you have any measure of nitrate, you have enough.
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Can you say please that one more time? I'm not sure what you mean by that
Boy do I wish I had talked to you like 3 years ago.. I was doing some major major water changes for almost 2 to 3 years while constantly changing lighting intensity and raising/lowering LED distance from the water line. I was also chasing numbers here and there but mostly changing light intensity and raising/lowering LED fixture. I thought that the dirty glass was from dirty water and, unfortunately, made another big mis judgement by thinking the water change improved the condition of my corals. The dirty glass was from the lack of nutrients, they were both at zero, and the improved look only lasted for about a day or so. I thought they were all going downhill because I was constantly changing the lighting in the wrong direction so I kept chasing the lighting, wow. I should have tested for nitrate. It was a complete nightmare that lasted a awful long time. I used sooo much salt, it's seriously incredible now that I think about it. I did about 30% overall tank and sump water volume weekly water change for such a long time. The worst part is that I didn't have enough fish. I had 3 fishes in a 70g, a pair of Frostbite clowns and a small/med sailfin tang. When I upgraded from my 40g with 10g sump to 70g to 20g sump, I figured I know exactly what to do since I had a good experience with my 40g but it turns out, I had to relearn just about everything I learned as a novice reefer. Now that I have a lot more fishes and the tank being settled and all, I am seriously enjoying reefing again Next, I'm going to try to raise my PH. Haha, have a great weekend brother! Thanks for the reply
Boy do I wish I had talked to you like 3 years ago.. I was doing some major major water changes for almost 2 to 3 years while constantly changing lighting intensity and raising/lowering LED distance from the water line. I was also chasing numbers here and there but mostly changing light intensity and raising/lowering LED fixture. I thought that the dirty glass was from dirty water and, unfortunately, made another big mis judgement by thinking the water change improved the condition of my corals. The dirty glass was from the lack of nutrients, they were both at zero, and the improved look only lasted for about a day or so. I thought they were all going downhill because I was constantly changing the lighting in the wrong direction so I kept chasing the lighting, wow. I should have tested for nitrate. It was a complete nightmare that lasted a awful long time. I used sooo much salt, it's seriously incredible now that I think about it. I did about 30% overall tank and sump water volume weekly water change for such a long time. The worst part is that I didn't have enough fish. I had 3 fishes in a 70g, a pair of Frostbite clowns and a small/med sailfin tang. When I upgraded from my 40g with 10g sump to 70g to 20g sump, I figured I know exactly what to do since I had a good experience with my 40g but it turns out, I had to relearn just about everything I learned as a novice reefer. Now that I have a lot more fishes and the tank being settled and all, I am seriously enjoying reefing again
Next, I'm going to try to raise my PH. Haha, have a great weekend brother! Thanks for the reply
