alkalinity too low???
 

My alkalinity is at 5.04 dkh or 1.8 meq/l from 2 sources mine (hagen) and a local lfs (salifert). Is this level dangerous for the inhabitants. Should i be making a big change or can I raise it gradually?

I was thinking of baking soda. My math puts me at 32 g baked sodium bicarbonate will raise alk by 1 meq/l in a 90 gal tank. Does this sound right?

Other levels include calcium at 360 ppm. And Ph is at 8.0 morning and 8.2 at night.

Thanks,
markus

go slow, raising the hardness too quickly is hard on the inhabitants.

Will rasing 1 meq/l a day be too fast? Does anyone recommend anything?

You should also test for magnesium. Your calcium is not that low although I usually try to shoot for right around 400. As has been said raise you alk. slowly and keep testing. You might also have to play with your magnesium level a little to get your levels to stabilize.

In my experience an extremely low alk will cause pH swings greater than what you are reporting. Raise it slowly, but don't get too concerned or excited. If you pH was constantly lower than 8 or had swings of .5 or greater, then you have a bigger cause for concern.

Raising your alk will help get rid of your cyano problem :biggrin:

No kidding... Marie I didn't know that. Well last night I put in 3 tsp. of baking soda in my tank. 3 tsp. equalled about 7 grams on a cooking calculator I found. And this morning my alk was up to 7.3 dkh! I didn't want to jump that high that quick but it doesn't seem to have had a bad effect on anything. The few corals and polyps that I have recently aquired from a few members :) thank you guys... :) are open and happy!

Thanks for all the help all,
Mark

reply
 

Did I read this correctly? Are you going to only add NaCo?

I know they say you should pu tin 6 parts washing soda, 1 part baking soda. To get a PH about 8.0

After further research i found out that you can dose baking soda only if it is in slow increments.

reply
 

Thats correct, the PH swing after dosing baking soda alone will eventually correct itself. But why not adjust your dosage size and add the two part? That way you don't get any PH swing.