Woops dkh & Kent Superbuffer

Justin · #1 02-26-2003, 04:14 AM

Well I set up a new tank a couple weeks back. Everything was fine with the basic water parameters, ph 8.0 dKH 8. I wanted to jump the pH up a little, so I used some of the stuff I use for my african cichlids. What I used was Sodium Bicarbonate. Did a couple teaspoons. Low and behold 24 hours later the ph was down to 7.8. I was like WTF. So I went and got some Kent Superbuffer dKH from work, did the recomended dosage. 24 hours later WTF. The pH was 7.6!! So I thought I screwed something up. So I went and added another dosage of the Kent superbuffer. Came home from work today, and all over the walls of the tank is this white deposit, I am assuming is chealated calcium, but I have no idea. It is on everything and I scraped some off with a razor, it's hard as a rock. Within 2 hours it's already redeposited. It;s now all over in the water column as well. WTF happened and how do I fix it? The PH is down to 7.5 and the dKH is over 30. Thanks guys & gals!

Justin

Aquattro · #2 02-26-2003, 04:48 AM

water change ....big water change

Try posting this to the Chemistry forum on RC...Randy will fix you up!!

Justin · #3 02-26-2003, 06:42 AM

I am prepping water for a 50% change already, should let it sit a few more days though. I posted on RC, thanks for the link! How big of a water change were you thinking?

Aquattro · #4 02-26-2003, 07:11 AM

Justin, do 25% and see where it puts you. And you don't need to let the water mix for days. Once the salt is dissolved, away you go!
In the future, dose your buffer and wait 24 hours before re-dosing.

You should also check the Ca levels now that it's growing on your glass.

Dorkel Marine 1 · #5 02-26-2003, 07:20 AM

Brad when you say "dose the buffer", what exactly do you mean. I'm interested because soon I will be testing for alk and wanting to raise my alk and calcium levels if needed.
Thanks in advance

George

Justin · #6 02-26-2003, 07:33 AM

I don't have a calcium test kit. I gave mine to my cousin. You think it;s calcium on the glass? What would cause it to come out of the water and onto the glass? I have not added any calcium. I have stupid high alk, like I said over 30 drops and I stopped testing. Any ideas why the PH is crashing? I am wondering if I should not just reset the tank in total..

Aquattro · #7 02-26-2003, 07:48 AM

Justin, the calcium is forced out by the stupid high alkalinity. When one goes way up, the other will come way down. You'll get used to that in time and figure how to balance it.
You need to get your Ca kit back, or take a sample to the lfs. A good water change and some time will smooth everything out. Ensure you're SG is @ 1.026.
It's 12:30am so I'm not going to start typing chem equations, Randy on RC will have them all pre-typed. At the top of the chem forum is a bunch of links to chem related articles by Randy and Craig Bingman....they will tell you exactly why your pH dropped. Do a water change, read some chem, and then decide what to do.

Dorkel, all I mean is that if your adding a alk buffer, wait a good amount of time before trying to get an accurate measurement.

For both of you, probably best to use one of the 2 part solutions, this will keep everything balanced.

Dorkel Marine 1 · #8 02-26-2003, 03:00 PM

Thanks Brad. I'd be interested what you think about keeping an alk balance in 50 gallons of water. And and also calcium balances. I will have two 27 gal. tanks connected together very soon. I'll be havin only softies as upgrading my lite will not be for awhile. I have 2 watts per gal of lite. I'm only planning on getting maybe some type of bubble coral, frogspawn any softie thats comfy with my lite level. Ok I'm getting of track. I'm off to check out RC. Also what about adding kalk. I was reading a little and have posted some and people have said it is a great way to maintain alk levels. Anyway thanks in advance Brad. I appreciate your input on posts and your matter of fact answers not to mention your humor.

Again thanks.

George and family

Aquattro · #9 02-26-2003, 05:28 PM

George, the first thing you'll want to do is determine your consumption levels. Measure your alk and retest 24 hours later. This tells you your daily alk consumption. It also tells you Ca since Ca and alk tend to move in a ratio. 1mEq/l change in alk will effect a 20ppm change in Ca. If you have a couple of euphylia (hammer, frogspawn) and softies (they use Ca too, btw), you most likely will not need to use kalk. If you do use it, don't mix it full strength. This will just end up as deposits of white spots all over your glass.
Your best bet would be to buy large bottles of your favorite 2 part solution and dose that. Once you determine your consumption, it's simple math to determine what dosage to use. Once you have some numbers, it might turn out that kalk might be an option. But until you know how much alk you need, you can't decide how to add it (economically speaking).

Justin · #10 02-26-2003, 06:15 PM

Thanks for the advise. I read through a few articles at the top, and then a few more that Randy told me to read through. I figured out what's up with the alk/ca levels, but I am still not sure what caused the pH drop before all of this. However, I should have added apH raising agent that does not effect alk, but my mistake! I am thinking I may just reset the whole system, as I am having a very hard time getting the calcium off the glass. I could do it, but it would just go back into the water column, and it's on the silicone as well. My only other option is to wait and see if lowering the alk, which is going to take atleast 3 (if not more) 50% water changes will bring the ca back into solution. I think it just may be easier to reset the system, and a whole lot less water. What do you think?