ALK Sky High!!!!

banditpowdercoat · #1 06-12-2009, 03:20 AM

just did water samples on my tanks., All are good except Alk on the 150. The Salfert test show's 16

Params are

Sg 1.025
PH 8.3
Po4 Undetectable
Ca 345
Mg 1200
Alk 16+

I acctually did not get a reading with one syringe, It took 3 drops of the 2nd syringe to get the Alk to change color. My other tanks are hovering around 8-8.3 so I know the kit is OK. I checked it twice, same reading too. What gives? Can it really be that high? what brings Alk down?

mark · #2 06-12-2009, 03:26 AM

water changes and if you have a Ca reactor, turn it off.

I've spiked my tank a couple of time when first setting up my reactor (lesson, reactors are to maintain lvls not raise then) to 15 dKH, didn't see much problems other than I think the Xenia didn't like it much.

banditpowdercoat · #3 06-12-2009, 03:28 AM

No reactor, Just a Phos canister. No fish or corals yet either. Well, a couple little Mushrooms that survives a month in the tote bath

mark · #4 06-12-2009, 03:42 AM

well looking like no worries since not stocked.

same salt mix as used in other tanks?

banditpowdercoat · #5 06-12-2009, 04:23 AM

Ya, same salt mix. I was kinda hoping for a rapid cycle in this tank, so far, other than Alk, everyhting looks good.

Myka · #6 06-12-2009, 05:51 AM

I suppose you're not dosing anything yet? What salt are you using?

I remember my tank spiked up to 18+ dKH a couple years back, and some of the corals were stressed, but a couple water changes brought it down.

midgetwaiter · #7 06-13-2009, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by banditpowdercoat

I acctually did not get a reading with one syringe, It took 3 drops of the 2nd syringe to get the Alk to change color. My other tanks are hovering around 8-8.3 so I know the kit is OK. I checked it twice, same reading too. What gives? Can it really be that high? what brings Alk down?

Double check with another kit before changing anything. The chances of it really being that high are pretty slim unless you were really screwing around with something. I would expect your pH to also be high if it were really 16dkh and things would not be looking normal.

I had a Salifert Alk kit that seemed okay most of the time but the first time I tried it on a freshly mixed batch of IO I had the same result. Carefully double checking the kit did show that it was reading ~1.5 dkh high compared to others but I never figured out why it measured that one batch at 16.

BlueAbyss · #8 06-13-2009, 07:46 AM

Is this water really fresh? I've heard this before with IO salt, freshly mixed.

banditpowdercoat · #9 06-13-2009, 10:56 AM

Water is FRESH, as in 6 days old.

StirCrazy · #10 06-13-2009, 03:03 PM

6 days old isn't fresh it is aged new water... the problem with IO is if you measure it befor it is totaly desolved.. once it is a day old I have always gotten true readings. but there were thoes bad buckets about 7 years ago which had huge alk and wipped out tanks, but seeing your readings thats not the issue.

you high alk is depressing you Ca level and because your Mg is a tad on the low side it is making it hard for your Ca to come up to offset your alk. I would sugest raising your Mg to 1350 befor you add Ca. you will notice as you raise your Mg you Ca will increase a bit also and your alk may drop on its own as the Ca comes up. once you have your Mg at 1350 wait a couple days for everything to stabalize and raise your Ca to about 400. then check your alk and there is a good chance it will now be well under 13.

Steve