BIG TROUBLE!! Need advice please.

[viperfish]

Originally Posted by doch

Yes, I do use RODI. This is the first time that I have.

I think that I may have found the Mg culprit. I had a bucket of 2Ocean sitting around waiting for changes.... I was at the bottom of the bucket, and today I did yet another water change, and tested the Mg before putting the tank online. 1850! Seems that is the Mg problem. I wasn't smart enough to test the Kh before putting it online, so who knows about that. For the record... yes, yes, I know... roll, shake and disturb salt before use. I have learned this the hard way. Crap. And lots of it.

This all said, who knows... it's a semi old Mg test kit, maybe it's out? I get a new one tomorrow so we'll see.

So, I went onto BRS and used their reef calculator... turns out that I was using too little GFO, so I upped that and the carbon. I dosed a little Ca so we'll see what that does... hopefully bring the Kh down.

One question though... talking to buddy tonight, I was told that dosing for Alk will drop the pH... is this right? Everytime I dose soda ash my pH spikes... I think. I haven't paid attention in a while, but I thought that was the case.


Anyways kids, thanks for the inputs. Wish me luck in saving my little box of ocean!

The effect of Alk on your PH is determined by the recipe you are using. sodium bicarbonate will drop the PH but soda ash (sodium carbonate) will raise it.