Lowering alk

Galizio · #1 06-19-2016, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoFish

That's wayyyyy to much!

It only takes 1/11000th of the water volume to drop the Alk by 2.8dkh

You can thank Randy Holmes Farley for that equation (look up "lowering alkalinity with acid" on RC post #3). So if your tank is filled without rock and is 105 gallons (397 litres) you'd need 1/11000th of that volume which would be 39.7ml to lower the dkh by 2.8. I'd first figure out how much water you have and what your Alk is for the new water then go from there.

Great, I just took a quick look on that, that's way better lol... Going to take a read on it. Still making saltwater , so when done with that I can figure it out the water volume, then test the alk and do proper adjustment .

Thanks for the info ,

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Myka · #2 06-20-2016, 02:59 PM

When I used H2Ocean I would lower the alkalinity using muriatic acid prior to doing water changes. Be aware that it DRAMATICALLY lowers pH for several hours because the reaction creates CO2. pH will rise back up, but you can't use the water for several hours. Muriatic acids only affects alkalinity and pH.

My buckets of H2Ocean would start around 9.0 dKH, I added 7 mL muriatic acid to 17 gallons of saltwater, and that lowered the alkalinity to about 7.5 dKH. I would suggest you test alkalinity, add a half dose, wait an hour, test again, and see how much more you need to add. Do you have a digital pH meter? You should check pH before adding livestock to the tank as will probably be down in the 6's after you dose. Don't bother with a pH test kit though - it's not good enough. Just make sure the water is in the high 7's before you add livestock.

Btw, provided you don't grossly overdose, it won't hurt your equipment. You won't actually see any changes visually. As mentioned though, it will produce a small whiff of vapor when you open the bottle and also when you add it to the tank - don't breathe it. If you open the windows in the house it will help bring the pH up and will clear that vapor quick too. If you point the powerheads towards the water surface that will help bring the pH up faster too by helping to off-gas the CO2.