High alk without dosing

superfrog

superfrog

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Im beginning to worry about my alk levels. Mostly using a seachem test kit to check. Have used others to confirm with similar results.

Tank started mid May with lower alk levels at 3 meq/l. This has been slowly rising and my last test yesterday indicates alk sitting at 5 meq/l. I dont dose anything at all.

Do 50% weekly changes with aquavitro salinity mix. Parameters:

Sg always steady at 1.025.
Temp: 25
Amm: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0.1
Ph: low-8 high-8.1
I dont have a calcium test.
Lighting schedule is 8 hours.

Is this a problem? If so what could be causing it and how can it be fixed?
 
What is the Alk of your new salt water. 50% weekly is pretty high.
 
alk of fresh mixed salt water is 4 meq/l :whistling:

and yes 50 is high. planned to keep up with 50 for first 3 months then slowly drop down to 10%. Have had good results in the past with this sort of approach on small tanks
 
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to go deeper would need Ca and Mg readings
 
Also what corals do you have in your tank. If there is nothing to utilize the Alk, they will naturally stay high and keep on climbing as you do such large water changes. You do not need to do such large water changes in a new tank.
 
carlosdeandrade said:
Also what corals do you have in your tank. If there is nothing to utilize the Alk, they will naturally stay high and keep on climbing as you do such large water changes. You do not need to do such large water changes in a new tank.
Click to expand...

Not a lot in the tank at the moment. lps hammer coral (4 heads, 3 of them splitting), one tiny piece of test sps acropora (+- 2 cm), small blasto colony (4 heads, 2 new babies popping out, +- 4 cm in total), other softies (some zoas, mushrooms, gsp, toadstool leather - these shouldn't really affect calcium/alk levels?)

im experimenting with biopellets so filtration is a bit different. No GFO, etc. no carbon. no purigen. no floss n stuff.
Running a Bubble Magus mini60 reactor with biopellets and the Skimz HS1 skimmer that comes with the ibox.


What you saying about the lack of uptake and large changes makes sense. perhaps I should starve off the water changes a bit? The pellets seem to keep the nitrates in check so I really don't need the big changes (old habit I guess).

mariusmeyer said:
So you are not dosing anything?
Click to expand...

yep, not dosing anything unless you count special blend and aquavitro fuel? I feed the tank very heavily. I don't dose any direct chemistry related products.


can see the corals in this pic. The goiniopora was removed as I don't think it was feeding and was likely not going to survive long. traded back to lfs.
picture.php


edit: just realised this pic was taken before the sps frag was added so you wont see that there.
 
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will still need to see Ca and Mg values as Alk, Ca and Mg are all related

tank is looking good
 
i use salifert kits, best value for money
 
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