Base of sps Turning white

Aight so since i stopped dosing Kalk and did a 10g water change Seems like my Alk is on it's way down. It was at 11.9 last week and now it's 10.5dkh

Calc is at 325
Mag is at 1200 (never seems to change)

So im' going with ALK was my problem. Gonna stop dosing kalk and see what happens. I'd like to get my Calc up above 400 though which is why i originall started dosing kalk. my calc and alk were both low. I used to be at 6.9dkh and 310 calc
 
Joe5688 said:
Aight so since i stopped dosing Kalk and did a 10g water change Seems like my Alk is on it's way down. It was at 11.9 last week and now it's 10.5dkh

Calc is at 325
Mag is at 1200 (never seems to change)

So im' going with ALK was my problem. Gonna stop dosing kalk and see what happens. I'd like to get my Calc up above 400 though which is why i originall started dosing kalk. my calc and alk were both low. I used to be at 6.9dkh and 310 calc
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Glad to hear things are doing better. I don't have any experience dosing Kalk, but if I were you I'd do three things based on my recent experience trying to keep my levels stable. Bring up Mg to 1300-1350 and keep it there to stabilize Alk/Ca ratio. Dose a calcium supplement over a few days that doesn't also raise Alk until you are at 420-450. This will also pull down your Alk. Keep on eye on your Alk during this time and keep it at a level of your choice between 8.2-10 (low side if carbon dosing) with Alk only supplement if needed. Once you hit your baselines, use 2 part (+ Mg) or Ca reactor to keep them there. If you test 2x a day during this time, you can calculate roughly how much of each component (if 2 part) or Ca effluent your tank needs based on the differences in test results. Once they stay the same you're done.

I know opinions are like assholes and everyone has em, but here's my 2 cents ;)
 
With what i have in my tank i shouldn't need any dosing. That's my issue lol.which is why i blame my test kits
 
Joe5688 said:
With what i have in my tank i shouldn't need any dosing. That's my issue lol.which is why i blame my test kits
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Well this would be true if you don't have SPS. But those little colored sticks are freaking high maintenance and as much as I like them they can be a real pain to keep happy. IME it's the Alk swings that will kill em off the fastest. They just cant tolerate more than about 1 dKH in a day IME. My tank uses a little more than 1 dKH a day, so if dosing goes offline for more than a day chances are everything will be dead. Stupid SPS. :a02:
 
kalk causes ph swings too, you cannot raise parameters using kalk, only maintain them, if you were raising params using kalkwasser it was probably causing a ph spike as well

also its cheap insurance to put a ph controller on ATO when using kalk, have it cut off at 8.6, ideally you do not want kalk to raise your ph more than 0.3 in any given dose, if your ATO is raising it more than that you need to look at 2 part dosing instead of using kalk.
 
Hmm, i'll have to see what happens after everything stablizes again. Then i can go from there. To many variables this month to for sure pinpoint something. Guess it's a learning mistake
 
Just an update. I stopped dosing kalk and I see my numbers still going down.

calc- 280
Alk- 8.7

So not dosing kalk is causing my numbers to drop.

On the plus side. It appears all STN has stoped and I am getting new growth and color from my SPS. Now time to figure out a happy place for dosing things.
 
I'd start dosing about 2 parts Ca to 1 part Alk. See if you can get Ca between 420-460 and Alk anywhere between 8.3-10.5 (as long as it's stable). Keep in mind if you dose one, the other will go down slightly. Also make sure Mg stays around 1280-1350 to help balance Ca/Alk.
 
I'll look onto it thanks.

I noticed today that some of the white stnd frags have pe :lol: hopefully they start to color back up!
I'm gonna test my wc parameters just to see if my test kits are really inaccurate.
 
Joe5688 said:
Just an update. I stopped dosing kalk and I see my numbers still going down.

calc- 280
Alk- 8.7

So not dosing kalk is causing my numbers to drop.


On the plus side. It appears all STN has stoped and I am getting new growth and color from my SPS. Now time to figure out a happy place for dosing things.
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would be higher with just wc u have nothing in there that will use that much calcium. time for new test
 
Joe5688 said:
I'll look onto it thanks.

I noticed today that some of the white stnd frags have pe :lol: hopefully they start to color back up!
I'm gonna test my wc parameters just to see if my test kits are really inaccurate.
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That's awesome Joe! Glad to hear they're doing better.
 
Thanks double dees. I'm hoping it's just the test kit. I really dont wanna start having to dose and shat lol
 
Joe5688 said:
Thanks double dees. I'm hoping it's just the test kit. I really dont wanna start having to dose and shat lol
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I ended up getting one of those marine color chinese dosing units. Works pretty well. I just mixed alk, cal, and mag into separate containers. Set the how much and how many times I want it to dose, then test every now and then and adjust. Pretty easy.
 
Joe5688 said:
but aren't they no longer available? lol
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Will be a great investment IMO!! Your tank will be stable and growth will be insane...

Started using my doser and just shocked how the numbers are dead on all the time.. But my system is small which levels are very important for my SPS :D
 
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