Alkalinity question

My dumb question of the day . . . if all you have are softies, why are you worrying about calcium? Have you ever thought about adding kalk to your top off water?

~Will.

 

Well thats all I have at the moment.Im fairly new and trying to take it slowly. I would like to keep others someday and I would like to get into the habit of keeping correct water perams anyway and have a good understanding of water chemistry.

 

That's a great question, iLLwiLL. The short answer is this: irrespective of what corals you house in your tank; calcium magnesium and alkalinity are all closely tied together. When these 3 components are in swing; the pH will take care of itself, and from there only good things can result.

So I suppose the grand equasion is that if you let any of the above 3 get out of whack, the door is open for all sorts of maladies.

 

So it turns out my Mag level is right at 1200 and thats at SG 1.022
I added seachem reef buffer to raise alk and P.H. today.
Hopefully next test it will be P.H. 8.3 ALK 8.4dKH and all will be
well in the neighborhood...

 

Just to clarify, buffers will not alter your pH longer than a few hours generally. Chasing a pH number is generally futile for this reason. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air in the room the tank is in has a HUGE effect on the pH of the tank so chasing a high pH without taking everything else into account just means your alkalinity is probably going to skyrocket due to the use of pH buffers.

Having a lower pH is not the end of the world, in fact recently there was a study reported that stated that at lower pH's coral calcification may actually increase due to increased amount of bicarbonate available.

Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies

That reminds me I probably should repost that article since I don't think I've seen it here on 3reef yet.

 

Yes I understand that P.H. will settle eventually and I never had a problem with P.H. per say.I used the seachem to raise Alk because it came down when I dosed calc.

 

I would recommend getting your salinity up to about 1.025. I found this makes it easier to keep Mag, Cal, and Alk high and stable when your salinity is at that range.

1.022 is too low IMO. The lowest I'd go is 1.024..

 

I was going to say the same thing.... K+