Constant alkalinity?

My Calcium depletes from 450ppm to 380ppm every 7 days. But my alkalinity seems to stay constant at 8dkh.

Is that normal? Should the alkalinity deplete at the same rate as calcium?

 

Yes it will deplete at some rate. are you buffering something now?

I have always found with my SPS tanks my ALK depletes faster than my CA

 

What's your Magnesium level? Maybe you are losing Calcium to precipitation.

 

I used brightwell reef code part b last week. i used it once, the alkalinity the week before that was 8 as well. after i used the brightwell as instructed, it never went up from 8dkh. but instead, it just remained at 8dkh until now.

 

Last I checked it was 1320. I will check again today and post the results here.

 

Something doesn't sound right. With all the stonies in your system you should be losing Alk. I'm gonna suggest getting a new test kit or take your water to a store for testing.

J

 

Hey I use to have the same issue. I started using a couple of things in my ATO. I dose my ATO water with Prime Reef and Coral Builder. Seems to have done the trick.

 

You may need to raise your Magnesium level. Typically, for every 1ppm Calcium, you need 3.25ppm Magnesium to prevent loss of Calcium from solution. So, in your instance 1320ppm Mag/3.25 = 406ppm Calcium. To maintain 450ppm Calcium you would need about 1460ppm Magnesium. 450ppm Cal * 3.25 = 1462.5ppm Mag.

Try raising your Magnesium level and see if that doesn't help.

 

I might be wrong but I think coral builder will raise MAG levels.

 

So I just finished testing for Magnesium, and it's now at 1140.

So I'm guessing that's the problem. Not really sure why it got depleted so fast. Must be because everything is imbalanced as you all said.

So based on this chart, I'll be going for

Alkalinity - 12.7
Calcium - 475
Magnesium - 1420

I'll start this week and I'll post results. Hopefully it will balance out everything.