Alkalinity/Clacium & PH

jonnywater

jonnywater

Member
Here is something that I REALLY dont get. My Calc and Redox are fine. My Calc I know is about 460 and my PH is holding steady at around 8.3. Now I am using Nutrafin (Hagen) and Red Sea test kits. I know there are other ones out there and dont care. These test kits have remained steady for me for months now. As in I could buy 45 hagen calc test kits and they would all give me the same reading.
My KH though is around 80-90 which is kind of low. Anything inside of 105 is kind of low. I just started using a two part calc/ph buffer and want to know if I should just give it a few days to balance the alk out? Because the calc and ph are both steady for the last 3 days and havent gone anywhere.
 
A

andretti

Guest
Use Kent's dKH (I think that's what it's called) or Sea Chems Reef builder. That will fix your KH problem.
 
weberian

weberian

Member
My understanding is that if you are using a 2-part system, and if one of the parts starts to test low, such as your KH, then you should increase dosing of that part. So slightly increase the buffer part of your 2-part system. Adding Buffer increases KH. Both products Andretti mentions are buffers.
 
jonnywater

jonnywater

Member
Yeah but one does calc and all the traces. It has higher levels of strontium and magnesium and the other is mainly "sodium" stuff to raise the alk and PH. Problem is that I dont think it wont "overshoot" my PH in the event that I use more of it to raise my alk up. I think I might have to just use Seachem Reef Buffer because I think it says that it raises your alk .05 and wont ever raise your PH past 8.3. I might just give it some time since I just switched over to this stuff a week ago and see if it actually balances itself out. With calc and PH being normal you would figure that it would. In the event that it doesnt within a few days, then I will use both ideas.
I just dont get why it would say that it is a two part buffer that also does your alk and ph and calcium and then my alk keeps dropping. Atleast my sun coral is open right now and I just got done feeding each and polyp some plankton individually. Thanks.
 
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