KH and Cal. to high????
- Thread starter blk822
- Start date
beachbumtx
Member
What's the difference between KH and dKH?
broomer5
Active Member
What test kits are you using blk822 ?
In my estimation, KH reading of 320ppm would be about 18 dKH, or about 6.4 meq/l alkalinity. That's condsidered high by many people.
That along with your elevated calcium is considered by many to be excessively high as well. The good thing is that both levels are high - but you are running the risk of preciptation.
You can do a series of water changes if you desire, but you don't want to do anything that would alter the pH from it's current range.
You can cease dosing the tank - and let the levels drop on their own.
If you have a lot of corraline algae or other calcium / carbonate demanding corals - I would do nothing, except stop the dosing - and let the excess calcium and carbonate be consumed naturally.
In my opinion, your saltwater would be considered supersaturated with calcium and carbonate ions at this point - and making a sudden change in temperature or pH, or continued doising could cause a huge precipitation of solid CaCO3 calcium carbonate in your tank.
If your test results are correct - I'm surprised you haven't seen some precipitation already. How's the heater looking ? Any scale build up ?
Still curious what test kits you are using, and what your getting for high/low pH range.
In my estimation, KH reading of 320ppm would be about 18 dKH, or about 6.4 meq/l alkalinity. That's condsidered high by many people.
That along with your elevated calcium is considered by many to be excessively high as well. The good thing is that both levels are high - but you are running the risk of preciptation.
You can do a series of water changes if you desire, but you don't want to do anything that would alter the pH from it's current range.
You can cease dosing the tank - and let the levels drop on their own.
If you have a lot of corraline algae or other calcium / carbonate demanding corals - I would do nothing, except stop the dosing - and let the excess calcium and carbonate be consumed naturally.
In my opinion, your saltwater would be considered supersaturated with calcium and carbonate ions at this point - and making a sudden change in temperature or pH, or continued doising could cause a huge precipitation of solid CaCO3 calcium carbonate in your tank.
If your test results are correct - I'm surprised you haven't seen some precipitation already. How's the heater looking ? Any scale build up ?
Still curious what test kits you are using, and what your getting for high/low pH range.
blk822
Member
As for test kit it's just a hagen master kit(new) and ph is off the chart as well. I think it may be the buffer used by the seachem marine I'm using not reading right on these tests. Because I have seen the snow fall once along time ago when I first started to dose kalk. I just reduced my light on time and intensity to try to combat a algae problem. I can't get the algae on my rock to go away and the coralline to go. I have a refuge with plenty of chateo. and prolifera with 24/7 lighting. Everytime I think algae is going away , I will do my trace dose or a water change and it comes right back and coralline is choked out. But another thing is phos. and nitrates are very low. So I'm trying less light , and after just two days of this the algae seems to be loosing the battle. So I will have someone test my water to see if it's the test kits.