High alk. Corals look fine. What should I do?

[Novicereefer]

Hey,

Since I've been dripping kalkwasser 24/7 for a few days now, I've seen a boost in my ph from 7.8 at night to 8/8.1 and 8 to 8.4 during the day. Alk has been sitting around 8.5 but I tested it twice today with Hannah and Salifert and they both read 11.2-11.4. The corals look fine. They're open and have a color. I started doing the drip which is dripping at its slowest at about 1 drop every 4ish seconds because the last time I went away my really fast growing corals (Monti, birdsnest, Cyphastreas, chalice) dropped my alk from 8.5 to about 6.5 in 5 days. Lost an Acro because of it. I'm going away again this Thursday to Sunday. I don't want it to keep rising but if I shut off my drip system, the alkalinity WILL drastically drop over the next few days because of the corals I've mentioned.

Should I do a 25% water change to bring the alkalinity back down a bit or leave it since the corals are showing XERO signs of stress? Should I have maybe a 50% water change ready for when I get back just in case of an emergency I can easily change water?

 

[exnisstech]

When I dosed kalk I used a brs 1ml a minute dosing pump on a digital timer. It took some time getting it dialed in but once I got it I was able to keep alk very consistent in the mid 8s. I Don't think doing a WC to lower it then letting it rise again while your gone is good.
You said you've only been dosing it for a few days so that is already a huge increase that hopefully won't show problems in the future. Depending on how long you'll be gone it may be best just to let it come down on its own and work on dialing in the kalk when you return.
If you haven't already done it calculating your daily consumption is really necessary to calculate the amount alk supplement used.

 

[legalizedreefer]

Do the backwards math:

Let’s say you started kalk 3 days ago.
3 days ago your dKH was 8.5 and now it’s 11.4

You have overdosed 2.9 dKH worth of kalk over 3 days. Let’s round it to 3 dKH and that gives you 1 dKH per day worth of kalk you are overdosing

Use the reef chemistry calculator and plug in your tank size.

Type in 8 DkH as your current value, and 9 dKH as your desired value. Set the alkalinity supplement in the drop down menu as Kalkwasser and the volume It spits out in ML will be the volume per day that you are adding that is creating that daily 1 dkh rise

Remove that amount from your daily dosing and your Alk rise should stop. Actually, remove a little more than that to let your dKH slowly fall down back to the range you want it at. But I agree with above. Best not to try new things when you won’t be around to monitor

 

[Novicereefer]

Yea you're right. The method I was doing before was dosing by hand twice a day. I do have a dosing pump. Its the jecod one with 3 heads but I stopped using it because when I programmed it to dose a higher amount it stopped. Maybe I can reboot it and try it again to dose later amounts less frequently. I just don't want the alkalinity to drop too fast when I'm gone again

When I dosed kalk I used a brs 1ml a minute dosing pump on a digital timer. It took some time getting it dialed in but once I got it I was able to keep alk very consistent in the mid 8s. I Don't think doing a WC to lower it then letting it rise again while your gone is good.
You said you've only been dosing it for a few days so that is already a huge increase that hopefully won't show problems in the future. Depending on how long you'll be gone it may be best just to let it come down on its own and work on dialing in the kalk when you return.
If you haven't already done it calculating your daily consumption is really necessary to calculate the amount alk supplement used.

 

[Novicereefer]

Do the backwards math:

Let’s say you started kalk 3 days ago.
3 days ago your dKH was 8.5 and now it’s 11.4

You have overdosed 2.9 dKH worth of kalk over 3 days. Let’s round it to 3 dKH and that gives you 1 dKH per day worth of kalk you are overdosing

Use the reef chemistry calculator and plug in your tank size.

Type in 8 DkH as your current value, and 9 dKH as your desired value. Set the alkalinity supplement in the drop down menu as Kalkwasser and the volume It spits out in ML will be the volume per day that you are adding that is creating that daily 1 dkh rise

Remove that amount from your daily dosing and your Alk rise should stop. Actually, remove a little more than that to let your dKH slowly fall down back to the range you want it at. But I agree with above. Best not to try new things when you won’t be around to monitor

This is genius! I'll try this when I get back. I think for this trip since I'll be gone for 4 days (travel days included), should I just turn off the drip system and following the math from when it dropped last time - it dropped 2dkh in 5 days, 4 days should allow my 11.4 dkh should drop to at least 9.5/10.. 9 at most since those same corals are bigger now. Do you suggest this? Just turning it off and let it come down on its own from corals sucking it up?

 

[Formulator]

This is genius! I'll try this when I get back. I think for this trip since I'll be gone for 4 days (travel days included), should I just turn off the drip system and following the math from when it dropped last time - it dropped 2dkh in 5 days, 4 days should allow my 11.4 dkh should drop to at least 9.5/10.. 9 at most since those same corals are bigger now. Do you suggest this? Just turning it off and let it come down on its own from corals sucking it up?

Yes turn it off and let it drop. You need to figure out how much alkalinity your tank consumes per day and dose the kalk needed to replenish that. Dosing willy-nilly to boost pH is not the intended purpose of kalk. You are lucky you caught this before the alk rose too high. Your corals are fine because the rise was fairly gradual and corals do fine anywhere in the range of about 6.5-12 dkh, as long as there are no rapid swings. Above 12 you would have started having issues with coral health.

 

[Novicereefer]

Yes turn it off and let it drop. You need to figure out how much alkalinity your tank consumes per day and dose the kalk needed to replenish that. Dosing willy-nilly to boost pH is not the intended purpose of kalk. You are lucky you caught this before the alk rose too high. Your corals are fine because the rise was fairly gradual and corals do fine anywhere in the range of about 6.5-12 dkh, as long as there are no rapid swings. Above 12 you would have started having issues with coral health.

I did that and went away for 3 days. Alk dropped down to 10ish. Corals are still very happy. I can tell the alk consumption slowed a bit. Corals were probably starting to get stressed but like you said I caught it in time. Thank you