dkh high..

[Lisaod12]

I have lowish ph (7.8 - 8.0), low Calcium.

Trying to raise my ph, I have raised my ak/dkh to over 16(Salifert test), and my Calcium I can not get above 350.

I'm going to do a 10% water change about every other day and add nothing besides salt/water.

Does this sound like a good approve to bring back balance in a week or so?

[Bigreefer]

A few good articles on the subject....

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-04/rhf/feature/index.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2003/chem.htm

[Jimnorris]

Lisa,
This is fun stuff! I know JimD and I talk and Alk, Calicium and PH everyother day. Now first please give a list of all the additives (if any) and the amount that are going into the tank. Size of tank, amount of liverock and or sand, water movement. Do you add kalk?
Jim

[matt]

You could use some calcium chloride (turbo calc) to get the clacium up quickly. This will also drop the dkh a bit. It's not going to help your ph issue, though. Try using washing soda rather than baking soda to increase dkh in the future; that will get the ph up. For now, you could add a SMALL amount of KW, like 1/2 teaspoon or less, in a cup of RO water. (I can already hear the roar of flames on this one)

I wonder why your ph is low? The most likely candidate may be lack of oxygenation. If you have a nice tight sealed house, you could have fairly high CO2 levels in your house. Do you have a skimmer? This could help with ph.

HTH; I'm sure you'll get lots of suggestions soon.

Matt

[Lisaod12]

My tank is 45 gal, I used so much stuff in it over the last 2 weeks.. :oops:

Seachem Marine buffer, Seachem reef complete, Seachem reef calcium, seachme Reef Plus, Coral life Liquid gold plus and Kent superbuffer dkh. I did not use the buffers at the same time, I switched to Kent.

I'm taking it slow, little water changes every other day, adding nothing...

[Jimnorris]

I think you are doing the smart thing. Go slow and do several water changes over the next two weeks and then take your PH, Alk and calcium readings. The Seachem ReefBuilder is great for alk, the Seachem Reef Advanage is great for calcium, throw the ReefPlus away!and the Seachem Buffer is a good PH and alk additive (notice good not great)
Jim

[Richard]

If you have an air pump available try this - take about a quart of tank water and test the ph, then aerate the water heavily for 30 minutes or so and test the ph again. If your ph increases much after aeration then you know your have higher CO2 levels in your tank which are probably causing your low ph problem. Also keep in mind that ph varies over the course of the day so depending on when your testing you may not have any ph problem at all. My ph is at it's lowest in the morning before the lights come on.
Alot of people get into trouble when they start using too many additives. So a person starts adding buffers to raise the ph which also raise the alkalinity. Then they have problems maintaining calcium levels because their akalinity is way too high so they throw a bunch of products xy&z to fix that and on and on....great for LFS's like me but bad for your tank and your wallet.
I've found my tank does best when I don't muck with it too much. Once you get things under control try just using a balanced calcium additive (kalkwasser or a two part additive) and regular small (10% or so) water changes. Some people swear by daily iodine additions but the jury is still out on wether this is required or not IMO.

[kakfish]

I would imagine that with a consistant water change of about five gallons, maybe 3, per week the numbers would fall in order by themselves. As far as the Ph issue, I would not pay to much attention to it, only to know where it usually is when problems pop up. I would aerate the water as Richard suggested to elimate the Co2 question. I also have a tank at 8.0 and you would never know it to look at it. A stable Ph is more important than a Ph that is up one day (with a dose of magic stuff) and down in two and up one day (another dose of magic stuff) and down in two. If your body Ph did that.............. well, Somebody call the Doctor.

Pull back on the stuff and stick to some small water changes and watch the magic.

If your not going to take water changes then you need to carefully watch what you are putting in your water. With most products on the market Chloride is your worst enemy. Check the lable. There are some products on the market that love to leave other elements in your water that are not good for your animals or algaes.

Matt always has some great ideas on stuff from around the house that work very well and there are no long term problems with using them.
There Matt a personal plug. OK Doc? I've always loved his approach.

Ken
<'///><

[Lisaod12]

I tested my water today after doing 2 small water changes over about 4 days, and cut back on adding stuff and now my levels are good. I did not test the ph, because I think 8.0 was fine(but I will just to be sure). My dkh is down to about 13 and my calcium is up to about 430. Sometimes I kill this thing with love. I need to leave it and let it do it's thing to some degree.

I'm also getting a 2 part calcium supplement, and cut out a bunch of the stuff I was adding.
Thanks everyone for your tips!