Bio-assay mixes to high ph

[matt]

I recently mixed up a bunch of bio-assay salt to do one of my infrequent water changes, and found that the ph of the freshly mixed water, after a day or so of mixing, was 8.65. Can't figure this one out, anybody have any experiences like this before? I mixed to 35ppt.

[brewercm]

I've used it before but never checked the ph prior to adding the water to the tank. Glad to hear that I'm not the only one that does infrequent changes at times, I try to keep it regular just never do.

[captexas]

lol, I irregularly do regular water changes :-)

Was it a new package of salt? May have just been from a different batch. What does it normally test at after mixing?

[matt]

I don't know, I never tested it before. Pretty high alkalinity, but not excessive. Lately my corals have not been doing well. I'm pretty sure it has to do with a nasty flatworm beakout that I have; my hunch is that the population went sky high, then crashed somewhat, leaving lots of dead flatworms in my tank. I siphoned out lots of crap on my rocks and sand when I did the water change, and it really smelled like dead flatworms; I don't know if you've ever smelled them, but it's pretty distinctive. So I fired up my big carbon canister, and things are looking better. I'm about to do a serious siphon/flatworm exit/carbon/water change routine. Another contribution was that I had not changed the carbon block and D.I. cartridge in my filter for at least a year and a half; probably a couple of thousand gallons. I don't have a TDS meter, but I bet it wasn't good. I tend to rely heavily on my skimmer to keep my water clean, but for those things it doesn't matter.

[Sunhutch]

Wow Matt, I think you and I are in parallel universes. I too have had almost the same exaxct experiences you have had. However I have not been checking ph of the mixed water. I just recently got new cartridges for my filter and have up'd the frequency of my water changes so that seems to be helping things a bit. My flatworm outbreak has seemed to subsided for a while now so I am debating whether or not to throw carbon into the mix at this point. On my next water change Ill check ph and let you know.

[GaryP]

Flatworms typically peak and then wane. I just added several MJ 12's to my tanks and that seems to have helped a lot. They tend to congregate in areas of slack water flow where detritus builds up. They are detritivores after all. The more current you have, the less detritus, the fewer flatworms.

I'm getting ready to do another series of FE treatments to see if I can knock them down even further. When the worms die, they do release toxic body juices. I think that carbon is very beneficial in controlling this toxicity.

Gary