Adding buffer

[longhorn_20m]

Okay my tank has been setup for over a month now, pushing two months. I'm using Oceanic salt and have seen a few threads about needing to add buffer. So I purchased a Salifert test kits for PH and KH. At first my PH was around 8.2-8.3 and KH was measuring at 2. I know the recommended level is 8 so I purchased Kent Marine ProBufferdKH. I read the instructions and added two cap fuls, by the way my tank is Oceanic 58 with 20 gallon sump. The next day I checked it again, still at 2, added some more. After a few times, it continued to read 2. The last couple times I added the Kent Buffer, it would cloud but instead of disapper turned into snow and fell. What does this mean? So I waited a week, did a water change, and then check parameters again. Now PH was 7.7 and KH still 2. I'm not sure what is wrong or why my KH isn't rising, or why my PH dropped now. I added the buffer again, and it also didn't dissapear and become crystals. Any suggestions?

[::pete::]

Is it a liquid you are using? Not that it matters, but I have tried both and the powder seems to work a great deal better.

[jaded]

GaryP is the resident expert on this subject... I talked to him recently about the same issues with my tank. Basically he said that the commercial liquid buffers are not much better that straight RO/DI water. The powders are much more effective, but expensive, so he gave me a simple recipe for his DIY buffer. It's made from washing soda and baking soda that you can get from the grocery store.

I'm sure he will chime in on this thread soon, but I can tell you that i now have a handle on the dkH in my tank and this stuff works VERY WELL

[longhorn_20m]

Hopefully he will respond with the secrets because I want to get mine steady and up where it needs to be.

[GaryP]

OK, pack a lunch, this may take a while. First off, what unit of measurement are you using when you say the KH is 2? Are you sure you aren't reading it off the meq/l chart for your test kit? There are 3 seperate units of measurement for alkalinity. Make sure we are talking apples and apples here.

The recommended dosage on the bottle is just a starting point. No two tanks are the same and every tank is going to have its own daily requirements. I would recommend dripping the liquid buffer into the tank slowly, one drop per second. You can do this with some air line and a small air valve. The buffer should be dripped into an area of high turbulence to make sure it is quickly diluted and dispersed. Measure the alkalinity once per hour until you get to the alkalinity that you want to be at. Natural seawater has a DKH of about 8.5. DO NOT raise it quickly. Some critters are very sensitive to rapid changes in alkalinity.

It sounds as if the buffer you have been adding got dumped into the tank, reacted with the high calcium levels, and precipitated as calcium carbonate. That's a common problem with buffer supplements. Its not the product, but how you add it. If you dump in a large amount with no mixing, it creates an area of high concentration that results in a localized "blizzard." You can get around this to some degree by pre-diluting the buffer in a larger volume of RO water that you are adding as make-up water. I hate to tell you this, but it sounds like you might have just wasted the buffer you have added. The good news is that you have an infintesimal amount of new sand added to your tank. You basically made sand.

What is the calcium level in your tank? If its very high, which I suspect since you are using Oceanic, you are going to have a really hard time bringing up your alkalinity.

I hope this helped. Please let me know if I can do anything else to help. BTW, this is going to be the topic of next month's meeting. I would encourage you to attend and learn more about the subtle mysteries of aquarium chemistry.

[GaryP]

Also, just because the cloud disappeared doesn't mean it isn't precipitating, it just means the particle size is so small that you can't see it.

My best suggestion is to sign up for a chemistry class at A&M where they teach real chemistry. Gig 'Em!!! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

BTW, was that fast enough?

[Instar]

You guys are on a death run for that tank here. Just stop adding things now. Its probably too late, but at pH of 8.2, that 2 alk is in MEQ/L not dKh scale. The calcium fell b/c its no longer bio-available ionic Ca++ now, its crystals on the rocks and substrate precipitated as CaCO3 and CaHCO3. Too much buffer will lower the Ca and with it available in concentrate, when it turns to snow and precipitates, both buffer and Ca are gone. That will lower the pH. The best thing you can do now is small water changes every day until you get it balanced back out. 10% water volume change for 10 days. You have to subtract the volume taken by rocks, sand and pumps to figure that out in gallons. When adding buffers and Ca, its not very easy to get it right and on the dKh scale (around 7.8, in mEq/L is 2.something) a change of 0.4 dKh in a day will kill some things, cause diseased in others that result in death, and stress out other things. Stress adds toxins to the water from the stressed animals, and so on we go. If you have leathers, start running carbon as well as doing the water changes.

[Instar]

In reading again, you said you changed water and added buffer. These is so much buffer in there already, you just wiped out the Calcium again that was in there from the water change. Stop adding buffer, you are measuing and comparing on the wrong scales. Its supposed to be 2 on the buffer. The test kit you have is not sensitive enough to show the gradients between 2 and 3 sounds like. You will never get it up to 3 b/c the scale you are shooting for is not related to the one you are measuring at. 2 is a good place to be on that scale of measure.

[longhorn_20m]

I just looked at it again and I believe I'm reading it right, it is a salifert test kit for KH, instructions are below:

Instructions:

1. Add with the 5 ml syringe 4 ml of water in the test vial. For a lower resolution and more tests per kit add 2 instead of 4 ml.

2. Shake the KH-Ind dropping bottle a few times and add 2 drops in the test vial (1 drop for the low resolution mode).

3. Put the plastic tip firmly on the 1 ml syringe. And draw into the syringe the KH reagent (ensure that the end of the plastic tip is constantly submersed in the KH reagent) till the lower end of the black part of the piston is exactly at the 1.00 ml mark. There will be some air present just below the piston. This is the air which was present between the end of the plastic tip and the piston. This will not influence the test result.

4. Add dropwise with the 1 ml syringe the KH reagent to the water in the test tube. Swirl after each drop a second or two. Continue with this until the color changes from blue/green to orange-red or pink color (whichever color is observed first).

5. Hold the syringe with the tip facing upward and read the position of the, now the upper end, of the black part of the piston. The syringe has graduations of 0.01 ml. Read the KH or alkalinity value from the table or calculate as follows.


So my test vial changes color after I put in .2 of the solution, thus when flipped up to read, the black part of piston is at .8, so I look at the chart:

Can it be a bad test kit?




Reading in ml`s (step 5) | KH value in dKH | Alkalinity in meq/L
0.80 | 3.2 | 1.14



Chart is below:

KH/Alkalinity Table
If you took 2 ml of water in step 1 then multiply the KH and alkalinity values by 2!
Reading in ml`s (step 5) KH value in dKH Alkalinity in meq/L
0.00 16.0 5.71
0.02 15.7 5.60
0.04 15.4 5.49
0.06 15.0 5.37
0.08 14.7 5.26
0.10 14.4 5.14
0.12 14.1 5.03
0.14 13.8 4.91
0.16 13.4 4.80
0.18 13.1 4.69
0.20 12.8 4.57
0.22 12.5 4.46
0.24 12.2 4.34
0.26 11.8 4.23
0.28 11.5 4.11
0.30 11.2 4.00
0.32 10.9 3.89
0.34 10.6 3.77
0.36 10.2 3.66
0.38 9.9 3.54
0.40 9.6 3.43
0.42 9.3 3.31
0.44 9.0 3.20
0.46 8.6 3.09
0.48 8.3 2.97
0.50 8.0 2.86
0.52 7.7 2.74
0.54 7.4 2.63
0.56 7.0 2.51
0.58 6.7 2.40
0.60 6.4 2.29
0.62 6.1 2.17
0.64 5.8 2.06
0.66 5.4 1.94
0.68 5.1 1.83
0.70 4.8 1.71
0.72 4.5 1.60
0.74 4.2 1.49
0.76 3.8 1.37
0.78 3.5 1.26
0.80 3.2 1.14
0.82 2.9 1.03
0.84 2.6 0.91
0.86 2.2 0.80
0.88 1.9 0.69
0.90 1.6 0.57
0.92 1.3 0.46
0.94 1.0 0.34
0.96 0.6 0.23
0.98 0.3 0.11

[GaryP]

OK, you are correct. Your DKH is 3.2 units. Now, what is your Calcium?

Also, another hint. Once you have reached what you thing is the endpoint where the color has changed color, let it sit for a minute and see if it changes back again. Sometimes the endpoint may take a little more reagent then you originally thought because it takes a little while for everything to completely dissolve, mix, and react.

[Instar]

I am sorry, but if your dKh was 3.2, the pH would not be 8.2 and life would have already ceased to exist in your tank. It doesn't have that much range adapability that it can go down that low and if there was any calcium at all in there, not precipitated out, then it should be over 600. What is your calcium, Mg and pH now? You (we) need those values along with that dKh. Stoney corals can go up in dKh quite a bit from the normal of about 7.7 and do well even if its done a little too fast. Many sponges and lots of other things can not go up that high and do well unless its done over a period of months and then its a little bit harsh to them Life in general can not change more than 0.4 in a 24 hour period. pH and Ca follow likewise proportionately. Stoney corals will have a hard time assimulating CaCO3 if the dKh goes down much below 7. If that happens, then Calcium goes up but is not readily accessable to move across the cell membrane to skeletal structure. I'm going to hazard a guess that Mg is a big issue for you too at this point. As for the test kit, have someone else test the water for you with a different kit. If those kits sit on the shelf too long, they do go bad just like any other liquid reagent test kit. If your kit was correct and you did need buffer, then you would not get the snow storm. Also, if you have good calcium (not too high, not low), good pH liek you had before all this at 8.2 and life is thriving in your tank, then you don't need buffer. You have maybe 40 gallons of water. Do you have a lot of animals making calcium skeletons in there to change the calcium? If you did need buffer, then calcium would have been 500 to 525, if you needed both because of something using calcium and CO3 like mad, then you would have to add both at the same time. Oceanic is not a robust salt and you do have to add to it because of that, but, you need to test all the parameters to figure out rates of consumption for your tank. You need to test about 2x per week for the first 6 months to establish where you are and going to. Also, when you test, I understand the reasons for cutting the amount in half, but, in the beginning, use the full amount. Unless you are a professional chemist, its way to easy to introduce a very significant error by cutting the amount in half. Also keep in mind that OTC test kits we get in the LFS are prone to 40% error, way outside a confidence accuracy of 95% or greater. In other words, the error is frequently 3 to 4 standard deviations from the expected actual test value and that is a pretty big error when you really need to know true values. Then add to that one test kit may be that much off too low, and the other that much off too high. From there you are trying to figure out what to dose and how much of it. It comes out to a mess when you consider all that. It is very very difficult to get it right because of the error deviation. So, all that said, using the full unit of measure will help to reduce the error a little bit. Those syringes are not that accurate when combined with the "little" bubble in there and compounded with the reagent shelf life and its degredation. Are the vials dated with expiration dates individually? This is probably all as clear as mud, huh?

[GaryP]

Instar's post made me thing of something. Are you drawing the syringe back to the point where the black part of the plunger is at 0? Are you using the yellow plastic tip on the syringe?

[NaCl_H2O]

Something doesn't seem right here? Mix up a fresh batch of Oceanic & test it. Use RO/DI & mix to 1.024SG and your results should be about like this:

SG = 1.024
dKH = 8.4
Ca = 600+
Mg = ~1500
PH = 8.0

[longhorn_20m]

Okay guys, thanks for all the help. Currently I don't have my test kit as I'm letting someone borrow it who also setup a tank at the same time as me. I'm actually getting ready now to go to a bachelor party and will be back sometime tomorrow and will inspect the kits closer, mix new batch and test it. I need to get a calcium test kit as I don't have one. I guess I'm thinking about reinvesting in new tests, what is preferred brand of everyone and something I can get in Austin?

Thanks,

[longhorn_20m]

Another note, right now I have two fish in the tank. I added a copperband butterfly and bangaii cardinal a few days ago from a system my friend took down. They are fine, active, and look great, so I'm banking the test kit is bad somehow. I will be printing this out and going over in more detail and will let everyone know what happens tomorrow with testing.

Thanks

[GaryP]

OK, good luck and let us know what we can do to help.

[Instar]

My favorite test "kit" costs a quarter million dollars, so ya'll will have to take on the favorite test kit question for Ca/Mg/SG/pH/alk/I for him.

[NaCl_H2O]

My favorite test "kit" costs a quarter million dollars
Guess I'll stick with my cheapo Salifert kits ;)

[Instar]

You know its funny with all that at my disposal the only thing I ever use anymore is my el cheap plastic deep 6 to check SG in new mixed water and when doing acclimations. The only water I regularly check is the Berghia culture water and my NH3 kit probably expired a couple years ago. My pH probe has never been out of its original box. I should get more scientific? In my defense, I do check calibration on my deep 6 regularly. When you use those salifert test kits, how do you figure out the Std error deviation and do QC? If I give you a calcium Std at 450, will you be off 50mg, 100? IF you don't know, then you are simply shwinging it just like me except with a kit and false hopes! 8)

[JimD]

Ill take that useless Ph probe off your hands....

[NaCl_H2O]

Hey, false hopes keep me going at work, why not at home :unsure

I was testing a bunch when I was trying to get my Ca reactor, etc. balanced out. I was mostly looking for ballparks, looking to see relative changes from the day before. However, I am still a little SG & PH paranoid, but only cuz things have gone haywire before and I am still "compensating" for my errors :angel

Someday I will be confident again like Larry and be able to say "Heck, the water is clear, must be good" :D

[Instar]

JimD - picture Linus and his security blanket. As long as i have it, I won't need it. Sure as I let go if it, then I'll wish I hadn't. :unsure

When the water is clear, that is good! When I was trying to start up a new tank of green water, it just wouldn't grow in that tank so I made it into something else. Now that I want clear, its green. So confidence comes and goes with clarity. I know its not the test kits, cause that is not a factor for me. (Why does that sound like a TV show line?) Really confidence has nothing to do with it, you gotta just be a nut or thrill seeker to go testkitless. :w00t

[Instar]

However, I am still a little SG & PH paranoid, but only cuz things have gone haywire before and I am still "compensating" for my errors

Ok, Steve, I reread your test results for new mixed Oceanic. Now I understand what happened that you summarized in this quote.

[NaCl_H2O]

I have come to my own conclusions on Oceanic ...

Not a good choice for new tanks - Out of the bucket, Ca is too high and Alk & PH are too low. I setup my system using Oceanic and struggled to balance out everything. Now that my tanks are approaching a year runing (has it been that long?), I am still using Oceanic but the system seems to be reaching a maturity level that's keeping things much more stable. Ca 350-400, dKH 10, PH 8.1. A 15-20% water change with Oceanic has no noticable impact on PH or dKH, and the Ca gets a little boost (maybe 25ppm).

So, I like Oceanic for an established tank, and really like the way it dissolves, but would probably start a new tank with something else next time.

[longhorn_20m]

Okay purchased three new test kits:

PH 7.7
KH 4 KH value in dKH
Calcium, off charts, around 20-25 drops need to change colors, i put almost 40

I'm running the RO/DI right now and will make 5 gallons for water change. Once mixed up, I will take measurements and post.

[longhorn_20m]

Okay so mixed up a batch of water using Oceanic.

PH: 8.3
KH: 10-11 dKH
Calcium: 600+

So I guess I will try doing a 5 gallon waterchange every day/two days and hopefully get my system back in order.

[longhorn_20m]

Guys another question.

Would it be a good idea to switch salts? I was thinking about buying a bucket of red sea salt and use this. I would just do my five gallon water changes with this over a week or two and should completely replace the water I have.

Is this a good idea?