Low KH, please give your advice. Thanks

[Fish4life]

Too each his own. My alk went from 7 dkh to 10 dkh after i installed the kalk reactor.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Kurt

[ErikH]

The reason for that is because a kalk reactor holds a boat load of kalk! If you add straight kalkwasser to your system via a kalk reactor, it can and will raise your DKH, but that takes a substantial amount. If you use the top off method, you are only using 2 1/4 TSB per 5 gallons of water.... Essentially what I mean is Kalk reactor= tons of kalk where as ATO= very little kalk, diluted into FW.

When I first attempted to dose kalk I put WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much. It shot my DKH to 14 or 15.... Tons of water changes later, I got it back to normal parameters, and did MY OWN research and found out I was putting in too much kalk powder into my ATO reservoir...

I have found it easy to dose with a ph monitor. I use ESV, which is not the best brand, but all I have to do is add the above amount and test the PH. If it's not 12, it's too old to use.

[atxchris1234]

The LFS did a test on my water today.

Calcium was 380
Kh was 8

They suggested that I get both of those up just to make sure everything is healthy.

He suggested a target KH of about 11 and a target calcium of about 420.

So I went ahead and dosed for KH.

anything I need to be watching for? BTW my anemone immediately perked up.

[ErikH]

Have you been doing water changes regularly? That alone will keep your levels balanced without having to dose in a tank with a moderate amount of corals. I would stop dosing, and do regular water changes to see if this problem is fixed that way first. Also, are you testing at the same time? Do you have a fuge light that runs opposite your normal lights? What salt are you using???

[Hamp]

I am a total newbie, but I have been dealing with a similar problem, and thought it might help you. I recently started dosing the b-ionic, and right from the start, my KH shot up to like 13. so I stopped using the first part and continued adding calcium hoping it will drop. Several days later, no drop, so stopped dosing all together. Today I went in and did a full range of tests at LFS including magnesium. My calcium had rapidly dropped in the 2 days that I had stopped dosing to 380, KH stayed at 13, PH 8.3, but my magnesium was at 940 when it should be around 1300(mg/l?). So I know I am having the opposite of your problem, but it seems magnesium is effecting my KH drastically. (If you have a lot of coralline growth I would check this) Also I hear strontium may also be effecting KH levels. Hope this can help.

[atxchris1234]

I do about 5 gallons changed every other week and have never gotten behind more than a week or so. Truthfully I havent checked my levels in about 3-4 weeks, because I used to check pretty much daily and never really had many problems, so I assumed everything was fine. Tropic marin is the salt. I don't have a fuge.

Hamp, where did you go to get a full range test done? I had a test done yesterday, but they didn't test for magnesium or strontium.

[ErikH]

I would stop dosing and get my water in line first. Water changes water changes water changes....

[atxchris1234]

Sounds to me like I need to invest in more test kits.
This way I can monitor all of the parameters daily.

Thanks again for all the help

[Bill S]

A test kit investment is probably a good idea...

You don't have to test daily, once you get things working right.

[Hamp]

Aquatek, talk to Bruce. He has a background in chemistry(I think) and has really helped me through every phase of my tank. He might want to charge a little for the mag test, but it is pretty complicated looking and I would too. I have tested PH, KH, and calcium every day that I have dosed(which isnt long), and not understanding the wierd KH is what sent me to Bruce. That dude can break it down for ya though, and give you some good info.