High Calcium & Low PH !??!

Because there are so many answers and theories to my question/problem that I don't know what to do. So since everything is alive and thriving at the moment and I'm so confused I'm just going to leave it be and keep doing water changes and everything else as I normally do.

Thinking about trying the boiling water thing for my aiptasia kill's though for a while. Does that actually work?

 

Hows the tank doing? Any updates?

 

I decided to just let it ride. Not sure what caused the hi Ca. The pH is 8.2 now, did one water change and Ca stayed the same, did another last night and haven't checked it yet. Everything is alive and appears to be thriving. /shrug

 

If it ain't broke, don't fix it right? 8.2 is a perfectly acceptable pH anyhow!

Good luck!!

 

Ugggh!

The parameters are now the following:

ph - 7.8
ca - 640
dkh - 10 (179ppm)
mg - unknown

When I started this post I had the following:

ph- 8.2
ca - 640
dkh - 12
mg - 1340

Since the start of this post I've done two 15gal water changes (75gal tank with a lot of liverock) and I have not used any purple up or anything else that would add ca. My ph is going down and so is the dkh. After extensive reading I am finding that if I cook the baking soda it will raise ph & dkh. If I don't cook the baking soda it just raises the ph. I am getting ready to try the following formula:

Cook 2 1/4 cups baking soda @ 300 for 1 hour. Put in 1 gal of water add 1tsp for every 50gal twice daily until desiered ph is reached.

Does this sound right to you all? I am concerned that since my dkh is already at a good level I might raise it too much?

I am also confused about all this that I am seeing about how raising calcium to 450-460 then alk will start to drop. How do I have ca at 640 and alk still at 10 or 12 (last week?) If I raise my ph with this baking soda (baked) thing then my alk will go up since it raises both. My ca is already approx 640 (approx because it is off the charts of my test kit and my lfs's) so how can I raise it any more to lower the alk if it gets too high?!?!

I hope this makes sense to whoever reads it. Thanks for all your help!!

 

There has to be someone that has some input on this!!

 

bc219,
Good job on doing research!! But I would like to point out one thing, cooking the baking soda makes it INCREASE the pH, what you stated is that if you DON'T cook it it will only raise pH. Actually its the opposite, if you DON'T bake it it will LOWER pH and RAISE alk. If you bake it it RAISES both.
If I were you and SERIOUSLY concerned about a pH of 7.8(which I wouldn't be)-also was that taken in a.m. or p.m?- I would raise pH by kalkwasser or lime slurry solution. That way you would increase Ca, alk and pH but the increase in Ca and alk would be minimal as compared to the increase in pH.
You can either make a standing solution of say 1 tsp to gal of RO water and drip into the tank as evaporation make up or take a qt or so of RO water and mix in a tsp or so and stir it to a milky consistency and add to a high flow area-avoid sensitive corals.
I would recommend trying the kalkwasser before fooling around w/ the baking soda at the moment.
Good luck and keep up informed!

 

I see that I messed up when I put unbaked baking soda only raises pH, I meant alk, I just mis typed. Last night I did bake it and added 1.5tsp which brought my ph to 8.0 at 1:00 pm this afternoon. By the way the 7.8ph was tested at about 5pm yesterday afternoon.

I have some kalkwasser but no reactor and have been unsure on how to properly slowly drip it without the proper stuff. I also didn't want to use the kalk because I was concerned about raising my ca and alk even more.

So considering what I've done so far, what do you think now?

 

Kalkwasser can be used in many ways, in a reactor, slow drip, kalk slurry or like me when I'm lazy and just pour like a 1/4 c in every 15 mins! Usually I just take an old 1 gal ice cream container and fill w/ RO water. I then add about 1.5 tsp and stir gently and let sit over night. I then let it drip though an airline hose with an air regulator on it so it doesn't "pour" out. Or like I stated I would do the same set up and instead of dripping it I would just pour some in every little while. Kalk slurrys are easy to do as well.
I would recommend kalk over the baking soda in your situation, it will increase your pH FAR more than the baking soda and have LESS impact on the kH.

Good luck

 

But what about my high calcium problem? That's why I didn't want to use kalk to begin with because my ca is approx 640 already...