Help an ID10T please!

[madreefer14]

Ok, I admit I might be an idiot for doing this but I couldnt resist savign a few bucks on Live rock. I made a batch of rock out of concrete following GARF's recpie but made a little change. To make the rock more porous I used softener rock salt as half of the agrigate. I cured the rock for 6 months and after that I soaked the rock in fresh water for a week and tested the pH daily with litmus paper to be sure that it no longer spiked up. Sure enough it did not. SOOO I added it to my tank. Now I have a pH of 8.4 but tha ALK is very LOW. I'd say 1.4 MeQ/L using red sea's test kit. I've added some seachem REEF BUILDER 1/2 tsp disolved in 1 cup fresh water to help boost the ALK but with little to no results. All other perameters are normal save the calcium which incidentaly has been boosted from 400ppm to 500ppm with the addition. Now my mushroom corals arent opening up as much. The greenstar barely opens up, the candy canes arent extending their tenticals at night and my xenia stoped pulsing and is balled up. Has anyone ever experienced this problem before? If so, short of removing all of the rock and doing a good healthy water change is there anything a guy can do. I thought of adding some alk booster as fomulated by the chem expert in a reefcentral chem forum but Im afraid to add it for fear that this might put my pH over the top. Your help is much appreciated.

[drummereef]

Try some Arm & Hammer baking SODA to boost the alk. Use this calculator to determine how much to dose. http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html It won't adversely effect your pH if dosed properly.

You might want to post in the chemistry forum and ask Randy what's going on with the rock in regards to your water chemistry.

[drillsar]

Red Sea KIts are the Worst kits, WAY off. Do yourself a Favor and First get a good quality kit like Salifert.

[drummereef]

I'll second that. A titrate style testkit will be of much benefit. Salifert is all I will use. But, this doesn't say much for your unhappy corals.

[madreefer14]

Drummereef: I did post in the chem forum. I hope Randy sees it and comes to my rescue. I agree as well about red sea test kits. I have had some interesting results from the same test water. I rinsed out the vials and cleaned them well with ro water and dried them out well. on one occasion while testing for Ca+ I had a result of over 1000ppm. Of course I immedialtly repeated the test in the same tube after cleaning as above and got a totaly different result of 450 ppm. No change in technique with the second test and used the same test solution batch!!!!!! As for the ALk, I still think it needs a boost. I have some of Randy's Alk booster already made up in a gallon jug. I think I'll add about an ounce of this and see where Im at with pH and Alk. I dont want to add too much for fear that my Ca+ will precipitate out of solution. I did that once before and killed all my pods. very disapointing.

[madreefer14]

Just did a calc submitted by drillsar. i currently have randys recepit 1 "i believe since it raises my pH." Looks like I'll need to mix a batch of Randy's #2 and try it. Incidentaly while I was raising the ALK with the seachem reefbuilder it seemed as though I was getting a positive responce from the greenstar and the xenias. They seemed to be opening up more after the addition. i wonder if the alk is dropping too fast for me to keep up. RANDY HELP! your the chem guru. Im lucky to have passed highschool chem with a c-

[TekCat]

if you can, remove rocks and soak them some more in dilluted vinnegar with RO water maybe 1:10, changing water daily for at least a month. this should stop leak of high pH.

As far as your Alk/Ca whoes, use reef chem calculator to find out how much you'd need to add DIY recepie parts. If you need to add alot, then add in small batches in high flow area.

[reefshadow]

Ditto on the test kits...

Using pure baking soda will not raise the PH, and may even have a slight lowering effect, so that would be an appropriate addition IMO.

If your alk and ca reading is correct, you shouldn't have a precip event, due to the low levels of carbonate present.

Removing some or all of the rock and resoaking it may be a good idea, if your levels continue to be skewed and organisms in the tank are not reacting well. I know next to nothing about making rock, is the salt addition an accepted technique?

[madreefer14]

Im not sure about the salt I used. I figured if im going to cure it for 6 months and do weekly water changes while it is curing that all the salt would dislove and leach out over that period of time. Im sure softener salt is rather high in Mg and K.

[madreefer14]

thought about soaking the rocks in muratic acid before adding them to the tank but thought it might eat away too much of the concrete and weaken the rocks more. They are fairly brittle right now. I have a 37 gal half hex with about 27 gal actual water. how much vinegar and what type would one add. BTW what is an acceptable pH for a reef tank. I wouldnt think it would be much over 8.4 on the high end and 8.2 on the low end of the spectrum

[madreefer14]

Just added a 60 cc dose of Randy's Mg solution to help stablaise the Ca in the tank as well.

[reefshadow]

Yeah, I just don't know about the softener salt, that would definately be a Q for Randy.

Maybe I missed it, but what are you using to measure PH?

My understanding is with PH, stability is number one. 8.4 is definately getting up there on the high end of the spectrum though. If it continues to climb, best to remove the rock IMO.

White vinegar is fine, as is muriatic acid, though as you stated may weaken the rock. Be carefull with the muriatic. I would probably be inclined to just use vinegar, it's easy and cheap and [hopefully] will accomplish the same thing.

Good luck

[madreefer14]

using red sea test kit. As soon as I can afford it im going to get some good saltifer test kits. Not too worried right now as far as nitratites/ates and amonia go. tank is set up for a year now and relativly low bioload. More worried about alk ph and ca.

[madreefer14]

Sorry if your talking about the ph test for the curing tank I was using litmus paper and comparing it to red sea test kit. Problem is im not sure im comparing apples to apples when it comes to red sea ph kit and fresh vs salt water ph. but im getting pretty much the same results with litmus as I am with red sea as far as testing salt water goes

[drillsar]

I use Aquarium Pharm for Ammonia, nitrite as it really dont need to much accuracy here as it should be 0 so your fine with the cheap test kits.

As Far as Calcium, Alk, Nitrate, PH Need Accuracy so should use Salifert Kits.

Red Sea are probably the worst of all.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Most of the salt that you added is either buried in the cement, or has dissolved away. Unless you break the rocks, I wouldn't worry about it. Unless the tank pH gets above 8.5, I wouldn't worry about that either. The baking soda is a fine way to boost alkalinity.

[madreefer14]

Just added some formula 1 alk last noc. pH is still 8.4. Alk hasnt budged and is still at 1.4 but now I have a hard white film on the glass of my tank. Ca is 500 still. Any idea what this scaley stuff on my tank is? I'm assuming its Ca but if it is wouldnt this have dropped my Ca levels when I tested them..even though it is a red sea kit?