High KH

[scfong8]

Hi Bros,

need your guidance and advice.

the kh in my tank has been rising in the past 3 weeks. It's now at level15.

please advice what the likely cause of this and how can I bring it down to an acceptable level. the other water parameters are fine except that calcium is at about 480.

many thanks

[madmac]

Wow. Thats high. You'll want to keep your pH low in the meantime. Whats ur SG at?

[scfong8]

SG is at 1.019 and ph is at 8.1

[fongster]

are you using a calcium reactor ?

or are you using argonite sand

kh will not rise without any extra additions

[scfong8]

my calcium level was super high a few weeks ago (>540) . It is now at about 460 level.

water change is once fortnghtly. The only item which I added to the water recently was daily dosage (5ml) of iodine.

I was told to add allca balance from tropic marine to reduce the kh. Does this work?

[madmac]

Read this article. It covers the case for ur senario, i.e. zone 1. The advise there is to do nothing. Which is quite sensible. If you allow for some evaporation to take place, ur SG will go up too. 1.019 is quite low, try to target for Natural Sea levels of 1.26.

Solving alk and Ca problems.

[fongster]

do you have anything in the tank that calcifies ? like hard corals?

if you do you can let the high calcium and kh be consumed, add in strontium to aid the growth of coraline algae also

in time not only will you ca and kh drop, you would need to buff them up in time to come, when the coraline algae is "blooming"

what salt are you using ?

do you test your new salt mix parameters ?

probably the high parameters come from there

[scfong8]

thanks both for your advice.

I have left the kh problem alone for the last few weeks but its still increasing and some of my corals are gone. so may have to take some desperate action before more corals die.

I use marine salt from tropic marine for many months already. furthermore, i share it with any reefer who doesn't have this problem. so i don't think it the salt parameter. i also don't have many hard corals so it will take a long while before its consume.

[scfong8]

thanks to both for your advice.

my kh problem has been weeks already and some corals are gone. so leaving it alone may not solve the problem especially i don't have many hard corals.

i use marine salt from tropic marine for many months already. I share it with another reefer and he doesn't have this problem. so may not be due to the salt parameter.

[jervismun]

I think your coral dying is a direct result of such low Sg... 1.019 is way too low... not even close to the acceptable range. I suspect something wrong with your test kit (or the testing process)... there must be an external factor that could've raise KH to that level as it is not a natural occurance... do raise your Sg slowly... very very slowly. Sg is the single most important parameter to you LS.