sky high alkalinity.....

[SexiShrimp]

Hey all,
I was checking my perameters and found out I have really high alkalinity. I'm doing a water change soon and was wondering what else I should do?
pH-8.0 (I want to raise this soon too!)
Calcium- 450
Alk- 300mg/L
salinity- 1.023


any help would be appreciated!:)

[cknox2]

300 mg/L is a strange number. ALK is usually in mEq/L or dKh. 300 mg of what per liter? It makes a difference if its bicarb or carbonate.
If you are talking about bicarb (HCO3-, and it makes up about 90% of your total alk in an average reef tank), its FW is ~84 so 300 mg/ml is about 5 mEq/L, which is a bit high but should drop down to 3-4 very quickly if you quit supplementing ALK, which desirable ALK.

See if you can get a number in mEq/L. what test kit are you using?

You sould quit dosing ALK for a few days, until limits are normal. Then, use baked bakind soda (cook it @350 for an hour to remove CO2) to supplement your ALK, which wll help raise pH a lot more than other things.

Hope that helps.

[fishdoc11]

Agree with cknox2.
Chris

[aquaman67]

Hey Sexi,

Here's a chart...

http://www.ozreef.org/reference/alkalinity_conversion.html

[SexiShrimp]

thanks guys!!!