High Alkalinity

[Fish-R-Friends]

for the last week my ALK has gone higher and higher.
Its 24 dKh or 8.22meg/L. my cal is low at 410 ppm. any ideas how to bring it down????

[Scott]

Wow, that is high. The best thing is to do water changes but check the alk of your make up water. How did it get so high? Dosing calcium might bring it down too.

[KrazyPlace]

I would make a significant water change, then a one time calcium adjustment of CaCl2 to finish up the balance of Ca & Alk.

More importantly, figure out what you did to cause this. What are you adding to the tank... 2-part additives, lime or do you use a reactor?

[Fish-R-Friends]

ive been using a 2 part a and b for the last couple of weeks. Ive also been adding some CAL. The alk has slowely climbed over the last couple of weeks. Ive been trying to get my cal up. going to do a water change today hope it helps..

[KrazyPlace]

Having you been adding the two part in equal amounts per the directions?

[Fish-R-Friends]

Equal parts as directed. My tank looks great though. its crystal clear and everone looks happy. except i have had quite a few snails die here lately.
Shouldn't the A and B part bring up my cal??? It was 380 last week and my alk was 16. My cal came up to 410 and now my alk is out of sight. I even tested it with a friends alk test and it was the same as mine. Ive been adding a liquid cal to try to get it up, I haven't added any thing for the alk.

[KrazyPlace]

If you're trying to raise your calcium by adding an equal two-part, lime, or by using a reactor... then for every 10 ppm of calcium, the alkalinity will increase by 0.5 meq/L.

Since you went from 380 ppm to 410 ppm, then your alk should have increase by 1.5 meq/L. If it increased by more than this, then something else has happened.

Theoretically, once you get the calcium and alk levels in the right ratio, then you shouldn't have any more problems. Here's a very good articles by Randy Holmes-Farley:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-12/rhf/index.htm