High dkh low ph
- Thread starter Illwelder
- Start date
Any livestock currently in the tank?
70% wc, take the fish out and acclimate them back in
For future reference I am not sure how long the fish have been in there which is why I’m saying acclimate them back to be safe, but there is no need of using a pH booster or a alkalinity booster unless you got high consumption via corals and such
You can go on with smaller water changes but because u only got fish u can do all in one shot as long as the fish get acclimated back in
Then your gonna wanna lower the dkh by around 2 a day with water changes and I think u can do the same thing with hcl calculating this would be a bit rough but I’m sure there is a online calculator somewhere and you should do a bit less then what the calculator says, and test again
Hcl would be the less effort way but a bit more risk the water change is more effort and less risk
if your new there is a bunch of its I can give you, in the case the first of which will be that stony corals are the ones that take DKH, along with invertebrates sometimes algae, like corralline. there will be a bunch of things online that promise better performance, or is like a "miracle in a bottle" and so far in my experience none of that stuff is really true, a lot of the marketing is false advertising, such as vibrant (advertised to use amino acids and if I remember correctly amino acids, does not say it uses a algicide but it does, which is super predatory in my opinion). RedSea 4 color+ advertises to boost colors of corals but supplying them with trace elements, and while it does supply trace elements no one has experienced better coral color, some report having some better coral growth. There will be endless products that advertise things like this, and following what is the new magic bottle will just be needless spending.
That being said, these are the products that I use and standby:
ordinary Baking soda and Kalkwasser, boost pH and DKH, kalkwasser also boosts calcium.
Reef flux- kills algae without harming corals if used properly.
Phosban, GFO, Phosphate RX- removes phosphates
Magnesion P- the powder version is a easy, cheaper method of dosing magnesium.
Calcium chloride off amazon- calcium.
Reef roids and Benepets- I used both, recently tested with two separate tanks to test for nutrient spikes when using them (10&20g 1 inch sand, 1ib of live rock per gallon very few corals in both), Reef roids raise phosphates, benepets doesn't raise nutrients nearly as much.
bright well amino acids- I noticed this helps with coral recovery, I just noticed that if I have a stung coral and I spray it with aminos it recovers better than when I never knew about it.
Restor- same as amino acids
TRACE Elements- introduced through food, water changes, there are tons of trace elements in the water that aren't directly linked to coral growth (such as uranium), and as such its hard to determine which elements you actually need to dose. Some people report having more success with gonis with the addition of strontium and manganese, but for you to dose these you gotta have a way of detecting the levels in your tank such as a testing kit, or send off a water sample to the lab.
Also, I wouldn't chase ideal water parameters, instead I would focus on stability for growth, I've seen successful tanks that reportedly ran at nearly 1 ppm phos, 0.5 ppm phos (such as reef dork at one point), and I myself have ran successful tanks with high nutrients. (0.5 ppm phosphates, 40 nitrates)
I hope all the new people see this, it will save you a ton of money and headaches.
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