I have done 10% water changes with a slight effect down from 6+ to
around 5. I don't believe I am doing anything wrong with the test
kit. It is pretty straightforward. Add a drop of reagent, start with
1 ml of titrate and see how much is required to change the color
adding a drop at a time.

I am using instant ocean. Tank is 4-5 months ld.

Calcium is around 425-450 typically.

The ESV is definately labelled fine since one precipitated out during
shipping and took a while to go back into solution...just as it said
it might on the bottle. The other didn't.

What would I expect it to be for plain new salt water mix. Maybe I'll
test that for comparison sake.

"Boomer" wrote in message ...
You can't increase Alk unless you add something, buffer, calcium reactor or some other
type of addition, unless you have some DIY home-made rock. That doesn't seem to be any of
your problems, so that leaves only 4 possibilities

1. Your test kit is bad. Try it against a new batch of salt or compare it to the alk at
the LFS with their kit. And are you sure you are using it correctly ?

2. The alk is really high do to the seachem and your alk demand is low and will take a
long period for it to go down once you stop adding it, which you seem to have done. The
tank also seems new with few animals.Also your new fresh sand maybe keeping it up. How old
is this tank ?

3. ESV bottle for Ca mis-labeled and is a Ca bottle.What is your Ca and when you use the
Esv bottle for Ca does it go up as expected?

4. The salt you are using. Who's salt are you using. Some salts have been found with very
high Alk lately, such as IO.


I would favor #1

How long has the Alk been this high ?

If it is no the kit just leave it alone, it will come down in time. It is not so high you
need to take any drastic measures.You may want to do a water change. --


Boomer

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"Brian Kramer" wrote in message
om...
: I've tried that in the past and it doesn't seem to lower the
: alkalinity....where could the high alk be coming from. I'm using
: RO/DI water.
:
: My alk was high before the esv, though I was using seachem stuff
: instead.
: Marc Levenson wrote in message ...
: No, but I wouldn't add any more Alk for the next 24 hours to 48 hours. Just
: keep dosing your Ca as usual.
:
: Marc
:
:
: Brian Kramer wrote:
:
: My alkalinity is around 5.5-6 meq/l on the salifert kit. I know it is
: on the high side, but will it cause me any problems. My tank is a 46
: gallon with 45 lbs live rock, a false percula, a small hippo tang
: (which will be given a new home when he gets larger and a hammer
: coral...and some assorted janitors...I use esv for calcium/alk.