Advice? Ph question

I've been at this hobby for a little over two years now and haven't experienced success with sps until February of this year. Now my parameters are almost rock solid and my tanks consumption is small enough that kalkwasser is all I need to replenish major elements. For the past 2 months I was putting in about 3/4 of a teaspoon of kalk per gallon but the last time I had to change auto top off water I upped the dosage to 1 teaspoon per gallon. The extra kalk along with opening windows more often in the house has my Ph at 8.5.
Do you think it's time to switch to two part or is 8.5 ok? The thing is that the ph is still trending upward. Here is a pic from my most recent tests.

 

it is a little high, but if everything looks ok don't worry. If you can, dose at night when Ph is typically lower.

 

I use a tunze auto top off to have it dose throughout the day. The fuge light is on 24/7 to try and combat the ph swing. I would rather not unplug the auto top off during the day and have to rememer to plug it in everynight

 

Ph was 8.56 when I tested it a few minutes ago. Unfortunate because alkalinity was at 9.1 which is exactly what it was last night (checked twice with Hanna dkh), which means the dosing for alk is absolutely spot on

Anyone have any advice, tips or tricks during the transition from kalk to BRS two part??

 

And the bottom of some of my sps is now bleached

 

If you are going to switch, it is more expensive but the b ionic is a much superior product.

 

Check your checker before you do anything. (calibrate your ph meter) and go from there. And as many sources have said, focus on your calcium and alk numbers and don't dwell on ph.
As for the bottom of your corals dying off...are they starting to get big? Could be the bottom of them is not getting as much light any more if they are

 

If anything, add in a few drops of vinegar with your top off water. It will lower PH & give you some carbon dosing

 

Yes I will need to recalibrate ph stick, thanks hadn't thought of that.

@xroads do you by chance know how much viniger per gallon?

Thank you!

 

Which sps are bleaching? Sounds like your alkalinity is stable. Have you checked calcium and mag? What' your phosphate and nitrate?
If your nutrients are too low the 9.1 alkalinity may be too high. But usually you see burnt tips when that happens.
How' flow in your tank? What fish? Any angle fish?
If you wouldn't mind, a few pic of the coral bases would help also.

That' about all I can think of now. I would'nt get to excited I've the ph reading.

 

@jeremy thanks
As of tonight
Alkalinity: 9.2
PH: 8.29
Calcium: 450
Nitrate: undetectable (api)
Phosphate: undetectable (api, hanna)
Salinity 1.025
Magnesium: 1390

Fish: purple tang
Pair of clowns
Neon goby
Royal Gramma

The corals that bleached are:
RR Aussie Gold (worst)
Green slimer
Green catspaw
Peach bum monti
It looks like the bleaching event stopped happening

I have 2 mp10s that get up to 100% for a couple hours everyday then they alternate in various flow patterns from 20%-80%

I do a 10% water change almost every week and I recently switched from AquaForrest to HW wiegent which have similar parameters except HW has higher ALK which is the main reason I switched. The kalk always raised alk but when I did a water change the 7.0 from aquaforest would bring it down a few tenths of a point. When I did a water change last week with HW the alk stayed solid before and after the water change at 8.9.


So maybe I should do less water changes and/or feed more to bring up no3 and po4?

 

The only thing i use for filters is a Tunze protein skimmer and a fuge with some withering graculera.

I dose red sea trace colors once a weak. 2ml of each solution. They really have brought out a lot of color! That Aussie Gold was purple when I got it and now it is brining out some yellow colors

 

I would tear apart your pumps and check for rust like the guy had 2 weeks ago

 

The monti just looks light bleached. Hopefully the others come back for you.
My guess is low nitrate and phosphate with high alkalinity a high light.
I have problems in my sps tank when my alkalinity gets over 8.5. I have to dose nitrogen to get nitrate over 5 and I struggle to get above 0.0 phosphate.
Currently 10 ppm nitrate and 0.02 phosphate.
I feed 3 times a day. You maybe could look into amino acids and numb your feedings up a little.
Don' get carried away or you will end up with cyano or nuisance Algea.
Colors look good on your corals. That Aussie gold gets a really nice green/yellow base.
You can also cut your walk back. And try to get alk back around 8.0. You won' have any problems switching to BRS 2 Part. Just test every couple days until you get dialed in.
I would start around 10 ml of calcium and alkalinity part per day and work up or down depending on tests. If you have doser dose that over 10 or more doses and dose each part at least 10 minutes apart to keep from precipitating.

 

@xroads @Bud
I will check all my pumps tonight. In April the results of my icp-oes test were all good on metals except aluminum which was around 150, since then I removed chemipure and marinepure spheres and have done water changes once a week in hopes of removing the sky high aluminum.
Now I'm gearing up to send in another icp test.

 

@jeremy I was dosing aminos from koralin zucht but stopped a couple months ago. I Did not see any results and was more of a hassle for me than anything. I've heard really good reviews on Julian sprungs acropower.. maybe I'll try that this time.

I try to test ALK, pH and salinity everynight so when I switch to two part I will most likely add calcium to the daily test as well as test ALK twice a day. Maybe overkill but I think this has contributed to my tanks stability and allows leway if I get lazy for half a day.

You feed 3 times a day and still struggle with nutrients?!?!

If I was a fish I'd live in your tank

 

Lol. Yes feed pellets on auto feeder 2 times and frozen 1 time per day.
Filtration is a SRO5000 Skimmer, L2 Rev3 Turbo's Aquatic Algea Scrubber and 1 gallon per day auto water change. I have to twerk scrubber light times and auto water change amounts if everything gets to clean.
Probably about 20ish fish in system. 5 large thangs. Roughly 300ish gallons. Display is a 180 with a frag tank, a semi cryptic rock sump and another equipment sump.

 

Hey Andrew,
The colors look nice on your corals. Another alternative to vinegar is selzer water (not club soda). There's a formula on the web for how much you should put in per gallon but it worked with my tank without any adverse effects.

If you do switch to two part, sodium bicarbonate has a tendency to lower ph a little so it might be preferable to soda ash which does the opposite.

For metals or anything else in the tank throwing in some rox carbon might help. Let us know how it goes!

I'm interested in testing out the red sea elements some time. I've heard good things about them.

 

@jeffmr4 thanks for the input.

Before I started dosing kalkwasser my PH was in the high 7's so I don't think it will be too much of a problem when I switch, plus I already have the 2 part on standby and it is the soda ash (raises pH) so I'll just play it by ear.

The funny thing is I never even thought to throw in Carbon for some reason lol that one went over my head, Thank You!

Since the last update I have lowered my kalk solution slightly and my ph has been stable in the 8.3 range.

I really like the trace elements from red sea, everyday my color gets better and better. Although my RR Aussie gold is pulling some insane colors, it is still slowly bleaching a little more everyday. That is the only SPS that is having any problems whatsoever so 1 out of 20 is not something I will worry about too much, it is becoming one of my favorites though so I hope it pulls through. @jeremy you were right about the colors