ps2cho Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 12/3/2014 9.6 400 1360 0.000 2-part dosing startnew DI maxcap + frag corals 12/4/2014 9.6 390 8:30am -- added 20ml b-ionic ca 12/6/2014 9.1 390 raised to 8.58ml per day of each 12/9/2014 9.6 390 added 20ml b-ionic ca What is the norm for alk to calcium dosing? Is it always dead on 1:1, or could I need to adjust? Ive been increasing my dosing mL's, but the ca is not increasing. Mg is 1350 btw. Should I just increase calcium a little more than alk and see if that helps? I want my goal to be 9dkH and 450 ca if those are good numbers... Link to comment
specore Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 12/3/2014 9.6 400 1360 0.000 2-part dosing startnew DI maxcap + frag corals 12/4/2014 9.6 390 8:30am -- added 20ml b-ionic ca 12/6/2014 9.1 390 raised to 8.58ml per day of each 12/9/2014 9.6 390 added 20ml b-ionic ca What is the norm for alk to calcium dosing? Is it always dead on 1:1, or could I need to adjust? Ive been increasing my dosing mL's, but the ca is not increasing. Mg is 1350 btw. Should I just increase calcium a little more than alk and see if that helps? I want my goal to be 9dkH and 450 ca if those are good numbers... I've always heard it should be 1:1, but interested to hear if anyone out there does it differently with good results. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Never works out to 1:1.. dose what you need to get it up there. 125ml of ca stat! Link to comment
4x5 Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Never works out to 1:1.. dose what you need to get it up there. 125ml of ca stat! Mine does. I always focused on KH stability and dosed the same for Ca and it seemed to work itself out over time. Perhaps some 2 parts don't though. I use Reef Fusion from Seachem. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Guess it just depends on the concentration of solutions. Link to comment
MikeTR Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 I'm gonna back track and say it doesn't. Just plugging some numbers into a reef calc, it doesn't appear feasible. Typical scenario of a lightly stocked tank. 50g tank drops .5 dKh/day - demands 7.6ml of reef fusion part 2 to maintain drops 10ppm ca/day - demands 18.9ml of reef fusion part 1 to maintain Same scenario using pure sodium carbonate and calcium carbonate. alk .3tsp calc 1.3tsp My tank. 180g (130g vol) alk drops 1dKh/day - demands 60ml of saturatated sodium carbonate solution calc drops 15ppm/day - demands 5 tsp of calcium carbonate in whatever volume of RO/DI i decided to mix up. http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chem_calc3.html You can also easily figure out how much water volume is in your tank just by dosing a small amount and playing with the numbers in aforementioned reef calc. Link to comment
CronicReefer Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 +1 to using sodium carbonate. If you have a scale, one gram will raise 25 gallons of water by about one dkh. In my tank my dkh drops by about one point per day but I have never had to dose calcium daily, maybe once a week. I just add a dose of Kent essential elements to my weekly water change and it always seems to stay between 400-450ppm Link to comment
TheKleinReef Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Guess it just depends on the concentration of solutions. it really does. especially if you mix it yourself with powders. adding even a bit more water to a solution will decrease the saturation. with BRS i noticed i could never get it to 1:1 and after calling BRS they said it was a difference in concentration. currently i'm at a ratio of 1.8mL alk to 1.0mL Ca. consumption may be relatively close to 1:1 but mixing solutions will likely never yield 1:1 unless you figure out exactly how much water and powder you're mixing and keep it the same every time you make solutions. Link to comment
el_ote Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 do not dose 1:1 the dosage should be based on consumption. alk shouldnt be raised more than 1.4dkh in 24 hours. Calcium can be raised max about 100ppm per 24 hours. figure your consumption and then break up the dosage if it requires a large increase. my tanks never needed more that .33 dkh a day to maintain a steady level. i use b-ionic two part and the calculator found here. Be careful when dosing. overdosing can be easy and very detrimental Link to comment
ps2cho Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 So I added 20ml this morning, and checked later today and it bumped to 430ppm, so increase of 40ppm for 20ml of ca. I am going to say that I need to increase my dosing to account for about 15ppm loss per day then. I have increased from 8.58ml to 13.2ml per day for the calcium. I am using regular IO for my salt -- since the calcium on it is around 380 to 400, should I aim to keep my Calcium closer to 400 rather than 450, or should I keep it at 450 and add a little calcium to make it up? Link to comment
MikeTR Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 Keep it closer to 450. Your params are running pretty close to what IO reef crystals mixes up to. IMO, switch to that. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted December 10, 2014 Author Share Posted December 10, 2014 I purchased a big batch of RC and they hardened to a rock...never had that issue with regular IO unless its a bad batch...but I felt cheated throwing $60 away since I only used a little of it. Link to comment
CronicReefer Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 I purchased a big batch of RC and they hardened to a rock...never had that issue with regular IO unless its a bad batch...but I felt cheated throwing $60 away since I only used a little of it. If your salt is getting hard this is usually because moisture is making its way inside somehow. I'd try the reef crystals again as it has the higher levels of calc and mag which will help you not have to worry about dosing so much. Also be sure to keep you calc above 400ppm so it is easily available for your corals to absorb. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted December 14, 2014 Author Share Posted December 14, 2014 I have a question... How much should I decrease my Alk dosing do you think? I currently have it at 6ml/day...and it increased from 10.0 to 10.6dkh over 2 days. Should I maybe drop it to 4ml/day? Link to comment
Red_Blenny Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 I have a question... How much should I decrease my Alk dosing do you think? I currently have it at 6ml/day...and it increased from 10.0 to 10.6dkh over 2 days. Should I maybe drop it to 4ml/day? 0.6dkH in 2 days isnt that bad 4ml/day sounds reasonable.... ...Or, you don't have to dose your alk for a few days and test to see how much alk your tank is using up. Once you find out how much alk is being consumed, you can add based on the amount being consumed. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted December 14, 2014 Author Share Posted December 14, 2014 0.6dkH in 2 days isnt that bad 4ml/day sounds reasonable.... ...Or, you don't have to dose your alk for a few days and test to see how much alk your tank is using up. Once you find out how much alk is being consumed, you can add based on the amount being consumed. I was going to do that but some of my corals are all stressed out right now and I'm not sure why...so I wanted to fix the increase and let it stick for a week then slowly bring the alk down to my desired 9dkh. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted December 15, 2014 Author Share Posted December 15, 2014 Came in today 10.4dkh...within a margin of error...so I will leave at this. Even if its not perfect, if I am in fact going down, then I will let it slowly go down to 9dkh then add maybe 0.5ml and I have gotta be really close at that point. Calcium STILL dropped 5ppm even with the increase... Seems weird that my alk is roughly around 5ml while my calcium is already up to 15.5ml/day and its still not enough. Is this normal? Link to comment
BOMBreef Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 Yes that's completely normal. When I had my 75g SPS I started running a doser using b-ionic. I was spreading doses out over 24 hours so it was much more stable. In the beginning I was running similar amounts and by the time I broke the tank down I was using like 25ml's of alk and 36ml's of calcium a day. You've just got to keep testing to figure out what your consumption is....and once you get that down keep testing because once you hit that sweet spot growth takes off and your tank starts consuming more. Link to comment
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