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Raising Alk using BRS 2 solution


Cruzersoul

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I am in the process of learning the do's and dont's of dosing. That said, i am starting off by doing only alk, because both calcium and magnesium are relatively stable. At the moment, my alkalinity as determined by a Hanna checker is 6.72 dkh. I would like to slowly raise it over the course of 4 days by dosing 3.8ml daily. This should result in a .32 dkh increase each day. Obviously the 3.8ml will most likely have to be adjusted over the course 4 days to account for the amount of dkh that is depleted daily. My question is, is it ok to increase dkh by .32 daily or is this too much?

 

Thanks,

 

Drew

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.32dkh in my opinion is totally alright. I think BRS says that you should not increase your dkH by 1.4 in 24 hours. I just today increased mine by almost 1dkH

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I agree, you'll be fine increasing your dKH by .32 each day. Although, as long as it's not too dramatic a temporary pH boost, you could dose the the tank up 1.0 dKH in one go instead of such a small amount over days. How much dKH does your tank use up per day? You gotta take that into account with your dosing plans while you try to bring if up from a lower level.

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I tested dkh for four days at roughly the same time each day, the average change per day, calculated from the difference between that day and the previous day, was .24 dkh. However, I just added 7 sps frags so I presume that this will increase. My plan of attack is to dose daily until i reach my target of 8dkh. Then i will measure my dkh the following day and dose as much alk as is required to raise my dkh back to 8. Hopefully that amount will be approximately how much I need to dose to maintain alk at 8.Let me know is that sounds like a good plan.

 

Thanks,

 

Drew

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So if you're using 0.24 a day and dosing 0.32 a day, then you're really only adding 0.08 a day. That will take you 16 days, not 4. If .32 is the increase you want daily, then I would dose enough to increase your dKH by 0.56 a day (0.24 + 0.32). That way you cover the daily loss and you still contribute to the goal of 8.0 dKH

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So if you're using 0.24 a day and dosing 0.32 a day, then you're really only adding 0.08 a day. That will take you 16 days, not 4. If .32 is the increase you want daily, then I would dose enough to increase your dKH by 0.56 a day (0.24 + 0.32). That way you cover the daily loss and you still contribute to the goal of 8.0 dKH

 

Agreed.

 

As you stated I will need to add .56 dkh daily to account for what I lose each day. I will start tonight with a dose of 6.8 ml. Hopefully the BRS reef calculator doesn't lead me astray.

 

Also, tank is an AIO. Should I dose in the rear chamber?

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Well, I dosed the 6.8ml and it ended up raising my alk from 6.72 to 7.504. A little more than what I wanted, but all looks good, at least so far, in the tank. I went ahead and checked my pH afterwards to make sure it hadn't spiked too much, and it looks like it only increased .20, from 7.8-8.0.

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I would dose in the rear chamber, yes. That way you don't have a pocket of high pH in a section of your display. That's what I do. What you might want to do is test how much a certain amount of the solution raises your pH. For instance, I knew that 1ml of BRS' alkalinity solution raised my pH by 0.02 and it took one hour for that 0.02 pH swing to go away. This way I knew what the pH effect of my dosing was before I dosed :)

 

Edited: A 0.2 pH boost in my opinion was the ceiling for what I felt comfortable with when I dosed. I suggest not going above 0.2 consistently, as the instant swing may have negative effects.

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Checked my dkh tonight at approximately the same time as yesterday and it dropped from 7.504 to 7. Went ahead and added an additional 6ml of soda ash, which resulted in an increase of .5 dkh. That said, it appears that every 1ml of soda ash added raised my dkh by a approximately .083. To account for the unexpected increase of dkh depletion, the following two days, assuming that my dkh continues to decrease by .5, I will be adding a total of 9ml daily. This should result in my dkh being approximately 8 after two more days of dosing.

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