Dosing -- I have a decision to make

[jsw]

My tank is doing great. It's almost exclusively SPS, and I imagine I'm working with about 23 or so gallons of water in my BC29 (soon to be 45 gallon cube). Everything is growing like mad and it's causing me some problems.

 

I'm dosing about 40ml of B-Ionic a day, and my calcium is at 380 by night (alk is still in balance). I can only dose 20ml at once to prevent huge pH spikes, so I dose 20ml at night and 20ml in the morning, and I still need to dose more, but can't safely with this method. It's really high maintenance. A couple of weeks ago I was out of town for two days, so no dosing, and a couple of corals went downhill fast from the drop in calc/alk. It's time to get this problem under control.

 

What do you guys think I'd be better off buying: a litermeter to dose two-part regularly or a calcium reactor in combination with my ATO kalk for pH?

 

The cost is relatively close, so I'm not leaning either way yet. I know I don't want to start dosing mag with the reactor though. What are my options?

[filefish949]

you can get dosing pumps for ~$200, do you use kalkwasser for your top off water? I seriously wish to dissuade you from a calcium reactor. they are for tanks big enough to have a 40 gal sump.. in a 30 gal tank, 1 minor mistake could kill everything in your tank in under an hour

 

I have a moderate demand 100 gal tank and use saturated kalk for all my top off. I test every week and some times I need to ad bicarbonate and calcium but usually not

 

I am a huge fan of PH controlled lime-water additions

[jsw]

I have used pH controlled Kalkwasser in my ATO. I typically went with on at 8.40 and off at 8.43. I'd get a nice little bounce between those two values for a few days (day and night) until my Kalk chamber diluted a bit. It just didn't seem to cut it for demand though, and at such a high pH I couldn't dose anything else.

 

Any advice to get the pH controlled Kalkwasser working better?

[chew*]

I drip kalk in a 65g with a kent doser, seen to many accidents happen with using kalk in ATO setups. There are calculators for how much your adding over XX period of time by counting the drops per minute. My tank is heavy sps also. The main thing i found with kalk is you need to get your levels where you want with bionic or other comparitive 2 part then drip it, being that its ionically balanced your levels shouldnt stray to much.

 

In a perfect world you would only add kalk at night when ph levels are lower and use a calcium reactor during the day when ph levels are higher. I've seen people use calcium reactors on smaller tanks but imho its overkill.

 

If your kalk can't keep up with the demand I would suggest a kalk reactor, They are more efficient than dripping kalk or ATO setups.

 

I think you can get a PH controlled kalkwasser setup to work better if you put it on a timer and only dose at night.

[filefish949]

what is your alkalinity? that seems very high. I have the opposite problem, i run a fan just to increase evaporation. you can add vinegar to your lime water, and use baking soda for your alkalinity supplement, it has carbon dioxide in it and does not increase pH. here is a very good article on your semi unique problem

 

High pH: Causes and Cures

 

it is about a 20 minute read and gets fairly technical, just wade through the chemistry best you can, it will help with the solutions section

[filefish949]

Any advice to get the pH controlled Kalkwasser working better?

 

 

on my tank, I find myself adjusting the pH points a few hundredths every week or so, to keep my sump level right. the one problem with pH controlled kalk, and it is minor problem, is that the evaporation happens in the day and the pH drop is at night, so there is a minor daily salinity fluctuation. in my opinion, stable nighttime pH trumps that. one trick i use is I have a power head near my lime water effluent hose, and my probe in close proximity, this reduced shutoff lag and mini pH spikes

[jsw]

Thanks for the link. My pH has been lower since all the windows are now closed in the house.

 

My KH sits around 3.0 meq/L when the calcium is right.

 

I have the Tunze Osmolator with the calcium chamber. I have the dosing pump on that hooked up to an Aquacontroller Jr.

 

Now that I've thought about it more, I think that the high pH I was experiencing when I was dosing kalk probably had to do with a contention problem with the controller dosing below 8.4 and turning off at 8.43 and the effect that that had on pH. The Tunze dosing pump turns on automatically for 10 or so seconds when it first gets power (to clear the tube of air I imagine). With the controller turning it on and off so much it probably created a feedback loop that always bumped it above 8.43 whenever it turned on. This in turn caused it to hover at that pH level for some time.

 

I'm thinking that a better way to dose kalk effectively would be to increase the difference in pH between on and off (to accommodate the 10 seconds of the pump being on), and limit the ATO to times of the day when pH is inherently low (lights off). I would get a very very small specific gravity swing during the day from lack of ATO, but I'd rather have constant calc/alk levels than tiny sg swings.

[filefish949]

yea, that is a problem, i have about a 5 gallon chamber in my sump for kalk introduction. my dosing pump will run for about 3 seconds. I use a standard 5 gal square water bottle for a reservoir the feed tube comes out the air vent and I put a stainless bolt on the end of the tube so it stays at the bottom of the bottle and have to mix almost twice a week, it is a pita, but it works well

 

here is how I set my ACIII

 

If pH < 08.05 Then DOS ON

If pH > 08.06 Then DOS OFF

If pH < 08.05 Then STR ON

If pH > 08.07 Then STR OFF

[jsw]

It may be less than 10 seconds on power on. I don't remember exactly. It may be 3. I may be 5. Anyway, I think I program the AqJr to get things running more effectively.

 

Thanks file* and chew*, You guys have given me hope that I can better utilize kalk to help maintain levels.

 

I'll keep this thread up-to-date on what I find works best. Dealing with such a small volume of water certainly presents some unique problems. Please contribute if you have more ideas.

[filefish949]

Please contribute if you have more ideas.

 

sorry, that is about all I have and most of it i stole from others. i would highly recommended reading the entire article i linked for you. I have but you really do not want to trust my memory

[Maeda]

The recommendations of the B-ionic can be ignored.

 

If your tank really is using up the calcium then you can add more.

I've done it for a long time (well 6 months), and it worked like a charm on a similar sized tank.

 

Then I went with DIY twopart + dosing pumps from twopartsolution.com.

I don't want to sound like an advert but the pumps they have now are awesome.

 

Currently i'm dosing some 100ml a DAY of solution, and i still can't maintain my calcium high enough (I keep unusually high levels as part of a special method im using. 500 ppm calcium and 12 dkh)

[MrAnderson]

what is your exact consumption rate? i think that data is needed before settling on a method.

 

my last sps tank consumed 2.5 dKH and 30 ppm Ca per day. that was really hard to keep up with, even with automatic dosers. it's hard to ride that edge long-term, like years.

[dtfleming]

+1 with Mr. A, You know the b-ionic you dont have to dose the same amt of cal and alk. I dose more cal than alk., but I also know how much my tank is using. That is your first step.

[jsw]

Using the reef calc and taking into account how much I dose + end-of-day levels I'm probably doing about ~25ppm Ca and ~2 dKH a day. I'm sorry that's not exact, but it should be pretty accurate.

 

These numbers are only going to go up too: I'm moving into a larger cube and will probably stock some more and what are now frags won't be frags forever.

 

I don't mind dosing a lot of two-part, but it's the pH I'm worried about. B-Ionic Alk, as you all already know, raises pH quite significantly. I think this means I need to venture into DIY land -- Recipe #2 is looking like my best bet.

 

Maeda, which pump on there? Are their starter kits a good start? Am I going to notice a quality difference compared to B-Ionic?

 

+1 with Mr. A, You know the b-ionic you dont have to dose the same amt of cal and alk. I dose more cal than alk., but I also know how much my tank is using. That is your first step.

 

Alright, you've convinced me. Is morning test - evening test good enough?

 

Edit: formatting hosed

[dtfleming]

Yea, i would do that for a week and see how much is being used per day.

[jsw]

I'm starting to feel like an irresponsible reefer

 

I've never been really methodical about dosing. I test test test and adjust a little here and there if something is off. I guess it's time to get a little more intimate about it.

[dtfleming]

just figure out how much you need to dose and go from there.

[Maeda]

Maeda, which pump on there? Are their starter kits a good start? Am I going to notice a quality difference compared to B-Ionic?

Alright, you've convinced me. Is morning test - evening test good enough?

 

The pumps are on that site too. I've been using them a while dosing my reef tank and dosing excel on a planted tank. All 3 pumps are doing well.

 

VS b-ionic the DIY stuff is pretty wimpy. It'll be a little tricky to use at first I must admit. You generally need MORE DIY solution then you were dosing B-ionic.

 

The starter kit is not a bad idea.

[reefdan]

have you ever considered just dripping the 40 ml of b-ionic in some sort of a DIY setup?

 

i am thinking a drip acclimater and some gravity. that would at least solve the potential problem w/ keeping water in the mix.

 

i am sure you can calculate that drip rate and if you used a labeled beaker you could test the drip rate.

 

just a thought.

[MrAnderson]

I'm starting to feel like an irresponsible reefer

 

I've never been really methodical about dosing. I test test test and adjust a little here and there if something is off. I guess it's time to get a little more intimate about it.

 

if you think about it, what you're doing is more trouble than just taking a week of testing, determining exactly what your consumption is, then just settling into a schedule of regular dosing according to pre-determined need. it's also less stressful on your inhabitants, because you'll be able to maintain long-term stability instead of testing every now and then, finding something off, and then and having that "OH SHI-" moment of manic dosing to set things right.

 

one other suggestion - i understand the desire to "collect" sps. it's very tempting and tiny frags of even really rare corals can be cheap/free/traded. but i personally had to draw a line somewhere, because the dosing was just too problematic. it's not only a huge hassle, but really really hard to keep that fine line going long-term even with automation. i've only seen a handful of reefers keep sps tanks going with demand like yours for more than a year or two. it really is a massive commitment.

 

i decided to acquire one or two specimens to try to grow out to a large colony level, rather than trying to keep 8-10 frags happily growing like mad in a nano... just my opinion!!!

[jsw]

I couldn't agree with you more. All of your suggestions are really going to help make my reef maintenance easier and less error prone.

 

I know exactly what you mean about "collecting" sps. It is a very fine line, and it's really easy to throw params out-of-balance real quick with such a huge calc/alk/mag sink on a frag infested nano. You can't skip a beat. I feel slightly overstocked with the volume of water I'm dealing with, and it's something I need to handle. It's also something I didn't anticipate or think through.

 

I love this hobby.

[jsw]

Quick update for everybody.

 

Started dosing kalkwasser with the ATO again -- with excellent results finally. I gave the ATO on the AqJr a little more spread on pH and extended the time between the ON/OFF interval. Works out much better that way. I'm using 2tbsp of kalk in the Osmolator calcium dispenser per week. My H&S is skimming more now too.

 

Anyway, I'm relatively steady at 440ppm@3.95meq/L with less two-part dosing than I was doing before. Still going to get a dosing pump for the two-part so I don't have to babysit as much.

 

Maeda, is it Drew's Eco Doser on twopartsolution.com that you recommended? I'm getting ready to buy something.

[bdare]

What about the litermeter III?

[SaltyVT]

I was using B-ionic two part but got tired of the calcium running out before the Alk would. So switch to Kent turbo Calcium and Seachem reef builder. Right now I am running 425 clac, and 3.5 meg/l alk. Its nice because I only have to add the alk twice a week, and the calc each day. I find it nice to dose the tank each morning and stare at it before work.

[jsw]

I'm heading out of town for 4 days, and I'm really nervous. No dosing pump. The human element of my tank is huge day-to-day.

 

I mixed up the kalk in the osmolator calcium dispenser quite a bit stronger than normal. The controller will keep my pH in check. I hope that extra kick of kalk will keep the levels at somewhat reasonable level while I'm gone. I double-checked all my drip loops etc. I don't have a while I'm gone checklist yet. I'm also new to town so no people to check up on it. Did I say I'm nervous?

 

I have a Litermeter III lined up for next week. I really should have done this a while ago... hmmmph