Dosing calculation...?

[HumblePie]

OK. I need some assistance with the dosing calculation for Calc and Alk. I'm planning on using Mrs Wages Pickling Lime in my ATO to make kalkwasser. Here's what I was going to do...

 

1) day 1 - measure my Alk and Calc and water level

2) day 2 - measure my Alk and Calc and water level to get the difference

3) dose my ATO water using a reef calculator to find out what amount of calcium and alk buffer to add to the top off water used by each day.

 

Does that sound correct?

 

Would the following (easier approach) work?

 

1) do a water change on the tank.

2) adjust the tank params for calc and alk through in-tank dosing

3) dose the ATO water to match that of the tank

 

In the latter case the ATO water should match that of the tank so as the tank evaporates the ATO will backfill with the same params.

 

Sorry for the rambling...I blame the beer I'm drinking for that... Please let me know if you have any thoughts on these. If you guys are doing something different, please let me know. Thanks.

[lakshwadeep]

I think you should test for more than one day (or have a longer time interval). Also, you need to see how much a water change affects the calcium/alkalinity level. Take out the amount of Ca/alk added by the water change when calculating how much to dose. Don't worry as much about getting Ca/alk perfect each day; try to have stable levels for the overall week. Also note that calcium and alkalinity may not be always in balance, so you may have to take that into consideration when dosing with kalkwasser. Here's some info on dosing kalkwasser:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.php

[nanoreefer4life]

I'm drinking too!! Anyways, what do u have in ur tank? How old is ur tank? how big is it? I think those are big factors in dosing....in a small enough tank WC might be enough

[HumblePie]

Thanks much for the information. I have 6.5g pico that I am dosing which is a few months old. The tank houses a couple frags of Montipora (Idaho Grape and M. Confusa) and a small frag of Green Bali Acro and metalic Gren Birdsnest Coral. I also have some Zoas in there (Tubbs Blue, Ring of Fire, Bam Bams, BRA Lunar, Purple Deaths, Nuke Green, Chocolate Chip Mints). I hope to add a frag of Superman Monti and maybe a blue, teal, or pink Mili somtime down the road.

 

I completely agree that I need to track over time. I think that is a much better approach than day-by-day. Before supplementing, my water measured 320 ppm and 7.6 dKh. It's now hovering around 410 ppm and 8.3 dKh

[Trolldoll]

I would be to scared to do this in a pico.

[HumblePie]

I think I am getting close... Right now I think I am dropping the idea of auto-dosing and just doing this in water changes. I need to go at least one more week before I have a good sense of how much Ca and Alk the tank is going through. Right now the (current) plan is to do a 1g water change every week. In doing so I can track the average tank usage of both and adjust the params in the water change to match.

 

It's still something that I need to walk through a bit more but right now that is looking like the best solution.

[cptbjorn]

Dosing in a pico can work the same way as dosing in any other tank if you are careful. First it is easy to be off on what you think your water volume is due to rock/sand, glass thickness, and HOB filters; after it was mostly stocked I drained my entire tank into a 5g bucket, marked the line and did a little math to find my exact water volume to dose for.

 

Also mixing and measuring of the two part/kalk needs to be accurate, I use a .1g accurate scale to mix my two part solutions. I currently measure doses using the disposable 3ml pipettes that I "calibrated" by filling with RO (1.00g/ml) and weighing on the scale and snipping the tip if it read high and setting aside for feeding if it read low. I'm upgrading to legit glass pipettes or an auto doser once my tank starts using more though.

 

Only measuring twice might not be accurate enough (edit: it sounds like you knew this already), with some careful recording of your testing/dosing for a week or two you should be able to get a weekly or even monthly consumption and then divide that down to get a more accurate average daily dose.

[HumblePie]

cptbjorn- That's pretty close to what I am looking to do. I haven't gotten to the point I would be comfortable with auto-dosing. Maybe once I get a solid track record of consitent readings from the manual dosing. In any case, I completely appreciate the ffedback. Thanks.