2part Dosing In a Nano

[MuffinMonster]

Hey guys, I'm noticing drops in my ALK and calcium faster than I can perform water changes to keep up. I do one water change a week right now as is, would rather not do more. So therefor I'm looking into start two part dosing for a while. Do I have to run dosing pumps right now while dosing? or in the evening when I get home from work can I manually pour 5-6ml of each component into the aquarium? I Have a 30L nuvo, after rocks and sand it probably holds 25 gallons of water. So I would need to dose about 5-6ml of part 1 and 2 per each day (ESV B-ionic). Is that to much to dump in at once manually every night? Or is it only recommended to use a doser and add a couple mL at a time per hour?

[NanoRox]

I am probably in the minority but if you have an ATO, I would just dose Kalk in the top off water.  

[benstatic]

Curious about this myself.
I am sure the more conservative among this crowd will tell you to do smaller increments more frequently.

I have been putting 5mL in spaced out (> 30 minutes apart) increments (Seachem products).  I've heard a lot about spacing part 1 and part 2 just to avoid precipitation issues.

I haven't noticed corals being too stressed out, but its too early for me to know if this will be bad / good.

 

I agree with combining your dose with ATO in any case.

[Thrassian Atoll]

If your going to dose by hand I would space it out to like 3ml twice a day.  6ml might raise your ph a lot.  If your dosing into the same place, space out the alk and calcium by a minute or so.  I have mine spread apart by 5 minutes, but that's with dosing pumps and dosing every hour.

[MuffinMonster]

6 minutes ago, Duane Clark said:

I am probably in the minority but if you have an ATO, I would just dose Kalk in the top off water.  

I read into kalk and liked the idea and simplicity of it. But many people I talk to don't really like it for some reason, and the idea of an ato failing and dumping all the kalk in my reef freaks me out haha, chances are slim to none, but still would suck!

 

2 minutes ago, TILTON said:

If your going to dose by hand I would space it out to like 3ml twice a day.  6ml might raise your ph a lot.  If your dosing into the same place, space out the alk and calcium by a minute or so.  I have mine spread apart by 5 minutes.

Thanks, maybe ill try that, once in the morning and once in the evening. Or maybe just test for myself if 5mL at a time messes or changes stuff. Id like to have dosage pumps, iv dropped a lot of money on this tank lately, I'm newer to the hobby and learning that its quite expensive lol! In the past 3 weeks iv added a full apex classic controller system and a couple days ago added two Vortec MP10's, got all of it for a steal from a friend and couldn't resist, so i would prefer to wait a while before I invest into more equipment. Especially with chrismas season upon us. And I don't mind manually dosing everyday, I spend enough time looking at the tank, taking 5 minutes to dose stuff doesn't bother me at all.

[Thrassian Atoll]

Make sure your checking alk levels regularly when you start dosing.  I screwed up and wasn't testing enough to realize that that the alk uptake randomly decreased by a ton and I raised my alk to high to fast and nuked my sps.

[Droy008]

Remember with dosing, it's all about small subtle changes.

 

If you dose 5ml every day in the evening, the tank will receive a sudden influx of calc and alk all at once.You'd be better off splitting that up as much as possible. Twice a day minimum.

 

I dose 6ml per day, but only 1ml at 6 different times.

 

As for Kalk, I got away with it in the past, but it did fail on me once. The trouble is, the rate of distribution is determined by the waters evaporation rate, not the corals needs. And with the seasons changes, that evap rate fluctuates pretty largely.

 

[NanoRox]

6 minutes ago, Droy008 said:

As for Kalk, I got away with it in the past, but it did fail on me once. The trouble is, the rate of distribution is determined by the waters evaporation rate, not the corals needs. And with the seasons changes, that evap rate fluctuates pretty largely.

I'm currently using kalk in my ato and everything seems to be rock solid.  really happy with it so far but its only been 2 weeks so I will keep an eye out for sure. 

[Droy008]

Don't get me wrong. Many people use Kalkwasser and have zero issues.

EVERY form of dosing has it's pros and cons.

For me a doser made things simpler, but even it has had it's troubles.

 

Find what works for you, and do it.

Kalkwasser is a solid option for dosing, just know the inherent risks of doing it.  

[gone_PHiSHin]

i have an IM10 that is requiring 6ml of 2 part every day.  

 

i manually dump in the alk, wait ten minutes, then dump in the calc.  i do this every morning before the lights come on.

 

i haven't seen any negative effects of doing it this way.  

 

obviously it wouldnt cause as much of a sudden increase by splitting it up throughout the day with a doser, but is it necessary?  

 

right now, i say no.  no chance for doser failure, and i haven't noticed any negatives to 6ml all at once so why stop?

[Thrassian Atoll]

4 minutes ago, gone_PHiSHin said:

i have an IM10 that is requiring 6ml of 2 part every day.  

 

i manually dump in the alk, wait ten minutes, then dump in the calc.  i do this every morning before the lights come on.

 

i haven't seen any negative effects of doing it this way.  

 

obviously it wouldnt cause as much of a sudden increase by splitting it up throughout the day with a doser, but is it necessary?  

 

right now, i say no.  no chance for doser failure, and i haven't noticed any negatives to 6ml all at once so why stop?

 

Do you monitor PH?

[burtbollinger]

manual is fine....test alk. often.  i dose 5-7 ml daily by hand and test alk. via hanna every night or every other night.

[gone_PHiSHin]

27 minutes ago, TILTON said:

 

Do you monitor PH?

nope

 

i was of the understanding that ph was lowest throughout the night, so dosing before the lights go on is best, as it will give the ph a boost in the early morning.

 

 

[Thrassian Atoll]

1 hour ago, gone_PHiSHin said:

nope

 

i was of the understanding that ph was lowest throughout the night, so dosing before the lights go on is best, as it will give the ph a boost in the early morning.

 

 

 

Yeah, that's a good call.  I don't think it would be enough to raise it to cause issues even during the day, but would be something to think about for others that are starting to dose.

[MuffinMonster]

8 hours ago, Duane Clark said:

I am probably in the minority but if you have an ATO, I would just dose Kalk in the top off water.  

Actually, i think i may dose kalk for now, i read alot more into it. i have an apex controller, so i can set it to shut off my ATO if my pH is greater than 8.4, and what i mean by that is, if my ATO fails and dumps kalk into my tank my pH will rise rapidly, and by the Apex monitoring the pH it will shut it off if it raises past a certain point, saving the tank from a crash.

[NanoRox]

6 hours ago, Dakoda said:

Actually, i think i may dose kalk for now, i read alot more into it. i have an apex controller, so i can set it to shut off my ATO if my pH is greater than 8.4, and what i mean by that is, if my ATO fails and dumps kalk into my tank my pH will rise rapidly, and by the Apex monitoring the pH it will shut it off if it raises past a certain point, saving the tank from a crash.

That sounds like a great fail safe.  

[MuffinMonster]

52 minutes ago, Duane Clark said:

That sounds like a great fail safe.  

It does, I didn't ever think of that. Also- my tank has super low pH and every video and thread I read says Kalk will raise and help keep pH stable. I'm pretty excited to try this now, ordered it last night, should be in by the end of the week. How do you stop it from raising alk to high though? I would like to keep my dKH around 9 and not too much higher. My fresh water change salt mix is at 10.5dKH naturally. so even with keeping dKH at 9 and maintaining it with kalk, when I go to do water changes it will keep raising this threshold? Say after the water change it may go from 9 to 9.8dKH, than using kalk it will most likely maintain my dKH at 9.8 because that's what it is after the water change...

[NanoRox]

36 minutes ago, Dakoda said:

It does, I didn't ever think of that. Also- my tank has super low pH and every video and thread I read says Kalk will raise and help keep pH stable. I'm pretty excited to try this now, ordered it last night, should be in by the end of the week. How do you stop it from raising alk to high though? I would like to keep my dKH around 9 and not too much higher. My fresh water change salt mix is at 10.5dKH naturally. so even with keeping dKH at 9 and maintaining it with kalk, when I go to do water changes it will keep raising this threshold? Say after the water change it may go from 9 to 9.8dKH, than using kalk it will most likely maintain my dKH at 9.8 because that's what it is after the water change...

The important thing about Kalk is you want to get your alk to where you want it and then maintain with kalk.  Don't try to raise your parameters with kalk because it can cause such a rapid change to the pH.  Sodium bicarb is all you need.  go to the bulk reef supply site and use their calculator to determine how much initially.  

 

In terms of the actual kalk dose...do it slowly.  the maximum kalk that will dissolve in your ATO is two tsp per gallon.  Most sites will recommend starting at one tsp and run for a week and test daily to see how it goes.  I started even more conservatively and dosed 1/4 tsp per gallon.  The second week I increased it to 1/2 tsp per gallon and that is all I need to keep my ph at 8.3, my alk at 9 and my calcium at 460.  Had I started with a full tsp it would have been too much.  

 

I also highly recommend a hanna dkh checker,  its easy and very accurate.  Hope this helps.