2 part issues

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It won't keep going to down much more. I'd wait another day unless you have corals that appear to be suffering.

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

It won't keep going to down much more. I'd wait another day unless you have corals that appear to be suffering.

Ok thank! Will do.

 

[madweazl]

For what it's worth, I didn't have much of a need to dose for about the first six months on our 75g; water changes (I do weekly) alone were enough to maintain everything in a solid range. Once consumption started exceeding what I was replenishing via the water changes, I started dosing. To that end, I've been dosing alkalinity and calcium every 90 minutes (so 16 times daily) and I spaced the two apart by five minutes. Some suggest a much longer period between the two but I've never had an issue (I dose close to my heaters and don't have any precipitation on them). It has worked well for me the past two years but there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat.

 

[Hemmdog]

It seems like your dosing a lot my 115 is 5 months old fully stocked and I only do 25ml of each over 12 times a day. And my alk is usually higher than I want it at 10.5. I’m not sure how your consuming that fast. Maybe send a FTS? Is there massive colonies I’m not picturing ? lol

 

[pecan2phat]

Just to echo, I'm running a 180g with what I feel is heavy SPS along with 9 clams so intake should be heavy.
While I don't use the BRS mix, I use ESV B-Ionic and my intake for stable 9 DKH & 425 ppm calcium is 132 ml alkalinity and 120 ml calcium over the course of 24 hours.

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

Yea that sounds about right that’s what I figured, and figured a low consumption tank around 30 to 60 ml a day for each, not 260... I’m on hour 48 since I stopped dosing all together. Right about to give a shot of Alk. I’ll let you know how it goes! [emoji51]

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

Ok just tested at 6.6 after 48 hours with no dosing. Dosed 77.1 Ml to bring it up to 7.5 and hit 7.5 on the test a half hour later. Thanks so much for your help Randy! I really appreciate it!

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

Should I very slowly start to inch my way back up toward 9.0 or go for it on just a few doses then maintain it? Obviously have to figure out my consumption tomorrow at the same time that I dosed but should I go overall slow and steady (like raising it 0.1 to 0.2 DKH/day) or relatively quickly like 0.5 or lore DKH/day on top of my consumption?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Should I very slowly start to inch my way back up toward 9.0 or go for it on just a few doses then maintain it? Obviously have to figure out my consumption tomorrow at the same time that I dosed but should I go overall slow and steady (like raising it 0.1 to 0.2 DKH/day) or relatively quickly like 0.5 or lore DKH/day on top of my consumption?

I'd personally keep it low for a while.

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

Hey randy could it take more than 48 hours for all of the precipitation to go away? I saw 0.7 DKH consumption the first day of dosing after 48 hours and now it’s up to 1.2 DKH consumption on the second day... I’ve been hand dosing at about midnight ALK and dosing Calcium over a 5 hour span from noon to 5:00pm. My dosing lines run into my sump into the path of a powerhead so I don’t think flow is the issue. Also should I maybe only dose the Alk for a day or two to eliminate the chance of ongoing precipitation for a couple days?

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

Now in the last 24 hours I’ve dropped from 7.8 to 6.2... is it possible 48 hours wasn’t long enough to get rid of the precipitation? I checked my Mg just to be safe and that’s at 1340-1360 range. I want to give it another 48 hours but my Alk is at 6.2. No corals looking too stressed right now (maybe some slight signs) but that low scares me a bit. What do you think? This is starting to drive me crazy...

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

Do you think I should let it go for another 48 and then just start dosing very very slowly? Like try to raise it 0.1 dkh a day or something? I’m just lost at this point.

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

Also haven’t even been touching calcium for fear of more precipitation at the moment.

 

[NewYorkReefer1988]

Hello Randy. You were helping me through a precipitation issue on here a month or so ago and I have done everything you told me to do yet I am still having precipitation issues in the tank. I just have a quick question. I had my levels rising stably for about 5 days and then I cleaned my heater and protein skimmer off (lots of precipitation crust cleaned off). Then the next day my dkh dropped 0.5 where it had been steadily raising 0.1 dkh per day. My question is, could that old precipitation crust from a few weeks to a month ago still be causing current precipitation issues even though I have corrected my dosing habits? I ask this because I have done every single thing I can think of except for cleaning the crust off from the bottom of my sump and return pump. Thank you so much for the help Randy. I really appreciate it!

-Sean