Alk consumption question

[tokigami]

for those of you with heavy SPS tanks who are dosing 2 part and have 360ish Gallons. how many ML of alk per day are you dosing? ever since i hooked up doser my alk consumption had gone through the ruff. started at 40ml and now up to 95ML and still cant keep up!!!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

for those of you with heavy SPS tanks who are dosing 2 part and have 360ish Gallons. how many ML of alk per day are you dosing? ever since i hooked up doser my alk consumption had gone through the ruff. started at 40ml and now up to 95ML and still cant keep up!!!

If you convert that to dKH per day with a calculator, you can readily compare.

Most folks with SPS tanks will consume, say, 1.5 to 4 dKH per day.

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chem_calc3.html

If you are dosing something like my DIY two part (e.g., BRS) then you are dosing about 0.4 dKH per day, so expect it to rise.

 

[tokigami]

im using b ionic.. i just started 3 weeks ago on a doser. before that i was only dosing 40ML per day. for some reason now that its dosing 24 times per day the consumption has gone way up.

is this normal?

 

[redfishbluefish]

I'm rather surprised you're dosing so little for a 360 DT, heavy SPS.

 

[tokigami]

also my mag and calcium has stayed the same. is that normal?

 

[redfishbluefish]

Double post

 

[redfishbluefish]

Triple post

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

im using b ionic.. i just started 3 weeks ago on a doser. before that i was only dosing 40ML per day. for some reason now that its dosing 24 times per day the consumption has gone way up.

is this normal?

So still on the lower end of normal, well below 1 dKH per day. Many things impact demand, but yours is definitely not unusually high.

 

[tokigami]

I'm rather surprised you're dosing so little for a 360 DT, heavy SPS.

yea i dunno.. but im up to 90 now.. and i can see its going to probally seattle like 120 ml per day once its dialed in

 

[tokigami]

So still on the lower end of normal, well below 1 dKH per day. Many things impact demand, but yours is definitely not unusually high.

thanks for the re ply. i am going to bump it up a bit.. i dont know why though calc and mag are staying same thanks again

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

thanks for the re ply. i am going to bump it up a bit.. i dont know why though calc and mag are staying same thanks again

That's just the math of uptake. If you are using 1 dKH per day (you are actually using substantially less), calcium will only decline by about 6 ppm per day and magnesium by less than 1 ppm per day. It would take a while to reliably detect the calcium decline and weeks to see the magnesium decline.