Alkalinity stats

[Apropor]

I have a 40g mixed reef and have started taking alkalinity readings on a more regular basis. For June I took 13 readings with the following:
- min 7
- max 10.5
- ave 8.474

Are these good parameters?

 

[andrewey]

Are you currently dosing anything? Were the numbers taken at the same time of day? To what effect did water changes or any additives effect your values?

 

[nereefpat]

All 3 of those will work, but you will want to keep it stable.

 

[Apropor]

I have a 40g mixed reef and have started taking alkalinity readings on a more regular basis. For June I took 13 readings with the following:
- min 7
- max 10.5
- ave 8.474

Are these good parameters?

Btw, I dose with kalkw

Are you currently dosing anything? Were the numbers taken at the same time of day? To what effect did water changes or any additives effect your values?

i dose kalk in ato and reading are in morning.

 

[Uncle99]

You must take Alk readings on a daily basis and at the same time each day.
If your going to,keep Stoney corals, your goal is to match the alk that your salt is producing, then, the least change possible day after day is what your looking for.
So if your salt mixes at 1.025 for alk of 11.5 for example, keep it at 11.5. Keeping it above 11.0, but not more than 11.5 is reasonable stability and if weekly water changes keep it within .5dkh no dosing is required.

 

[Uncle99]

Btw, I dose with kalkw

i dose kalk in ato and reading are in morning.

Too much flux between 7-10 dkh, seems awful big for dosing Kalk.
Is that a continuous dose of Kalk?

 

[PatW]

You do not want more than a 1 DKH swing in a day and preferably far less. Marine organisms like stability. So you want to measure DKH daily and dose either by hand or doser to maintain stability.

 

[92Miata]

I'm really not a fan of kalk in topoff anymore - at least for smaller/newer/etc tanks. Evaporation isn't consistent - its going to vary with outdoor temperature, indoor temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, etc. I have days where I evaporate a gallon, and days where I do a pint. On hot days, my AC runs all day, and the humidity in the house is really low - tons of evaporation. On a 70 degree day where there's high humidity, I see little.

I think it would help you out a lot to get a dripper/doser/whatever, and drip a flat amount of kalk each day - it'll be much more consistent.

 

[HuduVudu]

I'm really not a fan of kalk in topoff anymore - at least for smaller/newer/etc tanks. Evaporation isn't consistent

Use a kalk reactor and dose through below your usage and then top off with ATO. More expensive but a much more stable solution IMO.