Am I dosing too much?

[Varible]

I have a 5 month old 260G tank with stable parameters and about 10 small coral frags in it, 3 clowns , 4 cardinals and some cleanup crew. I am running Kalk in my top off and I am using the triton reef supplements and i started them about 1 month ago at the lowest dosage of 1ML per 26 gallons. I am at twice that dose now and I am still having low ALK and low Calcium. My PH is stable after the addition of a CO2 scrubber, between 8 and 8.2.

I have read a lot on here about additives precipitating out if you add too much, I have checked my UV sleeve and my pump impeller areas as well as my heaters and i see no build up. I do have some minor sand clumping near the bases of the rocks but its only about 5% of my sand that is clumped.

I am trying to keep DKH of 9 and Calcium of 440 , do I need to up my dosing or am i dosing too much already and its precipitating out somewhere?

 

[mitch91175]

Did you compare calcium with another test kit?

 

[Varible]

Yes, i have the Hanna kit as well. it shows nearly the same reading with in a few points

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How much are you dosing in dKH per day? That's the only way to judge. With dozens of different supplements with different concentrations, mL per day doesn't have much meaning.

 

[Varible]

I tried with out dosing on tuesday and DKH dropped about 1.45 over 24 hours.

 

[piranhaman00]

As mentioned above, mL dosed means nothing, figure out how much dkh you are dosing.

 

[Varible]

Fist off I appreciate everyones help. How would i determine that? Based on what i can find online my top off with Kalk adds .5 DKH per day and the triton additives look to be adding .58 DKH. So 1.08DKH added? and it looks like i still loose about .2DKH per day everyday.

Thanks!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Normal alk decline in reef tanks is about 0.5 to 3 dKH per day, so yours does not seem excessive and I'd just boost the triton alk and calcium a tad. to level things out.

 

[Varible]

Thank you so much I will continue and monitor as i go.