Anybody wanna give me a hand?

ReefinItReal88 · Jun 15, 2019

I setup my Doser, with the outlined figures by red sea SPS dominant recipe, calculated my figures by water volume etc.

Came up with dosing amounts:

Calcium: 5.6mL/day (1mL/ 5 times a day)

Alk: 12mL/day (1mL/ 12 times a day)

Mag: 2.8mL/day

I've posted my parameters in a picture,

My alk and calc are climbing and nothing else is changing. Suggestion?

I'm assuming it has to do with consumption?

Or is it overdosing?

The Doser is freshly calibrated.

W1ngz · Jun 15, 2019

Salinity has increased by 5% which is pulling up your numbers. You can't accurately figure out the dosing with unstable salinity.

Once you figure out why the salinity is increasing, you'll need daily test results for at least 3 or 4 days to identify a trend. One change over one day doesn't really indicate much.

ReefinItReal88 · Jun 15, 2019

W1ngz said:
Salinity has increased by 5% which is pulling up your numbers. You can't accurately figure out the dosing with unstable salinity.

Once you figure out why the salinity is increasing, you'll need daily test results for at least 3 or 4 days to identify a trend. One change over one day doesn't really indicate much.

The dKH jump was big though. I don't want to kill anything.

W1ngz · Jun 15, 2019

ReefinItReal88 said:
The dKH jump was big though. I don't want to kill anything.

No we definitely don't approve of killing things around here

Mathematically finding the right dosing numbers and hitting them the first time is sort of like winning the lottery.

Some other things to consider might be, for water volume did you account for displacement by rock? An example 75 Gal tank with rock and sand doesn't have 75G of water in it. I've never seen a good way to measure unless you actually metered all the water as you filled it. I usually just subtract about 10% from what my water volume should be to get a little closer.

You might consider cutting your dosing in half and then identifying the trend, and increase every few days until things level out.

HOOPDEEZ · Jun 15, 2019

What size system, and how old is it? What size corals? Those guidelines could be for an established tank with large corals, vs a new one with frags that don’t consume much

Sarah24! · Jun 16, 2019

Hello,

First off I may get some backlash but so be it. Depending on skill level If you have to dose then keep it simple (test daily do the math and dose it by hand). I will never use a doser because at least once a week or more some tank has crashed because their doser went on the fritz. Tank consumptions change, for example for a good 12 months my tank needed 1.5 tablespoons of alk and cal daily. Mag doesn’t drop that often and I dose nopox and trace elements by hand also. With that said learning by hand first, is better than doing it with a doser. Depending on nutrients is where you need to keep your levels and types of corals. I can assure you that if you keep your tank so stable, and tiny swing will kill corals. It’s better to let your tank swing between .25-.50% in alk and calcium to build immunity on corals. So if I am keep an alk of 8, the low is 7.5 the high is 8.5. Same with calcium I try and stay at 440, but 420-460 is not too much of a swing. Temp and salinity however should be 1.025 and 78-80 roughly. Also redsea instructions are horrible and takes a dr degree to figure them out most of the time.