Aqua forest

[CoralClasher]

I've been using AF components 1-2-3 for a some time now. I check alkalinity daily I'm staying at 150 ppm but only using 10 milliliter a day with a dosing pump. It recommends 100 milliliters for my size tank. Should I bump it up weekly or wait till alkalinity drops?

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Wait til alk drops unless your trying to raise the actual number your testing. The corals are going to use what they can and adding more won't make anything grow any faster or be anymore healthy. Keep testing often and make sure you keep alk stable and everything will benefit.

 

[CoralClasher]

Thanks. How many points should I let it drop before upping the dose? I've got like a three point swing from before sunrise to sunset.

 

[DiZASTiX]

I use AF Balling. The ideal situation is that you dose the Alk portion (Component 2) against Alkalinity decline. There's a calculator on AF'S website. The value they give is a starting point.

I'm not sure about "swings" .. for me, Alk rises due carbon dosing against high nitrates. If your Alk drops only 0.3 dKH, do the computation 0.3 dKH / day .. and use the calculator to determine the amount to dose per day, and then if you want to follow the intended Balling technique, dose that same amount for each of Component 1, 2, and 3.

With that said, 0.3 dKH is well within okay tolerance for a day. Make sure if you dose against this value, check the next couple of days.

Usually the simpliest way is to stop dosing for some period of time, and then compute the amount Alk needed to offset the drop, on a daily basis.

If you don't want to stop dosing, you can use the adjustment technique. If you are dosing X, and Alk falls, then compute the amount needed to offset drop, and add this value to X.

EDIT: I didn't notice the units of measure. You'll want to verify for ppm. I thought it was given as dKH.

 

[CoralClasher]

Thanks for the info. Just did the math from ppm to dkh it's .168 swing

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I've been using AF components 1-2-3 for a some time now. I check alkalinity daily I'm staying at 150 ppm but only using 10 milliliter a day with a dosing pump. It recommends 100 milliliters for my size tank. Should I bump it up weekly or wait till alkalinity drops?

Ignore generalized alkalinity dosing suggestions. At best, they are a starting point for your own trial and error adjustments.

FWIW, I prefer trial and error dosing adjustment to trying to detect the daily demand from a drop, since as it drops, daily demand also drops.