Help getting 2 part dosing straight

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

but that still dose not help me today..... right now I can pretty sure that lets see yesterday Alk 8.1 dKH 6:30 am 9:30 pm Alk 8.2 dKH I dosed 40 ml after the morning reading so whats that but wouldn't that be a fairly acccurate measurement of my Alk for a 12 hour period?
Works out to 90 ml would that work if I spread 90 ml out over a 24 hour period and see where alk is after a few days?

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

It just makes sense to me to spread what ever i wind up with over the whole 24 hr period?

RobertP · May 23, 2018

Not sure where you got those numbers but the back of the bucket has blue bucket at 420-440 at 1.026. You should also watch some of the master's videos and see how they dont worry too much about calcium as long as it is between 400-450.
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/red-sea-aquarium-salt-mix-175-gallon.html

Lots of people dose only at night to help bring up their ph. However, I think dosing 24 hours is more consist. While you are trying to find your target I highly recommend you test at a certain time each day. This will tell you exactly the consumption per 24 hours. Take a reading adjust your dosage and see what it is tomorrow and the next day until you are close. Then check it 2 days later, then 3, then a weekly.

RobZilla04 · May 23, 2018

Maybe switch to this salt:

https://www.saltwateraquarium.com/f...-box-55-lbs-makes-200-gallons-fritz-aquatics/

Mix parameters are right on your target.

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
What salinity? Raising it a bit may be the rest way to hit the target with that mix.

I'm learning how salinity comes in to play and I have to agree with Mark from Melev’s Reef that the temp comes into play when checking. While at least with this checker.

overclockwise · May 23, 2018

Spdjnky said:
I have been looking and can't say I see any precipitation...

Either way, your tank's consumption is substantially higher than what's expected. The culprit is almost always precipitation.

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

overclockwise said:
Either way, your tank's consumption is substantially higher than what's expected. The culprit is almost always precipitation.

If you can tell me something different but I just looked all around the sump where my dosing lines are and did not see anything that looked like it.

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

RobertP said:
Not sure where you got those numbers but the back of the bucket has blue bucket at 420-440 at 1.026. You should also watch some of the master's videos and see how they dont worry too much about calcium as long as it is between 400-450.
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/red-sea-aquarium-salt-mix-175-gallon.html

Lots of people dose only at night to help bring up their ph. However, I think dosing 24 hours is more consist. While you are trying to find your target I highly recommend you test at a certain time each day. This will tell you exactly the consumption per 24 hours. Take a reading adjust your dosage and see what it is tomorrow and the next day until you are close. Then check it 2 days later, then 3, then a weekly.

I agree for sure on the Alk need to be the same time

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

Right now I can pretty sure that lets see yesterday Alk 8.1 dKH 6:30 am 9:30 pm Alk 8.2 dKH I dosed 40 ml after the morning reading so whats that but wouldn't that be a fairly acccurate measurement of my Alk for a 12 hour period?
Works out to 90 ml would that work if I spread 90 ml out over a 24 hour period and see where alk is after a few days?
If I do it this way I would think my tank would not have a large swing over the next few days.
Meaning I set up to dose for tonite and let it just do it for the next few days and then pick a time to test in the future and see where I am at. For the ALk at least?

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

My Calcium is at 415 ppm right now leave it alone and test again with the Alk will that work?
I just don't see how I am going to get a accurate or close at least reading on consumption of calcium for the next few weeks because as I said I will be adding more

RobertP · May 23, 2018

I have a 130 and quite a few more SPS corals than you and only dosing 50 ml of each per day of BRS 2 part. I see some coraline algae but I have quite a bit in mine as well. I would think 90ml is far too much. Still young tanks like to take wild fluctuations...mine did as well. Just set a starting number and set the doser to it and do nothing else for 24 hours and test again.

Oh one question. Since you are using the jaebo doser, you dont have both mixtures dosing at the same time, correct? I started out on a jaebo as well (I still use it to dose other stuff) and dosed 12 times per day and alternated the two part. So alk would dose at 1AM, 3AM, 5AM, etc, and the calc would dose as 2AM, 4AM, 6AM, etc. This would give it time to disolve. Assuming you calibrated each motor properly it should be fairly accurate. FishofHex did a couple videos on his jaebo doser on youtube that helped me.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 23, 2018

Spdjnky said:
I hear you in fact Tyler from BRS told me that and to be honest I don't know if 440 ppm is better than 420 ppm. I am pretty sure that having the Alkalinity higher promotes faster coral growth or at least my reading on the subject is enough of a reason for me to start there.
But all and all I new and just learning dam awhile back when I saw all the snails in my aquarium start ******* at once.... you know the water gets all cloudy dam the first time I saw that I freaked out..lol

It's not. Nothing much appears to matter between 400 and 550 ppm calcium.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 23, 2018

Spdjnky said:
My Calcium is at 415 ppm right now leave it alone and test again with the Alk will that work?
I just don't see how I am going to get a accurate or close at least reading on consumption of calcium for the next few weeks because as I said I will be adding more

I wouldn’t bother, and don’t see a benefit. Boost calcium where you want it, then dose both parts equally to maintain alkalinity.

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

RobertP said:
I have a 130 and quite a few more SPS corals than you and only dosing 50 ml of each per day of BRS 2 part. I see some coraline algae but I have quite a bit in mine as well. I would think 90ml is far too much. Still young tanks like to take wild fluctuations...mine did as well. Just set a starting number and set the doser to it and do nothing else for 24 hours and test again.

Oh one question. Since you are using the jaebo doser, you dont have both mixtures dosing at the same time, correct? I started out on a jaebo as well (I still use it to dose other stuff) and dosed 12 times per day and alternated the two part. So alk would dose at 1AM, 3AM, 5AM, etc, and the calc would dose as 2AM, 4AM, 6AM, etc. This would give it time to disolve. Assuming you calibrated each motor properly it should be fairly accurate. FishofHex did a couple videos on his jaebo doser on youtube that helped me.

My aquarium will be 3 years old in Oct. I went like a year and a half doing nothing to it. So you can see why I am behind on everything It's only been like about the last 8 to 10 months that I have really got into trying to understand all this.As far as the Alk goes I don't know all I know is that it seems to suck it up and I think with the new corals the calcium if starting because at first it didn't move that much.
As far as the scedule thats what I am trying to come up with to start tonite and no I would never add both at the same time

Potatohead · May 23, 2018

Just take a step back and start with the basics. Don't worry about testing calcium, just test alk every 24 hours (at the same time) and adjust as necessary. Dose calcium (for now) the same amount as the alk. Start with about 25ml and see what happens after 24 hours. After you have the alkalinity set pretty close you can test calcium every few days and adjust slightly up or down if necessary. Testing multiple times a day at different times is doing nothing but causing confusion based on the fact the tank naturally fluctuates depending on the lighting schedule and test kits aren't exactly super accurate.

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
I wouldn’t bother, and don’t see a benefit. Boost calcium where you want it, then dose both parts equally to maintain alkalinity.

Thanks Randy I have read allot of your articles and want to read more and learn. One part of me says I needed to wait until I retired to have the time and the other part says I should have started a long time ago lol
But my main question is should I test and dose the Alk tonite on some kind of schedule ? I can dose up to 24 times don't need to do that but what do you dose at a time?
And then the Calcium do I leave alone for now while I get the Alk right ( but that's not right is it) Any help u can give me I will just do what u sugest to get things on track

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

Potatohead said:
Just take a step back and start with the basics. Don't worry about testing calcium, just test alk every 24 hours (at the same time) and adjust as necessary. Dose calcium (for now) the same amount as the alk. Start with about 25ml and see what happens after 24 hours. After you have the alkalinity set pretty close you can test calcium every few days and adjust slightly up or down if necessary. Testing multiple times a day at different times is doing nothing but causing confusion based on the fact the tank naturally fluctuates depending on the lighting schedule and test kits aren't exactly super accurate.

Your right there I am confused..lol and sick of testing so much

Spdjnky · May 23, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
It's not. Nothing much appears to matter between 400 and 550 ppm calcium.

What I ment was that Tyler was the person who mentioned getting my aquarium parameters in line with my salt mix

Potatohead · May 23, 2018

Spdjnky said:
Your right there I am confused..lol and sick of testing so much

Pick a convenient time, say 7 pm. Test your alk and record it. Set your doser to dose ~25 ml each of calcium and alkalinity per 24h period, something like eight doses of 3ml each, make sure they are staggered by at least ten minutes. Come back the next day at 7pm, test alk again. If it has only changed like .2, just wait and test again the next day before adjusting anything. 7 pm, test again. Don't worry about calcium until your alk is quite stable and that may take 7-10 days to get figured out.

You need to account for testing noise (variance) and you need to understand you are never, ever going to be able to test every time and get 8.2/420. That is the ultimate goal but it is just not realistic.

Potatohead · May 23, 2018

Also when you move on to the calcium portion, you don't need to test every day, maybe once or twice a week. There is more calcium in the water than alkalinity (about three times as much) and the tests are also not as accurate, so if it moves from 420 to 415 there is no way to really test for that. If you test say four times in two weeks and you get results all within about 20 ppm, that is as close as you are going to get it. Then when all this is dialed in you can test far less, alk maybe three times a week and calcium maybe 2-3 times per month.