Help Me Make My Param Perfect (SPS Tank)
- Thread starter Cleverbs
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Sounds like you have it all sorted, should be pretty sweet! One thing I recently starting doing is I added kalk to my 2 part dosing. I have the apex dose kalk every hour from 8pm to 8am with a BRS 50ml/min pump. I only dose about .5dkh into my system like this, the normal 2 part takes over the rest during the day. I don't use the kalk in my ato. These changes have really helped stabilize my pH at night.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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Daily pH swing itself is not a concern at all, IMO, unless the low end gets too low. 
Daily pH swing itself is not a concern at all, IMO, unless the low end gets too low.
So Randy, with sps everyone says stability is the most important thing, but that's not applicable to pH? A daily drop in the acceptable range, say 8.4 to 7.9 has no effect on sensitive SPS or inverts at all?
Randy Holmes-Farley
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I think they really only have evidence for alkalinity stability (and even that may not relate to diurnal variations, but to day to day variations). I've seen no evidence to suggest stability is important with respect to calcium or pH (or perhaps even temperature).
Calcium doesn't fluctuate in the ocean except as salinity changes, but calcium (above 380 ppm) is generally present at concentrations that are not limiting to coral growth, so exactly what the value is seems to not matter much.
pH changes naturally in many parts of the ocean on a daily basis, and I have never seen any evidence that holding pH rock steady has apparent benefit.
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Randy Holmes-Farley
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Yes. I use one with vinegar. It doses 10 times a day for about 8-10 minutes each (BRS 1.1 ml per min doser).
russbeard
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Hey Randy, I've been dosing Vodka for about 4 weeks now with great results except for a recent cyno outbreak. My question is, Can i switch mid stream from Vodka to Vinegar? Would i use the dosing chart for vinegar & start with the 4 week dosing amount?
Randy Holmes-Farley
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I don't know if the bacteria that you have presently can consume vinegar (acetate), so it may make sense to basically start over, although I've never felt the need to go as slow as most charts recommend.
russbeard
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I don't know if the bacteria that you have presently can consume vinegar (acetate), so it may make sense to basically start over, although I've never felt the need to go as slow as most charts recommend.
Thanks Randy, I'll give it a try.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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You're welcome.
Good luck.
Good luck.
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Cleverbs
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I don't know if the bacteria that you have presently can consume vinegar (acetate), so it may make sense to basically start over, although I've never felt the need to go as slow as most charts recommend.
My tank has 110x flow in the display and no sand bed, do you think is possible for me to have cyno issues from vodka dosing still?
swk
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I wouldn't be too concerned with po4. My corals look great and grow like crazy at .10 and my clean up crew makes short work of any extra algae
What is your nitrate level? Be very careful carbon dosing as you can drive nutrients so low that you can have problems unless you feed extremely heavy
What is your nitrate level? Be very careful carbon dosing as you can drive nutrients so low that you can have problems unless you feed extremely heavy
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Cleverbs
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Well my po4 is at like .06-.08 and the polyps on my sps are turning brownish, that is not ok with me so I am going to lower my phosphates. I will watch nitrates because I know it can become and issue.
I second alk stability. I use to dose two part for my 700 gal an had episode of alk levels dropping below 8 several times. This caused RTN from the base up on most of my corals. Over weeks I tried to fight it but the only thing I could do was frag out the corals and that didn't work with all of them. I bought a commercial grade Geo Calc reactor to stabilize. I can not stress enough having stable Alk.
