Help with Alk dosing.

[Kyle Seeley]

Hey guys, just picked up my first acro and I'm wanting to try to maintain a more stable alk level so that I can see it thrive! I just purchased an auto top off and am wanting to dose baking soda through it. Only problem is that I don't know how potent to make the top off container. My tank is a mixed reef 10 gallon nano with mostly lps, zoas, one birdsnest colony (growing like a weed), new acro frag, some acans, and a giant colt coral and uses around 4 dkh a week.

Anyone have any advice on how much baking soda to put into the auto top off container??

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Beautiful reef!

This should help.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/c...e-in-terms-of-alkalinity.298009/#post-3645294

 

[Salty1962]

First you need to determine how much carbonate you need to add to your tank to maintain an Alk of @ 8,0, NSW level. There are many test kits that can help you measure your Alk, I use a Hana, Red Sea test kits are good as well. Don't skimp on a cheap test kit, get a reputable manufacture. You then can use a calculator, like the one on the BRS site, to determine how much solution you need to add for your Alk requirements. You then can take the amount of carbonate you need to add for your tank and divide by how many times you want to add the solution in a 24 hr. period. I dose my amount 4 times a day to create a stable tank throughout a day. I'd recommend you test every day until you get used to dosing and keep your levels stable. After you become comfortable with dosing you could cut back testing to 1x a week. Take things very slow when starting to dose, you can do allot of damage if you dose too much, usually causes burnt tips. Post your results here and we'll be able to help you with any questions or issues.

 

[Mattrg02]

That single frag will take a long time before it begins pulling more alkalinity than regular water changes can sustain.

Got any lps corals in there? They'll use it up as well.

I've got around 7 sps frags and don't see my alkalinity dropping at all.

Edit: Completely missed the part of your tank using 4dkh a week. That's quite a lot!

Matt

 

[Kyle Seeley]

It is definitely a lot! I'm not sure what is in the tank that is pulling all the alk but it is definitely doing it. And the odd thing is that my calcium never seems to budge? The ATO came in today and I will be setting it up tomorrow! I plan on measuring how much my tank evaporates this week and will start a plan as to how much baking soda to put in the ATO container!

@zeronitrates thank you! Been going strong for about a year and a half! *knock on wood! And thank you for the article!

@Salty1962 thanks for all the info! I'm gonna get some more statistics this week and post them on here to see if y'all can help me out a little bit!