I have a red sea reefer 625 with 5 lips and 3 sps. And a bunch of Zoas. I am currently dosing 400 mL of alkalinity and 250 mL of calcium. I use The Apex trident to test and back up with manual testing. This seems way too high. However if I cut back the numbers immediately begin to drop. I try to maintain 8.1 DKH and 480 calcium. I maintain 1440 on magnesium. I use BRS 2 part. Any help would be greatly appreciated I cannot figure out why it is so crazy high.
High dos
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Randy Holmes-Farley
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Making my best guesses on things like your water volume, a I get a usage of about 4 dKH per day (that's what I prefer to see in such a question). That is on the high end, even for an SPS tank.
Are you certain you are dosing that much, and it is not a dosing pump error?
Do you see excessive precipitation on pumps and heaters? Sand hardening? Sulfur denitrator?
Assuming you are dosing what you think, there must be precipitation somewhere, and to reduce it, here's my general recommendation to stop the cycle of excessive dosing:
Stop dosing and let the alk decline to the mid 6 range of dKH.
When you restart, use sodium carbonate to let the pH decline. Stop any other efforts to raise pH. Stop organic export, such as Purigen, or GAC. Possible stop or reduce skimming. Make sure magnesium is adequately high. Let phosphate rise (if you are reducing it). Reduce lighting in a refugium to allow pH to drop more and nutrients to climb. Make sure calcium is not too high.
After several days to a week, restart alk dosing slowly and limit it to 7 dKH for a while.
Are you certain you are dosing that much, and it is not a dosing pump error?
Do you see excessive precipitation on pumps and heaters? Sand hardening? Sulfur denitrator?
Assuming you are dosing what you think, there must be precipitation somewhere, and to reduce it, here's my general recommendation to stop the cycle of excessive dosing:
Stop dosing and let the alk decline to the mid 6 range of dKH.
When you restart, use sodium carbonate to let the pH decline. Stop any other efforts to raise pH. Stop organic export, such as Purigen, or GAC. Possible stop or reduce skimming. Make sure magnesium is adequately high. Let phosphate rise (if you are reducing it). Reduce lighting in a refugium to allow pH to drop more and nutrients to climb. Make sure calcium is not too high.
After several days to a week, restart alk dosing slowly and limit it to 7 dKH for a while.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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The pump itself may not be dispensing what you are expecting of it. That is a common problem.
NanJ
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For comparison: Our display tank is 300 g, has been running 18 months with 27 coral frags, mostly LPS. Our first corals were added this past January and have grown some. Most all of our rocks are covered in coralline which I understand consumes a lot of magnesium in its growth. These are screenshots of our Trident and DOS (Seachem Fusion 1 & 2). We dose AquaVitro IONs for magnesium manually. The targets are: alkalinity 8-9, calcium 420, magnesium 1380-1400.
SharkSlayer
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I’ve checked it is all going in. Burn through 2000 ml container in a few days.
SharkSlayer
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Yeah clearly I am overdosing. I do have large clumps of sand that are hard. Is it possible this is from overdosing. Is this because I’m overdosing or is this consuming all of my two part thanks again for everyone’s help
Randy Holmes-Farley
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It does not really mean you are overdosing, but it means you want to stop the ongoing precipitation, as described above.
BlueZreef
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Wow, something seems way off. I have a 210 gal tank with mostly LPS and I am slightly under what Nanj is using. I haven’t had trident control it just yet but make my own manual adjustments and it’s seemly pretty stable. I am also using Seachem Reef Fusion 1/2.
might have missed it but what are you dosing? Possible if you are doing a DIY recipe the mix is off? You calibrate Trident recently?
might have missed it but what are you dosing? Possible if you are doing a DIY recipe the mix is off? You calibrate Trident recently?
SharkSlayer
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I am dosing brs 2 part. Yes I did calibrate it recently and checked it with Red Sea test kit as well. What is weird stopped dosing everything 2 days ago all dropped to 6.7 and calcium and magnesium are increasing.
