How do you adjust your alkalinity dosing?

[VR28man]

So @East1 has given me an inspiration for a tank I can actually do right now, so I've bought it. (build thread will happen once I have a location in the house settled and actually break out the tank!). I'm not going to start with any SPS immediately, but I do hope maybe after a few months to have a tenuis, a Red Planet hyacinthus, and then maybe an A. millepora in a fairly small package and let those colonies grow out.

I've got one question for experienced SPS keepers: it seems that alkalinity consumption is not linear? That is, if I have those three acros, when I first add them, I will have x amount of daily consumption, and that will increase as they get bigger and bigger? And that if they stop growing for whatever reason (e.g. conditions stop being so good) consumption will stop?

Thus, if you're dosing, once you have a routine set up (in my case, I'm thiking of dosing in hourly-to-four-hourly increments) you should check your alkalinity at least weekly (probably more in a dense acro collection), if not more. And that your dosing should be adjusted based on actual consumption? It seems this has potential for alk instability (if you're consuming 1kh of alk a day, if it suddenly goes in half, then by the time you detect this you're theoretically raised the alk 1.5kh if you do this every three days), even if your measurements are always accurate (to say nothing of if you have a stray measurement).

What works for you to implement this? (one obvious possibility is the Trident, GHL KH director, etc...... matched with automatic dosing)

 

[((FORDTECH))]

So @East1 has given me an inspiration for a tank I can actually do right now, so I've bought it. (build thread will happen once I have a location in the house settled and actually break out the tank!). I'm not going to start with any SPS immediately, but I do hope maybe after a few months to have a tenuis, a Red Planet hyacinthus, and then maybe an A. millepora in a fairly small package and let those colonies grow out.

I've got one question for experienced SPS keepers: it seems that alkalinity consumption is not linear? That is, if I have those three acros, when I first add them, I will have x amount of daily consumption, and that will increase as they get bigger and bigger? And that if they stop growing for whatever reason (e.g. conditions stop being so good) consumption will stop?

Thus, if you're dosing, once you have a routine set up (in my case, I'm thiking of dosing in hourly-to-four-hourly increments) you should check your alkalinity at least weekly (probably more in a dense acro collection), if not more. And that your dosing should be adjusted based on actual consumption? It seems this has potential for alk instability (if you're consuming 1kh of alk a day, if it suddenly goes in half, then by the time you detect this you're theoretically raised the alk 1.5kh if you do this every three days), even if your measurements are always accurate (to say nothing of if you have a stray measurement).

What works for you to implement this? (one obvious possibility is the Trident, GHL KH director, etc...... matched with automatic dosing)

Whatever happens you will still have to test daily or weekly or whatever to k kw where your at and correct it from there however often you need to…

 

[Stoney]

Ph probe. Really useful for seeing when something's wrong right away. You can see how consistent it typically is when everything's going smoothly. That dip at the end is from keeping the windows closed for too long due to all the fires.

 

[dwest]

I use an alkatronic now, but before that I tested alkalinity twice a week and sometimes more. I bet many heavy sps reefers either have an auto tester or test alkalinity almost daily.

 

[Gtinnel]

I use a Trident with controlled dosing, but before that I would test alkalinity about twice a week. Then if I saw it start to lower I would go into the app for my dosing pumps and increase the dose by 5-10ml.
Once you have a general idea of what your dose is then bumping it up a little over time isn't hard at all as long as you test frequently enough.

 

[ckozma]

Before Trident I tested weekly or bi-weekly with Hanna and adjusted a few mL accordingly

 

[Stain]

I use trident and dos. I'll adjust when I notice consumption is going down, like i need to right now. I do it in small increments as I have a small system (30g total). Heres my alk graph, one small adjustment, and now a larger one is needed.

 

[VR28man]

Thanks, all. Sort of confirms what I was thinking.

That said, this was a possibility that IMO makes sense but I didn’t consider.

Ph probe. Really useful for seeing when something's wrong right away. You can see how consistent it typically is when everything's going smoothly. That dip at the end is from keeping the windows closed for too long due to all the fires.

to my recollection, the ph probe measures essentially a ratio of dissolved oxygen (trumpwrongmeme.gif - CO2) and alkalinity. If so then, a change in ph could be attributed to a change in one of those factors, and for my purposes this would be a sign to check alkalinity asap?

And I can do this at a fraction of the cost of Trident or the KH director, etc.

 

[ckozma]

PH and kH have nothing to do with each other as far as I can tell. Yes, PH going crazy can tell you if a tank inhabitant has died or something but not if your alk is stable

 

[Stoney]

Quoted from this thread:

There is an exact mathematical relationship between CO2 in the water, carbonate alkalinity, and pH. Know any two and you can calculate the third.

Its not an exact correlation, but the two are definitely related. If you had your alk consumption cut in half, the corals were barely photo synthesizing, so pH would be significantly lower. It's not meant to detect small gradual changes in alk, but you should be able to see major events. At least that's what I've observed. Anytime my pH is significantly off, so is my alk.

 

[jmichaelh7]

Trident and ddr dose