How much alk are you guys dosing

Arron209 · May 18, 2015

For those of you that use two part dosing. I'm curious to know how many mL a day you put into your sps tanks. Personally I'm dosing 20 mL but that number is constantly going up.

redfishbluefish · May 18, 2015

A number of factors impact alk usage. The salt brand you are using, the frequency of water changes, the volume of water changes, the brand of two part you are using, the taget levels you want, and the amount of hard corals you have. It's no surprise you need to eventually add more.....your corals are growing and demanding more.

To answer your question, I have a 90 gallon mixed reef using Instant Ocean with 25 gallon water change every two weeks and target 7 - 8 dKH.....and I dose Randy's two part (Recipe 1) or 44 mls/day

Mr. Microscope · May 19, 2015

Been wondering this myself.
I've only got about 32 gallons (25 gallon cube + sump), SPS and LPS dominant and I can't seem to get my Alk above low 7's.
I've been aiming for 8.4ish, but I'm afraid to dose more. I've been increasing my doser since i got it several months ago and I'm now at 105mL/day of Alk and Cal (BRS Alk and Cal), but no change. I'm afraid to bump it up more because I think I'm just making calcium to jam up my pumps because it really builds up quickly. I keep Mg nice and high (1400-ish). Here's my tank to give you an idea of livestock demands.

At the moment, I'm dosing into my sump. I've been wondering if the small volume in there is just causing precipitation and maybe I should move the tubes to the DT.
Water change once every week or two, 5 gallons with Kent Reef Salt.

redfishbluefish · May 19, 2015

Just to make sure, you are waiting between the dosing of the alk versus the dosing of the calc....to allow one to dissipate before adding the other. If they are added together, or too closely together, you'll definitely get precipitation.

Mr. Microscope · May 19, 2015

Yes, they are staggered. Thank you for the reply. Do you think there something else going on?

M3ace9 · May 19, 2015

Try raising your parameters dosing by hand. The doser will maintain while you add some in to raise your levels. I have a 90 Corner SPS dom tank and was dosing 98ml of ESV per day. Just switched over to a CaRx and its doing well so far.

redfishbluefish · May 19, 2015

Your tank could certainly be utilizing that much, but I'd still want to do one more thing.....have someone else test your tank, whether it's an LFS or fellow reefer, to verify the numbers.

Arron209 · May 19, 2015

I'm kinda having the same issue as Mr. Microscope. I've been dosing more and more but my alk stays at 7.5 dKH. My mag is at 1380. One thing I noticed is coralline algae has taken off a lot. The barebottom is almost all the way covered with it where a month ago there were only a couple spots of corraline.

glb · May 19, 2015

I have a 12g nano and 1/3 cup raises my alk by .2kh. I test alk daily and dose as needed to stay around 9kh. I'd say I dose every 2nd or 3rd day.

Mr. Microscope · May 19, 2015

redfishbluefish said:
Your tank could certainly be utilizing that much, but I'd still want to do one more thing.....have someone else test your tank, whether it's an LFS or fellow reefer, to verify the numbers.

Interesting. I've actually recently switched testing kits from Salifert to Red Sea. They've both had consistent readings. Maybe, I'll keep raising up the dosing a little to see if it balances out.

Any thoughts on dosing the DT Vs. the sump? Return pump is running about 250 GPH, so not super fast flow through there.

BTW, sorry OP Arron for hijacking your thread..

TJ's Reef · May 19, 2015

I have a ultra high bio-load 125g Mixed Reef (175g overall) primarily SPS and my current 2-part dosing is quite high volume at 350ml each of Calcium and Alk supplement and 30ml of Mg daily. I run somewhat of a DSR / Triton type method though only doing 30g WC's every 3-5 months. My parameter goals are 400 on Calcium, 8-9 dkh on Alk and 1350 on Mg.

Cheers, Todd

TJ's Reef · May 19, 2015

I have a ultra high bio-load 125g Mixed Reef (175g overall) primarily SPS and my current 2-part dosing is quite high volume at 350ml each of Calcium and Alk supplement and 30ml of Mg daily. I run somewhat of a DSR / Triton type method though only doing 30g WC's every 3-5 months. My parameter goals are 400 on Calcium, 8-9 dkh on Alk and 1350 on Mg.

Cheers, Todd

whixley101 · May 19, 2015

I am currently dosing 60 ml of each a day for 120 ml total. I have a five year old 225 SPS dominate tank. I also have not done a water change in sixteen months which I think is the reason why I am dosing so much for the past sixteen months. BTW, I use Reef Fusion 1 and 2 by Seachem.

Cole

Oldude · May 20, 2015

I make my own DIY 2 part (using RHFarley recipe) and currently dose 1680 ML of alk per day = 70 ML per hour to maintain about 7.5-8 DKH & for Calcium I dose 1200 ML per day = 50 ML per hour to maintain a value of 425 in my system. (400 gal display + 130 gal secondary + sump)

Arron209 · May 20, 2015

Oldude said:
I make my own DIY 2 part (using RHFarley recipe) and currently dose 1680 ML of alk per day = 70 ML per hour to maintain about 7.5-8 DKH & for Calcium I dose 1200 ML per day = 50 ML per hour to maintain a value of 425 in my system. (400 gal display + 130 gal secondary + sump)

WOW!

mic209 · May 20, 2015

20mls doesn't seem like much. I dose almost 30mls a day and my display is only 25 gallons, around 35 total with my sump. You gotta figure with an SPS tank, ALK can easily drop 2dkh a day. Aarron209, you must be from Stockton?

Mr. Microscope · May 20, 2015

whixley101 said:
I am currently dosing 60 ml of each a day for 120 ml total. I have a five year old 225 SPS dominate tank. I also have not done a water change in sixteen months which I think is the reason why I am dosing so much for the past sixteen months. BTW, I use Reef Fusion 1 and 2 by Seachem.

Cole

mic209 said:
20mls doesn't seem like much. I dose almost 30mls a day and my display is only 25 gallons, around 35 total with my sump. You gotta figure with an SPS tank, ALK can easily drop 2dkh a day. Aarron209, you must be from Stockton?

I must be doing something wrong. 60mL/day in a 225 SPS dominent? I'm doing almost double that in my 32 gallons (25 gallon cube DT).

Deep_Six Corals · May 20, 2015

I dose 32ml of Cal and alk daily in my 55 display 20L sump to maintain 9dkh and 420 Cal. I use ME corals chems. I've had success for a while with this as soon as my alk stabilized (I haven't added corals in a while)

Arron209 · May 20, 2015

mic209 said:
20mls doesn't seem like much. I dose almost 30mls a day and my display is only 25 gallons, around 35 total with my sump. You gotta figure with an SPS tank, ALK can easily drop 2dkh a day. Aarron209, you must be from Stockton?

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