I'd like some help with dosing and testing

[innovusaquaculture]

I got a Apex and Trident because I'm really bad at testing manually. I really want a very stable mixed reef. I thought all my levels were good, but I was not really seeing coral growth and some of my corals seems to struggle. I was told by a local LFS that it was probably the "black box" led lights, so I got a Seneye and did a days worth of par and per reading and graphed the spectrum's, watched a bunch of You Tube videos and decided I would look at water chemistry a bit closer. I took my water to a local LFS and had it tested and they told me it was perfect, in fact more perfect than I had tested. My testing procedure was 3 tests of each PH, Alk, Calc on two different tests (6 total test) tossing out the outliers and averaging. (Yes I have lots of time on my hands). I couldn't get any salinity devices to agree and found that digital salinity meters (including Apex) work by conductivity different from refractometers. That was half a day. I've gone with the Apex and a backup digital handheld bot calibrated identically. I will add a secondary salinity probe to the Apex soon.

All this is to ask: I am now dosing 4800 ml of Kalkwasser mixed at 2 tsp per gallon per day on a 24 hour schedule to maintain a ~8.07 PH and can not maintain either ALK or CA. The Trident read a CA of 308, which took almost a 3/4 gallon of BRS Calcium to raise to 422, but is falling by 10 per day unless I add 100ml every day. During that time ALK fell from 9.8 to 8.85 and I can not maintain it at 9 to 9.1 unless I add 100ml per day.

I estimate I have about 150 gallons of water volume and I do 10-15 gallons of water change every week.

I am having trouble keeping the salinity in check.

It seems like I am using a huge amount of dosing. I do have a lot of coralline algae growing. I don't have a lot of coral. ~35 SPS frags and some LPS frags and some Zoas. I don't see any precipitation.

Any thoughts?

 

[Ron Reefman]

BUMP

I can tell you about your water parameters as I've never used kalkwasser.

But IMHO your LFS is full of it,in regards to your BB led. BB led fixtures may not have all the bells and whistles that more expensive fixtures have. But they produce perfectly acceptable spectrum and PAR to grow healthy coral.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I do not know if the testing is accurate, as 300 ppm is unusually low for calcium, but I'll assume it is for the discussion below.

The volumes do not seem excessive. Most folks dosing limewater (kalkwasseer) replace most or all evaporated water with it, which is usually 1-3% of the total system volume daily.

In many tanks, that volume is not sufficient to maintain alk and calcium, and more additives are needed. A two part is often used in conjunction with it.

 

[innovusaquaculture]

Thank you for the reply! That is very reassuring. I am now dosing two part as well and am getting to be very stable. Everything is actually looking very much better. I really appreciate the advice!

I have my ALK up to 8.5, CA up to 419, and PH up to 8.12. My ALK is the only thing I have left to stabilize it is ranging between 8.5 and 9.1 and I am shooting for a stable 9.

Erick