Silicate dosing in a doser

[Brian barranco]

Hello. I’m setting up a 1 doser for silicates . I have 1L containers. Should I dilute water glass with rodi water ? How much should I dilute & dose inside a 5 gallon tank (without measuring rock.) I have my rodi water station so my water doesn’t have silicates. Plz don’t ask why. Thanks have a nice day! I prefer dealing with a dirty tank than dinos. & better than other algae.

 

[andrewey]

Do you currently dose anything else? For example, if you are dosing kalk, you can add your sodium silicate into the kalk solution. Otherwise, I would dilute. The dosage for that small of a tank is pretty tiny and you are more likely to overdose than underdose with such small volumes- dilution will allow you more control to fine tune your dosing. Have you looked at any of RHF's sodium silicate calculations- you should be able to put your volume into those calculations and figure out exactly the various dilutions that will get you to the ppm of silicate you desire.

 

[Brian barranco]

Do you currently dose anything else? For example, if you are dosing kalk, you can add your sodium silicate into the kalk solution. Otherwise, I would dilute. The dosage for that small of a tank is pretty tiny and you are more likely to overdose than underdose with such small volumes- dilution will allow you more control to fine tune your dosing. Have you looked at any of RHF's sodium silicate calculations- you should be able to put your volume into those calculations and figure out exactly the various dilutions that will get you to the ppm of silicate you desire.

I don’t have kalk. Only water changes rn. Corals are gsp ,branching gsp, toadstool , & nem.

 

[Brian barranco]

Do you currently dose anything else? For example, if you are dosing kalk, you can add your sodium silicate into the kalk solution. Otherwise, I would dilute. The dosage for that small of a tank is pretty tiny and you are more likely to overdose than underdose with such small volumes- dilution will allow you more control to fine tune your dosing. Have you looked at any of RHF's sodium silicate calculations- you should be able to put your volume into those calculations and figure out exactly the various dilutions that will get you to the ppm of silicate you desire.

Do you have a link for RHF's sodium silicate calculations

 

[andrewey]

You'll have to substitute your own values, but here's the first I found:

Help calculating Sodium Silicate dosage - Reef Central Online Community

Help calculating Sodium Silicate dosage The Reef Chemistry Forum

www.reefcentral.com

He's also done the calculation all over Reef2Reef if you need other examples. Google "sodium silicate dosing reef randy" for other examples.

 

[Brian barranco]

If someone can help me on calculation because I think I got it wrong. Lol. To bad on math

 

[Brian barranco]

Bump

 

[Brian barranco]

@Randy Holmes-Farley

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hello. I’m setting up a 1 doser for silicates . I have 1L containers. Should I dilute water glass with rodi water ? How much should I dilute & dose inside a 5 gallon tank (without measuring rock.) I have my rodi water station so my water doesn’t have silicates. Plz don’t ask why. Thanks have a nice day! I prefer dealing with a dirty tank than dinos. & better than other algae.

The 5 gallon tank is the fill size of the system you are dosing into?

You definitely need to dilute in that case, but without knowing why you are doing it, you either need to tell me what level silicate you want to dose to the tank, or describe the idea more.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

In my reef tank, I dosed an undiluted capful (a few mL, say 3 mL for easy math) to my 300 or so gallon system once or so a week.

Scaling down, that's about 0.01 mL per gallon per week.

To match that' you dose roughly 0.05 mL per week.

Dilute 1 mL sodium silicate into 1 L, and you'd dose 50 mL of that per week.

 

[Brian barranco]

The 5 gallon tank is the fill size of the system you are dosing into?

You definitely need to dilute in that case, but without knowing why you are doing it, you either need to tell me what level silicate you want to dose to the tank, or describe the idea more.

Yeah I did the math it was super high for a 5 gallon. I’m using 1000ml bottles . Can you help me raise it 2ppm with a dilute

 

[Brian barranco]

In my reef tank, I dosed an undiluted capful (a few mL, say 3 mL for easy math) to my 300 or so gallon system once or so a week.

Scaling down, that's about 0.01 mL per gallon per week.

To match that' you dose roughly 0.05 mL per week.

Dilute 1 mL sodium silicate into 1 L, and you'd dose 50 mL of that per week.

2ppm every day. I using a jebao doser .

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

2ppm every day. I using a jebao doser .

Silica In Reef Aquariums

Why would I recommend dosing silica? Largely because creatures in our tanks use it, the concentrations in our tanks (at least in mine) are below natural levels, and the sponges, mollusks, and diatoms may not be getting enough to thrive.

reefs.com

Here’s how to determine dosing amounts. I’ll assume that you want 17 uM (1 ppm SiO2) dosing, and you can scale from there. If the concentration of the supplement is 29% silica by weight (41° Baume), then it is 290,000 ppm silica. To get to 1 ppm silica, you then need to dilute by 290,000 fold. If you add 1.3 grams of this supplement (0.96 mL) to a tank with 100 gallons (378,500 mL), then the final concentration will be about 17 uM (1 ppm SiO2). I’d disperse the concentrated silicate solution into some fresh water before adding it to the tank, and then add it to a high flow area. Because the pH is high, you likely will see some cloudiness that is mostly magnesium hydroxide. The magnesium hydroxide will dissolve without a problem, but to be safe, add the supplement in a high flow area.


Thus, 1 mL per 100 gallons is about 1 ppm SiO2.

2 mL per 100 gallons is about 2 ppm SiO2.

That's about 0.1 mL per 5 gallons. Too small for a doser.

Add 1 mL into 1 L fresh water. Then dose 1/10th of that a week, or 100 mL a week.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

In my reef tank, I dosed an undiluted capful (a few mL, say 3 mL for easy math) to my 300 or so gallon system once or so a week.

Scaling down, that's about 0.01 mL per gallon per week.

To match that' you dose roughly 0.05 mL per week.

Dilute 1 mL sodium silicate into 1 L, and you'd dose 50 mL of that per week.

Wait what!? We can dose water glass without diluting?!?! I'm dosing about 3ml/day of glass water diluted 20x, so it's 60ml solution daily, it still has some slight precipitate, but not too crazy.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Wait what!? We can dose water glass without diluting?!?! I'm dosing about 3ml/day of glass water diluted 20x, so it's 60ml solution daily, it still has some slight precipitate, but not too crazy.

There’s no drawback to dilution that I am aware of, and it may be helpful, so no reason to change if you don’t want to.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

There’s no drawback to dilution that I am aware of, and it may be helpful, so no reason to change if you don’t want to.

Well I don't like dosing so much every day. If it's ok to dose undiluted I would love to do that. Does it matter that I'm using a doser? Actually setting it up today as we speak.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Wait what!? We can dose water glass without diluting?!?! I'm dosing about 3ml/day of glass water diluted 20x, so it's 60ml solution daily, it still has some slight precipitate, but not too crazy.

Correction. I'm dosing 6ml of Water Glass per day, 20x dilution so 120ml per day. It's a lot of liquid lol.

 

[Miami Reef]

Undiluted silicate is pretty thick. I’d probably dilute it if using a doser.

I just dose it manually once a week. IMO there’s no need for a doser when it comes to silica. It doesn’t deplete that fast to warrant daily dosing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I agree about the viscosity, which may depend on the pump, and the lack of a need for daily dosing.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Undiluted silicate is pretty thick. I’d probably dilute it if using a doser.

I just dose it manually once a week. IMO there’s no need for a doser when it comes to silica. It doesn’t deplete that fast to warrant daily dosing.

Thanks for your insight. I have to disagree though. I noticed once, I skipped 2 days of dosing and my reading went from 2.00+ to 0.13. I thought I may have messed up my Hanna test, so I tested again and it was exactly the same 0.13. I have a large

To me dropping Silica to 0 is a concern almost as bad as NO3 or PO4 to 0 because this could hurt my fight with dinos.