Two Part Dosing and PH Questions

[Davisc1293]

I've been dosing two part daily in my 32 biocube and was using about 12ml a day. After adding a few more corals and ramping up the lighting the consumption has sky rocketed to closer to 25ml a day. My alk levels goes from 9 - 7.3 ish over a 24 hour period and the calculator says I shouldn't change more then 1.4 dkh a day. is going from 7.3-7.5 back to 9 every day a too much and when I am dosing soda ash ph jumps from 8.1-8.33 I try and dose it over like an hour period so its not a sudden change but still a bit concern as the corals are struggling. At first I thought it was all to do to my lighting but I feel like I got more the just the lighting wrong.

 

[Davisc1293]

 

[mdb_talon]

I would not be so concerned about the ph it does not look like anything crazy going on there. I personally dont think that it is good for the alk to move up and down that much. The other thing is as long as the tank is healthy and coral growing those swings are just going to increase. I would look into a doser. Not only adds stability but eliminates a ton lot of tedious manual dosing.

 

[slickreefing]

How is calcium behaving relative to the DKH?

 

[LuizW13]

You can't just increase your dosing spread out throughout the day? I also second a doser.

 

[arking_mark]

Typical rule of thumb for Alk dosing:

• 0.25dKH per dose
• No more that 1dKH change per day

You can dose what you need to keep up with consumption.

Tanks typically consume 0.5dKH to 4.5dKH per day.

So if your tank is consuming 1.5dKH per day, you should be dosing 0.25dKH 6x per day.

If you wanted to increase or decrease your Alk, don't change it more than +/- 1dKH in a day.

 

[Davisc1293]

You can't just increase your dosing spread out throughout the day? I also second a doser.

Unfortunately not, im only home a couple hours a day.

I would not be so concerned about the ph it does not look like anything crazy going on there. I personally dont think that it is good for the alk to move up and down that much. The other thing is as long as the tank is healthy and coral growing those swings are just going to increase. I would look into a doser. Not only adds stability but eliminates a ton lot of tedious manual dosing.

I started this tank because i thought it would be cheap because i already had a tank and filter.... here i am 2 months and a couple thousand dollars later and it looks like the doser is inevitable. I was hoping to hold off but the coral dont seem happy.

 

[Davisc1293]

Unfortunately not, im only home a couple hours a day.

I started this tank because i thought it would be cheap because i already had a tank and filter.... here i am 2 months and a couple thousand dollars later and it looks like the doser is inevitable. I was hoping to hold off but the coral dont seem happy.

How is calcium behaving relative to the DKH?

Its been taking much more calcium then soda ash to get back to my levels... i try to maintain 9dkh and 425-430ppm lately afyer dosing and testing 24 hours later its been 7.3-7.5 and 400ppm and i dose it back to 9/425-430ish every night when i get home

 

[ariellemermaid]

Unfortunately not, im only home a couple hours a day.

I started this tank because i thought it would be cheap because i already had a tank and filter.... here i am 2 months and a couple thousand dollars later and it looks like the doser is inevitable. I was hoping to hold off but the coral dont seem happy.

I too thought I’d be able to keep my 20g coral invert tank simple. But in the end I just couldn’t keep up with daily dosing so I bit the bullet and bought a Jebao DP-4 Doser. I only paid $55 on Amazon for mine this year and it was totally worth it for the price! Unfortunately it looks like prices are up on everything these days. It’s up to $69; for that price I’d consider the WiFi version that comes in 2 varieties for $76 or $80. There are many other dosers out there of course, but I couldn’t find anything in that price range. What’s another $70-80 for convenience lol; in for a penny in for a pound.

Beyond the cost, setup is really simple. Just drill a hole in the top of your dosing solution, cut segments of simple airline hose to the right size, and plug it all up. Then you probably also need a dosing line holder for the tank but those don’t cost too much.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I've been dosing two part daily in my 32 biocube and was using about 12ml a day. After adding a few more corals and ramping up the lighting the consumption has sky rocketed to closer to 25ml a day. My alk levels goes from 9 - 7.3 ish over a 24 hour period and the calculator says I shouldn't change more then 1.4 dkh a day. is going from 7.3-7.5 back to 9 every day a too much and when I am dosing soda ash ph jumps from 8.1-8.33 I try and dose it over like an hour period so its not a sudden change but still a bit concern as the corals are struggling. At first I thought it was all to do to my lighting but I feel like I got more the just the lighting wrong.

I do not think that pH jump is a problem, but spreading out the dosing more in time (dosing pump or 2+ manual additions) will reduce the jump.

 

[Davisc1293]

Just got home from my LFS and am setting up a Neptune DOS any tips or recommendations I have lights on from 4pm-2am so was planning on dosing alk from 3pm-2am and ca from 3am-3pm. Am open to better ideas and suggestions. Thanks to everyone who replied!

 

[ariellemermaid]

Just got home from my LFS and am setting up a Neptune DOS any tips or recommendations I have lights on from 4pm-2am so was planning on dosing alk from 3pm-2am and ca from 3am-3pm. Am open to better ideas and suggestions. Thanks to everyone who replied!

Holy cow! You went from not wanting to spend much money to buying a $300 2-head pump?!

 

[Davisc1293]

I was hoping to hold off because I didn't think it would be necessary and thought it would be overkill on the biocube. but with how little I am home (Few hours a day normally) I need to spread the dose out. This is on my 32 biocube which was originally purchased as a qt for a 120 gallon tank I have yet to set up. The plan was to buy a house before setting them up but with the market the way it is ill be staying where I am at least another year. I got impatient and decided to learn as much as possible by starting with just the biocube. So while yes the Apex it self, the DOS, and tunze ato, and are all overkill here, they will eventually go on the 120, at least that's how I was able to justify it.

 

[LuizW13]

Holy cow! You went from not wanting to spend much money to buying a $300 2-head pump?!

Haha that’s what I was thinking!

 

[slickreefing]

Its been taking much more calcium then soda ash to get back to my levels... i try to maintain 9dkh and 425-430ppm lately afyer dosing and testing 24 hours later its been 7.3-7.5 and 400ppm and i dose it back to 9/425-430ish every night when i get home

 

[slickreefing]

I’m going to PM you a few tips. Check your inbox later on.

 

[ariellemermaid]

Haha that’s what I was thinking!

Apex is great though and if you ever add a trident down the road nothing beats having testing and dosing all in one tank controller system.