what's interesting is i've switched everything over from tropic marin a,b & c to aquaforrest's balling method and it has had me steadily dosing less. also... my cal, kH and mag are all holding a little higher than i'd like despite the doses getting smaller.
i think i'm going to relax my water change schedule from weekly to every other week to see if i can tune things a bit better.

Is your mix the same strength? Maybe growth slowed down for some reason?

Been in this industry for over 25 years in 2 continents, I have seen so many salts come and go, but no matter what the majority always switch back to either instant ocean if they dose minerals separate or Reef Crystals.

Its the mainstay of the industry, tried and tested and proved for years. Its affordable and it works, you know what you will get every time.

i followed the instructions for each product but i feel my shortcoming was not having a digital scale when i mixed my batches and converting the measurements to tablespoons. it's definitely not anywhere close to dangerously high but i'm very particular.
the other thing that didn't help was i bought all new test kits and i decided i would compare results side by side before discarding them only to find them vastly different. so off to bayside to have the water tested which confirmed the newer kits to be in line with their findings.
over the past 3 weeks i've progressively reduced doses from 100mL do to 15mL and will be testing again tonight to see if i'm getting close.
thank goodness my acros all look really great and no ill effects

So is a Corolla and a Corolla is booorrriiinnggggggggg :lol:

Hopefully that will allow it to drop down enough so you can figure out the daily dose.

i currently use aq reef salt. Though I like it compared to IO, RC, salinity, kent, I do notice that I have had to start dosing more. that or I have a bad batch that isn mixing as it should?