What would you do? Again with the x@#^*! Dosing
 

Needless to say, I am !@^&%#X choked right now. I just tested the para's for the first time since WC on sat. They have dropped from
ALK 9>7
CA 390>300
MG 1350=1350
Sal 1.026-<1.0265
I'm dosing, after a considerable drop from the last time I was whining about this...,
92 ml's of CA into 55 gal for rate of 1.67ml per gal
88 ml's of ALK into 55 gal for rate of 1.6ml per gal
Logic tells me to up the doses... but when I was dosing at a higher rate, the CA could not be maintained. So it had to be precipitating? As well the salinity was going up weekly due to the amount of supplements being added....so why add more.
I am honestly sick of &$^&#$%^ around with this, as it is a huge pain in the #%# & not fun or even the slightest bit interesting anymore. If I can't get this straightened out, I'm thinking of packing it in with this tank, & definitely reconsidering setting up a bigger one. As I have little to no faith that it will be any less of a pain in the @$@#. If anyone has anymore suggestions, I would love to hear them.

what salt are you using?
how big a WC?

Reefers Best & 10 % WC. Those values were post WC. I've been doubtful of the chems because all of this seemed to start after getting my last batch of BRS.

reefers best has 420ca and 11dkh alk so i doubt a 10% WC is causing your problem, i am dosing 60ml/d ca and 80ml/d alk using Randys 2 part instructions in a 90 gal lps reef and my params are very steady ca 430 alk 9dkh, could your test kits be screwing with you? what kind are they?how are you mixing your chems? i've used BRS chems with no probs, i always follow Randys 2 part recipe when mixing and bake the baking soda if not using soda ash for alk(baking the baking soda turns it into soda ash)which has a higher ph.

No it's not the WC. Alk is tested on hanna. Ca & MG are on elos. Mix chems as directed. BRS recipe 1 for the higher ph.

are you dosing into an area of high flow?

how much time do you leave between dosing calcium and alkalinity? You cant dose both at once.

I would have to agree aswell that a 10% WC would not effect the CA that much in a 55g tank, perhaps your sps is sucking your systems dose down. You should dose some more calcium to your system to maintain the proper levels. I currently run a 75g sps system and I am dosing 1 teaspoon of calcium powder every 2-3 days diluted in 1 liter of rodi. I dunno what that equates to with your current 2 part but it's alot of calcium.

the brs recipe is basically the same as Randys, personnally i've had bad experiences with hanna checkers, but i have used elos and feel it is a good test kit, i use salifert and red sea now.
are u dosing all at once or using dosing pumps, dosing all at once can cause precip and dosing diff chems at the same time can cause probs to

Yes its into high flow, it goes though two sump chambers, then though a pump before hitting the DT. Dosing is done using the first two heads of a four head profilux. So I would guess between 15-30 mins between doses. As I've said before the paras were stable until august & @ that point I was dosing almost 4ml per gallon, which caused precip & the salinity to rise weekly while not maintaining CA levels. I can't figure it out unless the ca & mg tests are both pos. Or the ca supp. Is weak?

Thx tips. Read the above q & a as you are asking q's and appear not to be getting the answers.

On the profilux, are you dosing once a day or a total of that volume throughout the day?

Also, how full is your tank of coral? When my nano was full of SPS, it would drop 20 ppm Ca and 1 dKh Alk a day without dosing - likely your dosing regime just isn't cutting it.

Also, Alk of 7 dkH is fine. I keep my alk at 7 - 8 dkh (Fauna Marin supplements on a Profilux doser). I think I'm at about 256 ml (16 x 16ml) of alk a day, and 272 ml (16 x 17 ml) for Ca a day in a 100g + 30g sump (~115g total). Mg I'm using like crazy, but that's a different story.

My SG stays at 1.026, and I do a single 5g water change every week (or two).

If you're not already, I'd break up your doses to be more frequent and dose more in total. Try to test every day for a week to dial it in. Your Mg looks fine, and your SG isn't much of an issue.

To bring everything up, you may want to dose heavily for 2 weeks, then taper it off to a maintenance level. Slowly trying to raise your Ca will take weeks. Alk you probably want to do slower to avoid Alk burn, but Ca you can move a lot faster to bring it up to the 400 - 440 ppm range.

I guess your tank must be pretty full of SPS because I dose about 50ml per day in my 75 gallons and I have a lot of SPS and a clam and I don't do that many water changes. I use BRS 2 part and a marine magic dosing pump. Things are good and stable for over a month now.

If you have a full SPS tank, maybe you should look into a calcium reactor and the same for the alkalinity so that it won't raise your salinity.

KH of 7 is more than enough, and I would not go higher than 8 for a SPS tank espacially with a low nitrates level.

My Dosing is done @ 23 x 4ml doses for CA & 22 x 4ml Doses of alk currently. When I punched the numbers into the brs calculator after testing today I would need to add almost 17 ounces of BRS Ca recipe 1 to top up the CA. to 390 again That's a retarded amount to be used in 4 days, that would equal a loss of almost 126 ml per day, if I added that to the current amount I would be adding 219 ml per gal per day.Which is 4ml per gal How can that be, as there were small signs of precip when I was dosing that amount previously & not maintaining CA levels? Which would cause the salinity to go up like it was before. The maintenance dose is what I am struggling to find. It has this much coral
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...t=76372&page=2

Yes I remember your tank and your previous post about salinity rising. Maybe you will have to use another method to keep your levels up? That is an insane amount of sps in a small tank :) I am not surprised you need to dose that much.

may wanna try kalkwasser in your ATO as well.

I was told that it was insane to try by my friend who helped me get started. But is it really possible that there is a maximum for a small tank that I have surpassed? Has anyone ever heard of this before. I really wanted it to be as jam packed as humanly possible.

Have you tried other calcium products?
Maybe u just got a shitty batch ......

maybe you should be running a calcium reactor in stead of dosing it

Ugh...I can't believe you're still fighting with this! :eek:

If it was my tank I would manually bump the calcium to about 400 (380 is fine), then in an hour bump the alkalinity up to 7 dKH (ish). Then increase the dosers by a couple mL. In 3 days repeat until you test one day and the numbers are still at 400 and 7, then you have the dosing amount right. Have you tried this sort of thing?

Once you have figured out the dosing amount you can manually bump up the levels to where you want them (say 420 and 8? whatever you want). You may need to manually bump up the levels once a week or so for the first month or two while the tank settles in. Plus, as the tank grows the demand will go up and you will have to bump the levels and the dosers. I was bumping my dosers up by 1-2 mL 2-3 times a month for a year, now I'm only increasing the dosers once a month or so.

Are you using ash soda (Na2CO3) or sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3)?

If you're using soda ash, the additional sodium could be the source of your salinity woes. With twice as much sodium being dumped into your tank, the salinity will rise that much faster.

Also, what's your pH? I suspect it's on the higher side also since you're not getting the H+ from your Alk supplement (among other things). I know the amounts may seem trivial, but I think the combination of a high pH and high amount of CO3 and Ca you're having to add to the system may be causing your woes.

I would try switching your Alk supplement to sodium bicarbonate and see if that can change some of your fortunes. It sounds crazy that you'd need half a litre of supplement a day.....

Also, to the guys who don't think dosing can sustain a tank, there's a great thread on RC about how great it is on systems 200g + . Changing systems isn't the answer - it's figuring out what's wrong with it. Dosing should work on any tank, and it's simpler to adjust individual components than reactor ever will be.

It's not the size of the tank and the amount of water that is the problem with the OP it's the fact that his tank is really full of SPS. Too many sps for the water volume.

Either he doses more and the salinity will rise, or he uses other system that won't affect the salinity. I guess it would probably be either dosing a lot more and doing a lot of water changes, or use a reactor.

Again, it's not the method, but the application. I had an SPS nano much smaller than this system with a much higher SPS load and it was doing great with dosing.

I've never heard anyone suggest such a thing before. Also, IIRC he lost many of his SPS colonies in a partial crash about 6 weeks ago.

I'm using soda ash, & just checked the ph with lights out it reads 8.2 with an elos kit.

If I had a dollar for every time I've bumped manually & raised the maintenance dose to try & stabilize I could have paid for the doser twice already

How often were you testing and manually dosing?

well that's what I was told. I never saw it either ;)

I had no idea it was even possible. So you are saying that no matter the amount of SPS and the amount of solution the tank is consuming, it should work with dosing? But if the tank require such large amount, would it not be rising the salinity too much? I never had this problem nor know anyone who does but all my friends who have a heavy SPS load are using calcium reactor and are not dosing.

Well that's probably more like if I had $10 bucks for every time. Since august it's been weekly testing & adjusting. Because that's when the dosing stop maintaing & started to push salinity. It's been a **** show since

Once a week testing and dosing should have solved the issue. Something just isn't right. Do you have a TDS meter? You're using BRS stuff right? I could go mix up say 1/4 tsp in 2 cups of RO/DI water and test the TDS of each, then you can do the same. I am using Sodium bicarbonate for alkalinity though. Could rule out a concentration issue, although I don't think that's likely. Have you tried emailing BRS? They have pretty good customer service.

I'm assuming you have double checked all the simple, easily overlooked stuff like measurements of water and chems? Have you checked that the dosers are operating properly? Maybe they aren't dosing what they say they are? Maybe measure the water in the dosing vessel, and measure again 24 hours later?

As I've told you before, the salinity in my tank slowly goes up as well. I have to add about 2 liters per week to keep salinity down. It is from a buildup of chloride. However, I also do a large 75% or so waterchange 3-4 times per year which helps flush excess chloride out. Chloride has been one of the elements that people are questioning in "old tank syndrome" crashes and general aging demise. No one knows for sure yet. We do know that in many captive reefs the chloride ions are much greater in number than in wild reefs.

Try testing the pH at the end of lights on - at the end of lights out, the pH gets depressed because everything in your tank isn't photosynthesizing, it's respiring through the night adding more CO2 to the tank depressing the pH.

Also, I'd switch your Alk supplement to sodium bicarbonate right away and see if that makes the difference for you. I suspect it will.

Not if he's using the wrong supplement.

I've retested after the lights have been on for an 1.5 hours & it reads 8.1-8.2 based on color. If I do switch to the recipe 2 Alk supp how will that help with the ca levels? Is it through the slightly lower ph that ca is able to elevate because of the decreased alkalinity?

Last winter it seemed the ph was lower. Which is why I had chosen the recipe 1 for the slight raising effect. & it worked until august from march all paras were spot on. How does the system just change Like that?

ok so lets see if I got this right. at 4ml/gal you were causing percipitation and now your down to 1.67/gal and tyour finding you Ca is dropping.

seams pretty simple.. the number you want is between 1.67 and 4.

so try bump up your Ca additive a bit, say 2.0/gal reduce testing to every second day while you dial it in. once a week is how often a known stable tank can wait.

I personaly don't like the home made dosing as I find the consistancy of it isn't the best, but some people like it and have good luck.

Steve

Yes that's it! percipitation? How many people do you know doing much more than 1.5ml per gal? Correct. Do you mean increase testing to every 2 days? Home made dosing?

I will likely do this Thx.

Did you actually measure the new SW batch before adding?

Again as others said, dosing is to maintain what your tank consumes. After a WC supplement back up to your target levels and once you have matched your dosing to coral uptake, leave the dose settings alone.

Yes

just retested PH @ end of main lights out & it's at 8.4 so not much of a swing... maybe like .2-.3