Trouble Getting Alk up in established tank dosing Nitrates

[Craigdillman]

Thanks Ryan , ok gonna start slowly doing daily until the level comes up and then start the daily dosing from there. I think your right just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something

Just need to dose more than what’s getting used just wasn’t used to this huge outflux of alk lol

[DKoKoMan]

I echo as mentioned above. Slowly dose to your ideal alkalinity, then do some daily testing to find out what the consumption of alk is. From there you should be able to figure out your tanks consumption and dose accordingly for your first deal parameter.

You mention your lower on the nutrients side, so I would consider keeping alk around the 8 mark. Also depending on how much you need to dose daily, I would recommend splitting up the dosages as previously mentioned. The goal is to have as stable parameters as you can so the corals can adjust and now be shocked.

Looking forward to seeing more photos as everything levels out

[Craigdillman]

So last question here

The rule is I can’t raise dkh by more than 1.4 per day, so if I add say 125ml of my alk solution and after I trst it didn’t move it I’m safe to add more the same day is that right or

[gregzz4]

Are you testing fairly soon after dosing?
With Randy's formula, you should be seeing some increase with that dose. 125ml in 150g would give just over 1dKH.

You mentioned Sodium Bicarb, then sodium carb. Which are you using?

Are you using Randy's mixing instructions, or what other instructions?

Have you used another test kit to confirm your results?

How many total gallons do you estimate you have?

[gregzz4]

I'm available to talk for a bit right now ... dinner's coming soon

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by Craigdillman

So last question here

The rule is I can’t raise dkh by more than 1.4 per day, so if I add say 125ml of my alk solution and after I trst it didn’t move it I’m safe to add more the same day is that right or

I'm looking for answers to the questions I posted before I recommend any further action.

[gregzz4]

I'm out
I'll check back tomorrow afternoon

[Craigdillman]

Hey sorry I got a bit busy tonight , Ill respond to this now and ill check back tomorrow thanks for the help I’m in no rush, just going at this slow

So I got 125g with a sump of 75g with rocks and everything I always used approx 125 g of water total

I have all the same supplies as Randy or bulk reef

What my plan was is to dose daily 2 part with calcium chloride and sodium carbonate . BUT I was going to use sodium BIcarbonate initially to raise the dkh back to 8 before the nitrate dosing and it dropped

I ordered a Hanna and just got it in the mail today so I’m going to use it to test tomrorow 24 hours after I dosed a full 125 and see where we are at and go from there .

The calc and mag are holding up at 410 and 1380 yesterdya

Thanks for all the help

[gregzz4]

Right now, are you dosing 125ml Sodium Carbonate, or Sodium Bicarbonate?
Remember you need to use twice as much SB as the recommended dose of SC if you are mixing per Randy's formula.
Personally I've never dosed SB so double-check the methodology as I can't advise you there.

You mentioned at the start of your thread that you dosed then tested the next day with no change. Keep in mind that your tank may very well be using as much or more than that dose daily. I've had my total system volume of 115g use easily over 100ml daily, and you have a lot of big consumers.

If it were me, I'd check the Alk right before dosing, and then @ 30 mins and 1 hour after.
This will let you know whether the mix and the amount dosed are correct.
If you don't get the desired effect there are a couple things you can do.

One would be to test your mix. Randy states 1ml of his mix raises 1g of water by 1.4dKH.
Add 5ml of your SC mix to 1 gallon of RO (presumably 10ml SB?). This should give you a result of 7 dKH. Then add one more ml (2ml SB). This should take it up to 8.4dKH.
If you're not sufficiently close to those results, revisit your mixing instructions/methods.

Next thing would be to have your LFS test your Alk, Ca and Mag to rule out kit and testing errors. Remember that low Mag will prohibit raising Alk.

After you know for sure that you're good to go, you can then confidently start with testing 24 hours later to find your daily dKH usage.
Once you've done that for a couple days you can go ahead with the additional dose to start raising it.
Personally, and because you said you're good to go slow, I wouldn't raise it by more than 0.5dKH daily, although some state it's safe to go as much as 1.0dKH daily. I see no need to rush it.

If it were me;
Once I found the daily maintenance dose I'd use a doser and spread it out over a 24 hour period. I had mine dosing every 2 hours.
For the additional dosing you can do it manually or add it to your doser timing, but still spread it out over the whole day.

[Craigdillman]

Thanks so much for all the help, I’m on the right path now

I’ll let you know how it goes