The LAST big upgrade

[mseepman]

I would hope that a decent Kalk reactor in addition to dosing would balance that out a little. How much top off do you go through in a day?

[michika]

Not that much actually and the amount has been dropping as overall temperatures have been rising. I'd say about 5-10g/day. In the beginning it was closer to 10g, now I'd say more like 4.5-6g depending on how dry the weather is.

[michika]

This daily mixing up of BRS 2-part sucks. The products are great, my tank is just too big for the 1g jugs.

So I guess my question, before I buy bigger dosing containters, is can I make my additives more concentrated? I don't see why not, but hey, its Monday! Aside from the obvious cautions of dose into a high-flow area, and don't dose too quickly, etc. anyone see any downsides to mixing up my addives in more concentrated batches?

And cause everyone likes photos, here are some shots of the new in-stair lighting. Now you don't have to turn on the overhead lighting to go upstairs and down. I like it, it means less light disptions while watching television, gaming or enjoying the tank.



Playing with my phone.

[Delphinus]

I have to profess I am sort of confused that your consumption rates seem to be so high at this point. Given my understanding on how the world works, I would expect that the initial dosing would be based on the gap between your target levels and and the leves of your salt mix, which, given the larger tank volume, would make sense that it may require an excessive initial dosing .. but once there, I would have expected that the nominal or day to day dosing would be based on replacing that which is consumed by coral growth and coraline and so on. Ie., it should taper off and then gradually increase to match the growth (ie. as corals get bigger, there is more corals to take more Ca and Alk, and stuff..). To be dumping in >1gallon of Can and Alk dosing per day just seems very surprising. Unless you have way more corals than I think you do .. maybe I need to look at them pictures again!

[Delphinus]

As far as making your dosing batches more concentrated ... I don't see a problem with this unless you are already near or at the saturation point.

To give you an example, on my 280g (which I thought until now was reasonably hungry for Ca and Alk), I make up 1 gallon of Ca and 1 gallon of soda ash using 2 cups of each to 1 gallon. This is pretty close to the saturation point for the Alk in particular. It takes a long time to mix into solution (to the point I just have a powerhead mixing it all the time). However if I leave the lid off just a little askew, that little bit of evaporation that happens is enough to supersaturate the solution within a few days and it then flash freezes (or whatever the term is to cause a dissolved solution to precipitate out en masse, it's been too long for me since my chem courses so I don't remember. Plus, I kind of have a mental block because organic chem pretty much destroyed me as a human being. Stupid Chem350...). Anyhow. It's kind of neat because it looks like ice crystals but the whole bucket will be in this state and I pretty much have to dump it and mix anew at that point. So I don't think one would get much more than 2 cups of soda ash into 1 gallon.

As an aside, I'm using Eli's soda ash and calcium chloride, maybe that stuff is more concentrated than the BRS stuff. I dunno, I just find it too cost prohibitive and inconvenient to order from BRS when Eli is right here in the city, so I based that choice on convenience rather than how much I appeared to be dosing.

Also as an aside that 1 gallon of solution, assuming no weird flash freeze events, lasts me about 2 weeks. I dose 3 times per day of each using cycles in the 45 minute mark and using 1.1ml/min and 1.0ml/min dosing pumps so I guess I could probably do a better job of estimating how often I replace but it's longer than one week. I could not imagine having to mix the stuff daily, there's no way I would tolerate that myself more than a couple days before completely losing patience with that..

[michika]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I have to profess I am sort of confused that your consumption rates seem to be so high at this point. Given my understanding on how the world works, I would expect that the initial dosing would be based on the gap between your target levels and and the leves of your salt mix, which, given the larger tank volume, would make sense that it may require an excessive initial dosing .. but once there, I would have expected that the nominal or day to day dosing would be based on replacing that which is consumed by coral growth and coraline and so on. Ie., it should taper off and then gradually increase to match the growth (ie. as corals get bigger, there is more corals to take more Ca and Alk, and stuff..). To be dumping in >1gallon of Can and Alk dosing per day just seems very surprising. Unless you have way more corals than I think you do .. maybe I need to look at them pictures again!

You're right. I overcame the hump of bringing everything into line about 2 weeks before I started dosing. I think I'd have to go back and really look to be sure though.

I think my fluctuations/usage are little parts of a few things; a) water changes, b) coraline, c) top off water, and very minorly d) corals/clam.

I've been tracking things pretty hardcore in regards to water changes and I've noticed that topping off over the course of a week brings up my dKH, and lowers my Mg. However water changes lower my dKH and raise my Mg.

I think most of the Ca and dKH in the system right now is going to coraline growth. Its starting to take off, and I think I'm starting to see a similar increase in uptake, but I only have a small data sample to guess with. Ca has the largest daily uptake by far, with Mg being next, and dKH being last.

I'm switching to Eli's products when I next need to refill my supplies. I agree the cost of BRS shipping makes it nearly prohibitive to dose their products. I have repeatedly heard and seen first hand that there is a quality (purity?) difference and it shows with Eli's stuff.

[michika]

I've been following Hugo's SPS Tank (xjoyhugo1980) on Reef Central for a little while. Specifically I found his tank through research on additives. Given that I have a firm monthly budget for the tank I'm always looking for ways to reduce my carrying costs. Hugo uses diluted honey as a carbon/AA source.

A quote from another thread related to honey dosing;
BTW, addition of iodine and dilute honey (yes, those produced by bees) soluion is found to be helpful and efficient on maintaining the color. Sufficient amino acids which are the basic sources to build up a protein canbe found in honey. You can try to add to see if this method works!



Honey, which is rich in either sugar and amino acids, can be used as carbon source and protein synthesis source. For carbon source, might act as Vodka, should be helpful in removing nitrate and phosphate. As for the protein synthesis source, amino acids are essential compositions of proteins. Since the colors of the corals are lights emitted from the fluorecent proteins in the corals, providing sufficient amino acids should be efficient for the protein synthesis. The more the fluorecent proteins inside the corals, the intenser the color of the corals.

This is suggested and tested by myself. Any question or comment are welcome to discuss here!

Before dosing, I usually dilute the honey in fresh water in the ratio of 1:100 (honey/water). With the dilute solution prepared, 1 ml soultion is dosed per 25 gal (~100 liter). No negatives are observed to date. I start to dose honey since two years ago. Should be feasible to reef tanks. You can try this method with half the dosing amount in the beginning.


I'm gearing up to do my first replacement dosing chemical order for Tibet. I see a lot of 5g buckets in my future.

[fishytime]

I keep meaning to ask you if you still have the three amigos I gave you a couple years ago?

[michika]

Originally Posted by fishytime

I keep meaning to ask you if you still have the three amigos I gave you a couple years ago?

The clams or the fish?

May FTS. I dosed coral snow, then had an unplanned couch nap and woke up to all these pretty colours.

[fishytime]

And I thought disco was dead


The fish..... Regal, yellow and naso