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  #11  
Old 12-13-2020, 01:53 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Craigdillman View Post
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
To respond to this question, I'd rather have you answer my questions before you proceed.
I'm concerned about your alk mix and dosing strength which relates to your dosing amounts, plus your Alk test kit reliability, and the validity of your Mag test.

I want to help, but don't want you overdosing your tank, so I'm waiting for your answers.

Talk tomorrow bud
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  #12  
Old 12-13-2020, 05:51 AM
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Hey sorry I got a bit busy tonight , Ill respond to this now and ill check back tomorrow thanks for the help I知 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知 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
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  #13  
Old 12-13-2020, 08:54 PM
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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.
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  #14  
Old 12-13-2020, 10:13 PM
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Just for clarity sake ...

I've been using Randy's recipe for years. When I wrote using a gallon of water for testing, I should have written 3785mls as I know this to mix perfectly.

And making your own SC, I place 594g of baking soda on a tinfoil-lined cookie sheet and bake it for 30 mins @ 300F.
This mixed into a total volume of 3785mls was perfect. Not adding it to 3785mls, but rather adding it to, say, 2-2.5l, then topping up to 3785mls.
If you add it to 3785mls you'll end up with a weak/diluted solution.
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  #15  
Old 12-14-2020, 08:36 AM
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Thanks so much for all the help, I知 on the right path now

I値l let you know how it goes
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  #16  
Old 12-17-2020, 09:50 PM
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Alright so , after a few days things starting to move in the right direction

so alk sitting at 6.3 now on the hanna and its pretty close on the red sea kit as well.

So its looking like my tank is eating approx .75-1dkh a day. I dosed the tank 125 ml of Sodium carbonate yesterday 1 hour after it was 7 on both the tests, 24 hours later its showing 6.3 now.

So my loose plan was to start alk dosing daily on the doser to dose .5dkh per day( 60ml solution) and then I can hand dose the extra 1.4 a day and just reevaluate as we go and eventually that should catch up over a week or so and i can stop hand dosing.

Mag and Calcium is holding up .

Soon as i get alk stabilized i will start calcium 2 part to match the alk dosing does that sound good ?

Edit dosing the 125 ml is raising my tank 1.1 dhk at 45 min after so im pretty sure my mix is good good call on that
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  #17  
Old 12-17-2020, 11:24 PM
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OMG, I had too much time on my hands this afternoon. Happy reading !!

Good to see your mix is good
Nothing better than double-checking

I've read enough complaints about the Hanna Alk testers going out of whack when the reagent bottle gets low, so for now double-check it against your Red Sea if the dosing doesn't jive with the results. I really liked Salifert for Alk and found each old kit to be close/the same with a new one.

So that 125ml/1.1dKH tells me your system volume is 159g total. This is based on the calculator, not me knowing your volume. I originally guessed 150g (pats self on back).
Double-check this with the calculator for a couple months though as it's possible for your consumption to skew due to a number of factors including NO3 usage, and this will show up if your tank is not truly 159g, causing you to eventually either under or over-dose your system.
So if after many months the calculator still works with 159g you're good to go or need to adjust the system volume in the calculator accordingly.

Although you mentioned 60mls, run the doser @ 80ml/day to keep the Alk stable with the 1.1dKH daily usage - your current maintenance dose.
Try to spread it out throughout the day, not all at once. Bigger doses of SC significantly raises pH and you'd be better off not having that swing hugely/go above 8.4ish.

Dose the tank to that 7.0dKH you mentioned, and then turn on your doser.
Test it daily it for a few days, at the same time each day, to ensure it's holding/adjust timer as needed.

After a week or 2 of this (remember I like to go slow but you can do a few days if you like), start your daily manual dosing @ about an extra 57mls to bring it up to and keep it around 7.5dKH - double-check me with the dosing calculator !!
After a few more days of this with daily testing, bump your timer to 137mls (80 maintenance plus additional 57?) daily. This should hold you @ 7.5dKH, but keep daily testing to ensure you and I are doing the right thing. Adjust your timer accordingly.

Definitely at this point consult the calculator as I'm seeing it being suggested to add close to 200mls daily and that's just crazy. Never in 8 years with my 75g totally packed did I ever see it go over maybe 125ml daily, if memory serves, but I could be wrong. I've been known to be

After a week or 2 of this, you can start manually adding another 'X'mls daily to bring it up to about 8.0dKH. If that holds for a few days, add it to your timer. Check it every day for a week, and then you can relax and start testing weekly.

For your final dKH, don't go crazy high unless you have higher than, say, 5-10 NO3 and .06+ PO4
If lower (me 2-5 and 0.03), I'd recommend keeping it in the 7.7dKH range to allow the flesh that's consuming nutrients to keep growth up with the skeletal growth.
You'll see more color too if the flesh growth keeps up with the skeleton, and more polyp extension vs white growth tips and paler corals (talking SPS).

For Mag and Ca, I'm a bit anal so you don't need to go crazy as I do and test them daily.
You can start by testing both maybe every 2 or 3 times you test Alk.
I've read varying Ocean levels of Mag. Make sure your's stays within about 1280-1350 for now. You can play with it later if you like. Right now keep it here for Alk stability. And your Ca about 4-415. This you can also tweak later for a balanced level with your Alk.
You'll need to find your final dKH level before deciding on your Ca dosing.

Mindy once wrote about balanced levels quoting Randy Holmes-Farley;
Alk 5.6 Ca 400
Alk 7.0 Ca 410 natural seawater
Alk 8.4 Ca 420

With some math/observation I came up with this, and you can see the trend with each 0.5dKH matching up to 4ppm Ca (each 0.1dKH rise = a 1ppm rise in Ca)
Alk 7.0 Ca 410
Alk 7.5 Ca 414
Alk 8.0 Ca 417
Alk 8.5 Ca 421
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  #18  
Old 12-19-2020, 01:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Craigdillman View Post
The rule is I can’t raise dkh by more than 1.4 per day

Personally, I wouldn't even raise KH by 1.4 dKH in a week, let alone in a day. The longer the KH has been low, the slower you must raise it, or you will run into some very mad/dead corals.


In a situation like this, I wouldn't be adding any doses to raise the KH, I'd be increasing the doser until you're seeing a slow, steady increase, and aim to raise from the 5.3 you tested up to the 8.5 you want to be at over the course of about 2-3 weeks at the quickest. Once you get close to your target, cut the doser back so you stabilize out where you want to be. Keep in mind, as the KH dosing increases, there will be an increase in demand for Ca as well.
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  #19  
Old 01-10-2021, 09:10 PM
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Hey guys

Sorry for the delayed update been a busy month with work

First of all thanks so much everyone and specially , Greg for all the help

So update time . I took it slow and it now looks like everything is stabilized and balanced out . Works been busy so been hand dosing daily and now we are holding solid at
Alk 7.5
Calc 420
Mag 1350

So far I知 losing .75 of alk a day to the nose. Finally getting around to setting up the doser tonight and I値l be doing the 80ml split over the course of the day and the calcium between that.

If I thought I had growth before it痴 now freekin insane like since I started this thread I had to trim stuff like an inch I feel like. Coral all look amazing still and actually I feel the dinos are now like 95% gone . I am starting to get some green HA around the return pipeing and some parts of the back of rocks so I知 gonna work on dialing back the nitrates and phos a bit my nitrates slowly got up to 10ish phos still at 0.04 . ( probably what ended the dinos ) but I知 not to worried about that easy to scrape that out and stay ahead of it and I壇 rather let it finish the dinos first then worry about HA long as I stay ahead of it

Thanks again for all the help. I値l be daily testing this week till it痴 all dialed in. My mag is holding strong still so keeping an eye on that

I値l snap a shot tonight if I remember

Woooo
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  #20  
Old 01-13-2021, 11:31 PM
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Great to hear things are going well.
Keep up with your N&P dosing and removing the GHA. It should eventually be outcompeted by your corals.
I had success scrubbing the affected areas of LR in-tank and blowing off weekly with sock changes.
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