Dan's 90G Reef

[ecam]

So don't raise my calcium at first? Just lower my alk?

Raise your calcium by doing supplemental manual dosing over a week... again nothing too drastic .... This alone might fix your problem since Alk and Calc compete for space... and will drive each other down.

Test every night, prior to dosing... If you alk is going down fine.. let go down until it gets to the point you want it to go aka 8dkh or sure (decreasing Alk levels mean you are not matching consumption... but with 10dkh that is fine for now)
As for Calcium it should be increasing as you are dosing 2 part and supplementing with manual dosing.... and alk is decreasing which should be aiding the increasing in Calc....

The key here is to dose equal parts of both through the dosers and supplement manually what needs to be fixed... AKA Calc...

Hope this makes sense

 

[Sobo's Reef]

No it does make sense for sure. I'm just not doing it right at all :/.

Now what do u mean by supplemental manual dosing? Just manually doing it rather than using the doser?

 

[ecam]

No it does make sense for sure. I'm just not doing it right at all :/.

Now what do u mean by supplemental manual dosing? Just manually doing it rather than using the doser?

Yes. Ur dosers should be long term.

Right know if u set the dosers to ur current levels ur will be overdosing calc once everything balanced out.

 

[jgraz]

To be honest I'm confused at this point. I like to keep it simple and let my dosers do all the work. I don't supplement any dosing manually. Once you get the dosers set you should not need to do this until your corals gain considerable growth, then you adjust. If you do need to do this then the dosers are not set properly. I think testing constantly will just have you chasing numbers which is ultimately going to be bad for you. Dosers should be set it and forget it once set for the most part. That said there is a balance that you will find where Alk and Cal are in harmony as long a Mag is at a certain lvl. I'll see if I can find that calculator. In the meantime you need to figure out what "your" Ideal numbers would be. Then slowly work to get there. IMO I would in fact lose the dosers until then.

 

[jgraz]

http://reef.diesyst.com/flashcalc/flashcalc.html

here you go plug in your numbers and click the graph. It will show your locations as well as what the "ideal" would be. The calculator is also there for you to determine how much to add or suggestions on how to lower.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Ugh this is so confusing Lol alright I'll have to think about everything and see what I want to do. First things first. Go home and retest my numbers and see where we r. If they're getting better I'm gonna stick with what I'm doing. If not, then I'll start another route. Appreciate everything guys! My tank would certainly crash without everyone! Lol

 

[redfishbluefish]

Holy crap! I don’t know if I’m coming or going. This reminds me of the tongue twister in The Court Jester movie, where Danny Kaye’s line is “The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!” But then the chalice from the palace gets broken, and they had to change things up……”The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!” Just as long as somebody knows what’s going on.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Alright, my alk is down to 9.9 now but my calc is still at 300. Its very odd bc I dropped my alk interval to 8 seconds and its at 9.9.

Can anyone guess what my calc interval is at???? Okay I'll tell you... 28 seconds!!!! And its still at 300.. What gives?? This is so frustrating.

I gotta do a water change today due to bubble algae issues so I won't be able to get accurate readings tonight

 

[dan_k]

Dan why don't you pull the dosers do 20% water changes every 2 weeks use kalkwasser in your top off life would be alot easier for you. That's what I do and my levels are spot on

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Well I would but I'm about $300 deep into dosing equipment and supplements lol

 

[redfishbluefish]

Stop dosing alk and let it come down on its own. Test daily to monitor. You don't want more than 1 dkh per day.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

And what about calcium? Just let it dose 28 seconds every other hour still?

 

[redfishbluefish]

And what about calcium? Just let it dose 28 seconds every other hour still?

Talk to me in volumes...I'm not familiar with your pumps. What does 28 seconds mean in volume?And every other hour....does this mean you dose 12 times a day...or 12 x 28 seconds = 336 seconds = 5 minutes and 36 seconds? And one more bit of info....what size tank?

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Its a 90 gallon tank with a 30g sump and yes its 28 seconds every other hour... If I remember correctly it pumps out 0.05-0.06ml per second? Its a marine magic triple doser

 

[redfishbluefish]

OK….so let’s review the math. You run the calc pump for 28 seconds, 12 times a day, which equals 336 second. At a dose rate of 0.05 to 0.06 mls per second, this calculates out to approximately 17 to 20 mls per day. Now I don’t know your tank, but that seems a little low. As a point of reference, I also have a 90 dt with a 40 sump….it’s a mixed reef, with a little bit of everything…and I use approximately 55 mls per day.


If that dosing volume is correct, I’d start increasing your Calc times and turn Alk off. Note that I’d test daily to keep an eye on Alk, because once calc starts to climb, alk will come down. At that point turn alk back on to dose.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Hm and here I thought dosing for almost 30 secs an interval was way too much. I'll have to double check to make sure that's what it puts out per second just to be on the safe side. I'll turn off alk when I get home and go from there.

Thank you!!

 

[redfishbluefish]

Hold everything Dan. I just looked up the doser and I’m guessing THIS is the one you have. If that is the case, here’s what they say, “Flexible dosing speed, 4-Speed dosing speed adjustable (from 0.075 ml – 0.6 ml / sec.). Could adjust speed in manual mode and timer mode also. You could even dose in DROPLET.” So this now means that you could be dosing somewhere between 25 to 202 mls!

So the first thing you need to do is to find out how much you’re dosing.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Well I know I'm on Speed 4 for every interval so I'm definitely dosing 0.5-0.6ml each second.

 

[saltkreep88]

I do the same as Dan k....

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

 

[Sobo's Reef]

I do the same as Dan k....

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

Lol I would but like I said, I have all this stuff here already paid for. Mind as well use it. Plus my tank is SPS dominate. Not sure what ur tank is but my tank goes thru supplements like crazy(when its working properly that is) lol