Last week, I probably jumped the gun by setting up my new GHL Doser 2 on a Sunday, right before I left town on Monday for a business trip. While configuring everything, I tested the pump flow for both Ca and Alk 5+ times each and thought I had everything "dialed in", but I obviously did not give myself time to closely monitor everything for a couple days before leaving town. While I was out of town, I asked my wife each day to look at the tank and tell me if anything looked out of the ordinary, but was told every night that things looked good.
I get home tonight - the tank looks fine - but I decided to test the Alk anyway and it tested at 15+ dKH (Salifert). I re-tested with a brand new test kit, but same result. Meanwhile, SPS / LPS look great and the fish are acting fine. A couple SPS actually had big growth spurts while I was gone. I did notice that the Alk was lower than the Ca in the side by side dosing container (were at the same level on Sun), and I had configured the Ca to dose ~2.5x more per day than Alk. Either the flow on the Alk pump adjusted after I left or the something funky is going on with the doser.
To further complicate matters, due to recent weather, I only had enough saltwater mixed to do about a 12% water change. Now the water is testing at 14 dKH. Besides the water change, here is what I have done:
- I turned off the doser.
- Adjusted LED settings to turn down the white lighting from ~60% to 40% (under the impression high ALK + high light = burned coral... please correct me if that is not accurate)
- Dosed enough Ca so it was roughly 1:1 equivalent for while I was gone.
Tomorrow is supposed to get into the 40s so I can hopefully run my RO/DI unit and make some more water to do gradual water changes.
If everything otherwise looks good, what would you do? From what I have read, it sometimes takes a couple days for the effects to become apparent in the corals. Should I take normal polyp extension / etc as a good sign for now?
I get home tonight - the tank looks fine - but I decided to test the Alk anyway and it tested at 15+ dKH (Salifert). I re-tested with a brand new test kit, but same result. Meanwhile, SPS / LPS look great and the fish are acting fine. A couple SPS actually had big growth spurts while I was gone. I did notice that the Alk was lower than the Ca in the side by side dosing container (were at the same level on Sun), and I had configured the Ca to dose ~2.5x more per day than Alk. Either the flow on the Alk pump adjusted after I left or the something funky is going on with the doser.
To further complicate matters, due to recent weather, I only had enough saltwater mixed to do about a 12% water change. Now the water is testing at 14 dKH. Besides the water change, here is what I have done:
- I turned off the doser.
- Adjusted LED settings to turn down the white lighting from ~60% to 40% (under the impression high ALK + high light = burned coral... please correct me if that is not accurate)
- Dosed enough Ca so it was roughly 1:1 equivalent for while I was gone.
Tomorrow is supposed to get into the 40s so I can hopefully run my RO/DI unit and make some more water to do gradual water changes.
If everything otherwise looks good, what would you do? From what I have read, it sometimes takes a couple days for the effects to become apparent in the corals. Should I take normal polyp extension / etc as a good sign for now?