I’m confused as to what’s going on in my tank I’ve read the articles by Randy Holmes Farley on reef keeping.com about 2part dosing and why one might be using more alkalinity than a balanced 2 part provides. But in my case what I’m dealing with is this. I’m dosing bionic, two part and testing regularly with Hannah test kits, and these are the results I’m getting. Day one I test alkalinity and calcium alkalinity 7.8 calcium 446 do only part one to bring up alkalinity calculating dose to bring all up to 9 day two alkalinity is 8.3 when tested calcium 442 I dose equal parts A and B 25 mL to bring up alk to 9 and calcium to whatever it landed at with equal 2 part dosing at this point and go from there I tested again shortly after dosing alk was at 8.9 dkh and based on my result's over the past few weeks I’m using .4dkh alkalinity per day (which seems to be going up but I am adding more coral) so for 2 days I don’t test and dose 15ml each A&B both days 3rd day nothings been dosed yet I test alkalinity and calcium alkalinity is at 8.2 calcium 473 which based on my calculations 55ml of part 2 wouldn’t even raise my calcium that much. So I’m confused. I have a 60 gallon system 40 Reeder up top 30 breeder as sump but neither full to the top lots of LPS softies and a few sps I will attatch a photo of the tank. Using 2 ai prime 16hd have a reef octopus coral vue skimmer with the air intake line going outside to oxygenate using 0tds rodi water checked regularlor for mixing and top off using esv seawater system With a scale to measure amounts of each. Have 1 very small Indian gold ring bristle tooth tang 1 rainsford goby 1 pajama cardinal 1mandarin goby tons of trochus snails few turbos dwarf ceriths emerald crabs and more cuc hermits etc. I also have a considerable hair algae problem I am constantly fighting and removing algae from the tank. I rarely feed I do like a pencil eraser sized piece of reef frenzy nano when I do only feed for the pajama cardinal. I fight phosphates as well if I don’t constantly export nutrients somehow they just continue to rise. Another note this tank was setup once before and had a hair algae problem and I gave up on it and it sat with a clownfish and nothing else no lights for months algae all died off and eventually the clown died it sat for a little longer and then I did a few big water changes and got it back going it’s been “active” 3-4 months with coral and all livestock added slowly over time.
