Can someone help me on how to dose my 10 gallon.

fishski13 · Mar 15, 2022

Hi guys I have had a lps reef tank running for 5 month and everything has been good, however recently the alkalinity went down to 6.5 consistently. In the beginning I never thought I had to dose since I do weekly 20% water changes and it is only a 10 gallon tank. However, now I have to. Calcium is around 440 where it should be. I ordered ESV two part this past weekend and expect to have it by the end of the week. Can anyone just explain to me on how to approach this using the ESV. ESV themselves mentions to add 1ml of solution for every 4 gallons of tank water. However when using the BRS or Saltwateraquarium calculator, it says I need about 12 ml to reach my desired alkalinity of 9. What plan should I follow. Also, do I need to dose both alkalinity and calcium even tough calcium is already where it should be? I know I cant dose both at the same time but do I have to do both at all? Thanks for the help.

131696 · Mar 15, 2022

Dose a little at a time ,test next day ,always under dose to make sure your not messing up. Test learn your tank.

nereefpat · Mar 15, 2022

fishski13 said:
ESV themselves mentions to add 1ml of solution for every 4 gallons of tank water. However when using the BRS or Saltwateraquarium calculator, it says I need about 12 ml to reach my desired alkalinity of 9. What plan should I follow.

Use a calculator. I wouldn't add it all at once though.

fishski13 said:
Also, do I need to dose both alkalinity and calcium even tough calcium is already where it should be? I know I cant dose both at the same time but do I have to do both at all? Thanks for the help.

Most 2 part (alk and Ca) products are designed to be dosed 1:1, similar to the ratio they are consumed. I would get alk and Ca both to target levels, then after that, dose both.

Dennis Cartier · Mar 15, 2022

Here is a calculator to help you with the dosage. http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

As Pat said, you want to dose each part of ESV B-ionic in equal parts. This is especially true for this product. When dosed equally, the result will be ionically balanced, with none of your major or minor elements raised or lowered in relation to each other (your salinity will increase though). So you always want to dose them equally.

For doing 1 time adjustments, you can use plain baking soda for adjusting alk, or calcium chloride for adjusting calcium. The calculator above can provide the amounts for adjustment, and covers a range of products.

Doing your initial adjustment just using ESV is also fine. The 3 dKH of adjustment to your alk will only move your calcium by 21.4 ppm, which may or may not even be detectable on a test kit.

Nano sapiens · Mar 15, 2022

fishski13 said:
Also, do I need to dose both alkalinity and calcium even tough calcium is already where it should be? I know I cant dose both at the same time but do I have to do both at all? Thanks for the help.

You can dose the alkalinity part and not the calcium part until you get to 9 dKh (but still keep an eye on your cal level). Once both alk and cal are where you want them, then simply dose 1:1 of both parts (use the online calculator to estimate how much) and test often to make sure the levels are staying stable. Once the levels are all good and stable, then you can determine how often you need to test (ex.: I do alk 2-3/week, cal once a week or so). Out of all the things we can test for, keeping alk stable is aguably the most important.

In reef keeping, it's highly advisable to adjust things slowly so as not to stress the animals. You wouldn't want to go from say 6.7 to 9 dKh all at once. For the coral that you keep, I'd take it slow and try to raise alk gradually no more than 0.5 dkh/day.