Dosing & Daily Alk swings: What's do you think is acceptable?

[anthonymckay]

Since the genesis of my new tank, my dosing strategy has been to dose at night in order to try counteract the nighttime pH drop to a small extent and raise Alk back to ~8.5. Then I allow the Alkalinity to drop during the day where it's usually around 8.0 when the lights go off. It's been doing this day/night oscillation for a few months stably and corals have been looking good and growing well.

Lately though, my alkalinity uptake during the day has increased to the point that I'll start hitting the bottom of my desired 8.0-8.5 window earlier in the day. I'll do a manual small dose to bring it back up 0.1-0.2 dKH to compensate. At this point, I'm not sure it make sense to continue with my nighttime dosing, as the day drop will continue to grow, and inversely nighttime increase to the point that my swings will be well outside my target window of stability.

So I ask, what do you consider to be an "acceptable" swing each day for your alkalinity, and what is your dosing strategy?

 

[dwest]

I have dosed at night only and 24/7. Honestly, it doesn’t seem to matter to my tank. I have been dosing 24/7 the past 10 years or so as it’s the easiest for me.

 

[anthonymckay]

I have dosed at night only and 24/7. Honestly, it doesn’t seem to matter to my tank. I have been dosing 24/7 the past 10 years or so as it’s the easiest for me.

What is your daily uptake and swing?

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

What do you use for 2 part?
Why are you focused on ph?

 

[anthonymckay]

What do you use for 2 part?

Right now I dose both kalkwasser and 2-part.

Why are you focused on ph?

Because 1) in my experience pH stability is key to a healthy reef tank and 2) I don’t want my pH going any lower than around 8.0-8.1 minimum. Dosing at night when pH naturally dips helps counteract that dip and prevents my tank from dropping below that range. That’s just my own preference. I try to keep it around 8.2-8.3.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Right now I dose both kalkwasser and 2-part.


Because 1) in my experience pH stability is key to a healthy reef tank and 2) I don’t want my pH going any lower than around 8.0-8.1 minimum. Dosing at night when pH naturally dips helps counteract that dip and prevents my tank from dropping below that range. That’s just my own preference. I try to keep it around 8.2-8.3.

Do you use a sodium bicarbonate 2 part ?

I know pH is all the rage right now, but there used to be a time when it was never checked or messed with.

to your question

:So I ask, what do you consider to be an "acceptable" swing each day for your alkalinity, and what is your dosing strategy?

Acceptable swing each day idk because alk swings and coral damage is deeper than an alkalinity value in that with things out of line maybe over a .5dkh swing will effect coral where another system may have no problem doing a full 1dkh a day so I'd say as low of a swing as possible, but i can't tell you what my system swings without an alk monitor.

Dosing strategy for alkalinity? I dose sodium carbonate 24hrs a day in both my current systems and use sodium bicarbonate for corrections

 

[anthonymckay]

Do you use a sodium bicarbonate 2 part ?

the 2-part I use along with kalkwasser is sodium carbonate.

I know pH is all the rage right now, but there used to be a time when it was never checked or messed with.

to your question

:So I ask, what do you consider to be an "acceptable" swing each day for your alkalinity, and what is your dosing strategy?

Acceptable swing each day idk because alk swings and coral damage is deeper than an alkalinity value in that with things out of line maybe over a .5dkh swing will effect coral where another system may have no problem doing a full 1dkh a day so I'd say as low of a swing as possible, but i can't tell you what my system swings without an alk monitor.

Dosing strategy for alkalinity? I dose sodium carbonate 24hrs a day in both my current systems and use sodium bicarbonate for corrections

I feel like you're possibly taking my single mention of dosing at night to help keep my pH swings minimal as meaning that pH is my end all be all parameter? It is just 1 of many parameters I monitor and keep in mind in my attempt to achieve "stability" in my reef.

Yes, there indeed was a time when people didn't monitor/mess with pH. And there was also a time when it was accepted that anything above 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates was bad. Some people had success with those approaches, some didn't. But the collective knowledge of the hobby has advanced quite a bit in a the past few decades and we now have a far better understanding of the relationship of the various parameters in the water and how they affect things. And the rate of success people are having has greatly increased as a result.

I will say personally, when I started continuously monitoring things like pH, Alkalinity, etc, and targeted the goal of "stability" I had a lot more success with corals I struggled with a decade ago.

That said, I'm sure we both know that there's more than 1 way to skin a cat. Ie: There's no 1 right way to do it, which is why I'm asking what others are doing and what they find acceptable for them.

 

[dwest]

What is your daily uptake and swing?

I have a 180 gallon tank. The daily swing is about 0.5 dKH. Uptake unsure. I dose 4L kalk through a stirrer, 130 ml 2 part, and 50 ml kalk saturated vinegar per day.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I feel like you're possibly taking my single mention of dosing at night to help keep my pH swings minimal as meaning that pH is my end all be all parameter?

No I was just curious why you were tracking ph over alkalinity, but i was just commenting, not to be taken to seriously.

 

[anthonymckay]

No I was just curious why you were tracking ph over alkalinity, but i was just commenting, not to be taken to seriously.

Most of my initial post was about tracking alkalinity… haha. Anyway, I track both continuously every 4hrs with an Alkatronic. Calc, Mag, phos, nitrate, & iodine I monitor throughout the week with a Mastertronic.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Since the genesis of my new tank, my dosing strategy has been to dose at night in order to try counteract the nighttime pH drop to a small extent and raise Alk back to ~8.5. Then I allow the Alkalinity to drop during the day where it's usually around 8.0 when the lights go off. It's been doing this day/night oscillation for a few months stably and corals have been looking good and growing well.

Lately though, my alkalinity uptake during the day has increased to the point that I'll start hitting the bottom of my desired 8.0-8.5 window earlier in the day. I'll do a manual small dose to bring it back up 0.1-0.2 dKH to compensate. At this point, I'm not sure it make sense to continue with my nighttime dosing, as the day drop will continue to grow, and inversely nighttime increase to the point that my swings will be well outside my target window of stability.

So I ask, what do you consider to be an "acceptable" swing each day for your alkalinity, and what is your dosing strategy?

Unless you're measuring and dosing based on Alk measurement on a hourly basis, you're not ever going to do better than +-0.3.

I tried measuring Alk hourly for a couple of weeks and it varies significantly over 24 hours together with other shifts due to growth spurts, etc.

 

[anthonymckay]

Unless you're measuring and dosing based on Alk measurement on a hourly basis, you're not ever going to do better than +-0.3.

I tried measuring Alk hourly for a couple of weeks and it varies significantly over 24 hours together with other shifts due to growth spurts, etc.

That’s fine, right now my swing is ~0.5 and things are happy. I don’t necessarily need to minimize that. I just don’t want to be doing 1.0+ swings each day and my current strategy I realized would eventually lead to that.

You can see the past 30 days of 4hr monitoring it's very consistent in it's day/night oscillation between 8.0-8.5 (other than the one day you can spot where I had an issue with my doser).