Dosing pump schedule / times per day?

[ZaneTer]

We have very similar dosing volumes, where are you from in the U.K.? Newcastle upon Tyne is home for me.

 

[bobbyM]

eShops Doser 24 times a day. It's my 4th year running it with a year break in between. so yeah, I've had it 5 years. working great. I was up to 138ml per day when I sold my livestock and moved. Now I'm dosing 13ml per day.

 

[Rakie]

Going from hand dosing to a doser made a significant difference. Going from 12x a day to 24x a day may also make a slight difference. Part of what people love about Calcium Reactors is the steady non stop dosing. Further, Julian Sprung uses (i believe) the medical equipment and doses alk every 10 minutes... That's pretty interesting to me.

I've changed it up to 24x daily from 12x, maybe it'll be a little more stable. Maybe I won't notice a thing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Part of what people love about Calcium Reactors is the steady non stop dosing. .

I think as more people begin to monitor alk many times per day, that feeling may decline since it doses 24/7, even if alk demand may be mostly during the day. I expect it is not as stable as a dosing pump set to match demand.

 

[The River]

Just started dosing Aquaforest 123 using coral box dosing pump and have it set to dose:

Mg - 1X (8am)
Ca - 5X every 2 hrs. (10am - 6pm)
Mg - 1X (8pm)
KH - 5X every 2 hrs. (10pm - 6am)

 

[Rakie]

I think as more people begin to monitor alk many times per day, that feeling may decline since it doses 24/7, even if alk demand may be mostly during the day. I expect it is not as stable as a dosing pump set to match demand.

If I were to imagine a graph of alk with a doser vs calcium reactor I visualize the calcium reactor as a straight line, and the doser having many (little) swings throughout the day. Assuming this is a fair assessment, would this not imply the straight line is more desirable?

I've been talking with those around me and we mostly hemm and haw on how much that fraction of stability improves coral health and growth.

Further, while anecdotal... All if those I've spoken to say they've seen a notable uptick in growth when moving to a calcium reactor.

These questions are tricky as there's many moving parts, and half the information is anecdotal.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If I were to imagine a graph of alk with a doser vs calcium reactor I visualize the calcium reactor as a straight line, and the doser having many (little) swings throughout the day. Assuming this is a fair assessment, would this not imply the straight line is more desirable?

I've been talking with those around me and we mostly hemm and haw on how much that fraction of stability improves coral health and growth.

Further, while anecdotal... All if those I've spoken to say they've seen a notable uptick in growth when moving to a calcium reactor.

These questions are tricky as there's many moving parts, and half the information is anecdotal.

I'm not making any particular claims about the importance of stability at this level, but I contend that a two part dosed optimally can lead to more stable alkalinity than a reactor. That is because alk demand is not uniform through the day/night.

People who have nearly continuously measured alkalinity in their aquaria almost always report that most to all of the demand is concentrated during the light cycle and shortly thereafter. Little alk demand takes place in the late night/early AM.

The why is complex and could be from abiotic preciptiation, coral consumption, or both, both of which are likely higher at higher pH, and the lighting itself may drive biological processes (photosynthesis and an internal rise in pH) that drives calcium carbonate deposition by corals.

So with that said, suppose that you have 3 dKH of alk consumption daily, and it is mostly from 10 AM to 10 PM (not an atypical result based on reports I have seen).

24/7 delivery of alkalinity by a reactor (or any other method) leads to a significant increase in alkalinity from 10 pm to 10 am, and then a decline from 10 am to 10 pm. One might even see an overnight increase of more than 1 dKH, and a similar decline during the day.

If you dosed during the day in timing to match the demand, with 20 doses, you would see at most, jumps in alk of 3 dKH/20 = 0.15 dKH with each dose, and a decline by that amount for the time period until the next dose.