Finally started dosing, quick question

[Cjud7982]

I finally got myself a dosing pump for alk and calc after manually dosing whenever it was convenient. When I was manually dosing I was able to get my alk up into the mid 9s which is what I am shooting for . Finally starting to get Coraline to grow and the rock is starting to look a lot better. I dont think i have any real demanding corals yet, small acan colony, 11 headed hammer, 3 headed torch, gsp, palys, and some shrooms.

So when I got my dosing pump I stopped dosing for a week or so and held off on my water changes to figure out my consumption. I started out at 25ml per day and it was still dropping. I upped it to 50 ml and it brought it up to a little over 8 but then it started to drop again over the last few days. Is this normal? Could it be because the coralline is finally able to grow and consume the alk? I attached a shot from my inputs on my fusion. BTW I am using Randy's recipe 1.

 

[TheEngineer]

How big is your tank?

 

[Cjud7982]

Tank volume including sump is a little over 200 gallons

 

[TheEngineer]

Run your numbers through the BRS calculator here: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-calculator/

50mL in a 200g tank is about a 0.35dKH addition daily. Have you tested your consumption rate?

 

[Cjud7982]

Yeah I did. It came out to .09 dkh per day which is about 11.5 ml of product daily. I started dosing 25 ml per day to raise it up over time back to where I would like it. But it kept dropping. I am starting to worry my test kit is giving me grief, it's the red Sea one with the goofy color change from blue to a light yellow

 

[TheEngineer]

Are you sure your doser in putting in the correct amount?

 

[Cjud7982]

Are you sure your doser in putting in the correct amount?

Well I guess I never thought of that, ignorantly. I sort of assumed it would be close new out of the box. I can pull the line out of the sump and place it into a container and measure it to compare I guess. Do you just compensate the difference by changing the daily dosage? I don't think there's a way to change the calibration on the pumps themselves.

 

[TheEngineer]

Not ignorant, just a mistake

First thing you want to do is figure out how much they actually add when you run them. Easy method is to run water through them into a container. Measure either how long it takes to get to a certain volume or the other way around. Then it depends on how your controller works. Mine is based on time, so if I dose 10mL/min and I need 50mL I run it for 5 minutes.

How are you controlling yours?

EDIT: You posted an Apex screen, so I'm assuming from the apex. I don't know how they work, but I'm guessing there's a calibration section somewhere.

 

[jsker]

Having a doser makes dosing a lot easier.

It will take a bit to fine tune your system

 

[Cjud7982]

It's an eshopps master 2 head. It is a stand alone unit and I simply tell it which head and how many ml per day I want to dose, how many intervals to dose it, and when to start dosing. I simply take my test results and input them to the fusion to save and graph the results for me. So I guess I can change the time so I can actually watch and measure it's output. I can manually run the pumps, bit idk what that will tell me.

And @jsker that's the plan to make things easier lol, like you said I expect it to take time to dial it in. Just wanna make sure I am not missing something obvious. That seems to happen alot haha

 

[TheEngineer]

I'd run it on manual and see if it puts out what it claims it is putting out.

 

[Cjud7982]

Well that's the problem. When I say manual mode, it's just I hold the button for as long as I want . It doesn't run the intended dosage...

 

[TheEngineer]

Hmmm.... Maybe check the manual?

 

[Cjud7982]

Yeah I read it multiple times before setting it up, watched a few videos, and just re read it to see if I missed anything. It just says it's able to go as low as a 1ml flow rate.

So I think that I will run a tube from the inlet side to a Pyrex container with the solution(or just water, not sure if the viscosity makes a difference) and the outlet to another measuring container and see how consistent it is with different amount of volumes... Maybe I'll be able to determine a correction curve or maybe a actual flow rate vs time. Once that's set then I'll set it to does varying volumes on its own with me watching it and compare it to the baseline values.

Does this logic make sense?

I just figure that for the price of these you'd be able to trust the accuracy of them. Oh well nothing g is perfect and now I get to tinker with it and learn it.

 

[acabgd]

I'd do that - test with a measuring container. Then re-test again. I'm also not sure about viscosity difference, but doubt it would be major on such a small scale. You might get surprised by measurement, though and how much it differs from volume expected.

 

[Cjud7982]

Ok, so Ive been playing with the doser for the past few hours on and off. Apparently I can only set it to dose automatically on an even hour lol. Ohh well. I am learning that it is pretty consistent. Looks to flow around .65/.66 mL/s. I've attached a little sheet with some results on it. The first run of 50 ml was with some of the solution still in the tubes and possibly had an air bubble or two, so I think that's why it's a little off. The two manual 25 ml tests appear to be off as well. This could be because I am using a small Pyrex cup and misread the water level to establish a time, which dictated the next result. I wish I had a graduated cylinder!!! Haha The circled values are what the constant was for that test. In all instances of the auto dose the measured amount was very close to the programmed value. At 7 I will be running another 50 ml auto dose test to confirm. I know this is not the most accurate testing so please don't be too harsh

So I think the doser is doing it's job. But the one thing I did notice is that my tube holder may have been tightened a bit too much and pinched the tube ever so slightly, so maybe that could be why my alk was still dropping. The testing will continue

 

[acabgd]

Nice testing and nice catch for the kinked tube. Now you can hopefully adjust dosing more accurately!

 

[Stigigemla]

Run the pump manually for 1 minute as exactly as You can. Use any kind of a cup and place it on an electronic kitchen scale.
Zero the scale with the cup and the 1 minute solution. Then empty the cup and place it on the scale again. Now it shows the negativ number of the weight.
An idiot proof of using a scale without it turning off.