Help with Alkalinity dosing

pirarucu

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Hello,

I have had a 60 gal mixed reef tank for some 4 years. It used to consume to consume about 30 ml daily of BRS two-part Alk and Ca dosed by the BRS pumps. Earlier this year I upgraded to a Trident alk, ca, and Mg testing unit. At the same time, I also started using better saltwater (Red Sea Pro), started doing 10% weekly water changes, and started dosing Red Sea's Reef Trace Elements. As time passed, corals started looking better, and consumption of Alk and Ca increased substantially, probably because corals started reacting positively to improved water quality. Some three months ago, I purchased a DOS dosing pump, and programmed it to do automatic dosing using data from Trident.

Despite the marvelous engineering of a Trident controlled dosing, I have not had success with it. At first, dosing was being done in the Sump, and I had to constantly increase alk and ca dosing to maintain them at reasonable levels (8 dkh for alk, 460 ppm for ca). I had to increase the daily dosages so much that I got to dose about 180 ml of alk and ca daily. As I understand that dosing of alk and ca greater than 2 ml per gal a day is probably too much, so that I was probably overdosing. I stopped dosing for two days and observed the decline in Alk and Ca. I estimated that my tank consumed about 90 ml of Alk and Ca daily, so I reset the dosing amounts, but with no success. Alk and Ca kept declining, and again I was increasing the daily dosages to try and maintain alk and Ca at resonable levels. The results was that soon I was dosing about 180 ml of each again, daily.

I could not understand what was going on. I figured that maybe my flow in the sump was not enough and Alk and Ca were precipitating (though I believe my sump has plenty of flow). So I changed the tubing to dose in the main tank, right on top of a powerhead. It has been dosing there for about a month now, and now the system is dosing about 80-90 ml of Ca daily but Ca is a bit high, nearing 500 ppm. Alk is being dosed at 150 ml daily and the system seems to be unable to get it to a dkh of 9, which is my target. I did the thing of stop dosing and estimating the decline in alk and ca to calculate consumption. Again, my estimate was of a consumption of about 80-90 ml daily of each.

I have looked for signs of precipitation in my tank, and did not find. The only noticeable thing is that the back wall has become whiteish.

Sorry for the long, winding message, but I am at loss here in this puzzle. Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do to better control my dosing? I am frustrated that in all this I would like to have dkh at 11 (to speed up coral growth), but don't seem able to do so. Also, based on my understanding, alk and ca should be dosed at roughly the same amounts. I read other threads here about unequal dosing of alk and ca, and all cases there of unequal dosing do not include dosing of alk at two times the amount of ca dosing, so I figure something is odd in my tank.

Specs of my tank are as follows:

Salinity: 35
ORP: 360
pH: 7.2 (varies by 0.05 daily)
Mg: 1350

Tank has cheatomorpha in sump, a skimmer rated for 220 gal, and two 360 kessils. All the other chemicals (phosphates, amonia, nitrates, etc) are all zero and have been zero for years now. I have some 7 small fish.

Many thanks for those patient enough to read all this!
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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The pH cannot be 7.2.

2 mL per gallon is not necessarily too much, assuming you are using the BRS alk supplement still.

Can you describe exactly what you used and how you made it?

A surprising number of folks get the recipe wrong.
 
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pirarucu

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The pH cannot be 7.2.

2 mL per gallon is not necessarily too much, assuming you are using the BRS alk supplement still.

Can you describe exactly what you used and how you made it?

A surprising number of folks get the recipe wrong.
Sorry for the mistake -- yes pH is 8.2

As for the two-part solution, I am now using BRS' Sodium Bicarbonate together with BRS' Calcium Chloride. I was using BRS' soda ash before for Alk, but pH was reaching 8.4 everyday so I switched to Sodium Bicarbonate.

You say "2 mL per gallon is not necessarily too much, assuming you are using the BRS alk supplement still." Given that, should I not worry that I'd be dosing twice as much or more of alk relative to ca in order to reach the parameters I'm interested?

Thanks for your help!
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Sorry for the mistake -- yes pH is 8.2

As for the two-part solution, I am now using BRS' Sodium Bicarbonate together with BRS' Calcium Chloride. I was using BRS' soda ash before for Alk, but pH was reaching 8.4 everyday so I switched to Sodium Bicarbonate.

You say "2 mL per gallon is not necessarily too much, assuming you are using the BRS alk supplement still." Given that, should I not worry that I'd be dosing twice as much or more of alk relative to ca in order to reach the parameters I'm interested?

Thanks for your help!

My bicarbonate recipe seems to confuse lots of folks that get it from BRS.

2 mL per gallon not a high dose for that recipe. It is only 1.4 dKH per day. A soft coral tank with coralline growth can use more than that.

Also, the bicarbonate recipe is half as concentrated as the carbonate recipe. Some folks mix up the calcium part at the higher concentration, and hence get calcium rising. What exactly did you mix up at what concentration?

This has more on the recipes:

An Improved Do-it-Yourself Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Supplement System by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
 
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pirarucu

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My bicarbonate recipe seems to confuse lots of folks that get it from BRS.

2 mL per gallon not a high dose for that recipe. It is only 1.4 dKH per day. A soft coral tank with coralline growth can use more than that.

Also, the bicarbonate recipe is half as concentrated as the carbonate recipe. Some folks mix up the calcium part at the higher concentration, and hence get calcium rising. What exactly did you mix up at what concentration?

This has more on the recipes:

An Improved Do-it-Yourself Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Supplement System by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
Randy, thanks for your feedback. I think you understood that I did my own mixing of alk and ca. In fact, I have only been using BRS' ready-made products: Sodium Bicarbonate for alk, and Calcium Chloride for ca. Alk is currently being dosed at twice as much as ca, with alk being dosed at 2.5-3 ml/gal and ca being dosed at 1.5 ml/gal. I am sensing you do not find the dosages to be abnormal in quantities and proportions (between them). Should I just disregard that and dose as necessary to keep these two parameters right?
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Randy, thanks for your feedback. I think you understood that I did my own mixing of alk and ca. In fact, I have only been using BRS' ready-made products: Sodium Bicarbonate for alk, and Calcium Chloride for ca. Alk is currently being dosed at twice as much as ca, with alk being dosed at 2.5-3 ml/gal and ca being dosed at 1.5 ml/gal. I am sensing you do not find the dosages to be abnormal in quantities and proportions (between them). Should I just disregard that and dose as necessary to keep these two parameters right?

What mixing recipe did you use? If you didn't follow anyone's exact recipe than you cannot follow their dosing guidelines.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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OK, but I'm trying to figure out if you added the "right" amount. A number of folks followed the wrong BRS recipe and then did not have the proper dosing amounts or ratios.

The "twice as much" comment is a huge tip off to me that you did it wrong, just like these folks:

 
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pirarucu

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I checked the amounts used to prepare the BRS Alk solution. I think I did it right: 1 cup plus 2 tbs spoons of the powder for each gallon of RODI water. So it remains unclear why I'd have to dose twice a much alk than ca to keep parameters stable. I am at loss here.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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I checked the amounts used to prepare the BRS Alk solution. I think I did it right: 1 cup plus 2 tbs spoons of the powder for each gallon of RODI water. So it remains unclear why I'd have to dose twice a much alk than ca to keep parameters stable. I am at loss here.


No, that is incorrect. That is the recipe for the bicarbonate version that is exactly half as potent as the carbonate version:


Mixing Instructions - BRS Soda Ash Liquid Alkalinity

Fill a 1-gallon container 4/5 full of RO/DI or distilled water and then add 2 1/3 cups of BRS Pharma Soda Ash into the container. Secure the cap on the container and shake it for about 10 seconds to help start the dissolving process. Remove the cap and fill the container the rest of the way with RO/DI or distilled water. Give the container a few more shakes and then let it sit until all the salts have fully dissolved before use.

 

animatedcorals

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The pH cannot be 7.2.

2 mL per gallon is not necessarily too much, assuming you are using the BRS alk supplement still.

Can you describe exactly what you used and how you made it?

A surprising number of folks get the recipe wrong.
Not sure if you’ll see this. I have a question. I test daily around 2pm my Alk and some days it’s 7.4, 7.5, 7.2, 7.8, 8.0. Point being it never consumes the exact amount daily. I manually dose brs soda ash to keep my Alk at 8.4

how does someone use a dosing pump if your consumption varies daily? Do you just need to adjust the pump daily or is there an easier way? And my calcium seems to stay at 430 for 2-3 days then day 3 or 4 it’s at 400. Never understood this. Tank been up for 2-3 yrs. mixed reef. Any advice or tips? Thanks a lot!
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Not sure if you’ll see this. I have a question. I test daily around 2pm my Alk and some days it’s 7.4, 7.5, 7.2, 7.8, 8.0. Point being it never consumes the exact amount daily. I manually dose brs soda ash to keep my Alk at 8.4

how does someone use a dosing pump if your consumption varies daily? Do you just need to adjust the pump daily or is there an easier way? And my calcium seems to stay at 430 for 2-3 days then day 3 or 4 it’s at 400. Never understood this. Tank been up for 2-3 yrs. mixed reef. Any advice or tips? Thanks a lot!

I would not be sure you alk consumption does vary daily as opposed to the test giving a slightly different result each time on the same water, but even if it is randomly varying up or down by a few tenths of a dKH each day, constant dosing of the average demand will keep it pretty steady.
 

animatedcorals

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I would not be sure you alk consumption does vary daily as opposed to the test giving a slightly different result each time on the same water, but even if it is randomly varying up or down by a few tenths of a dKH each day, constant dosing of the average demand will keep it pretty steady.
Ok that makes sense thanks! I never even thought of it like that. One other question. I was thinking of trying you Recipe 1 and it says to dose Alk and calc 1:1 ratio

why does my calcium kind’ve trend like this
Day 1 430
Day 2 430
Day 3 430
Day 4 390-400

sometimes it’s the 3rd or 4th day after a water change which I do weekly, but nonetheless it’ll stay 430 for 2-3 days then drop out of nowhere. Wouldn’t I see it slightly declining the first 2 days prior to dropping?

so back to the question - if my calcium doesn’t change daily, will dosing Alk and calcium daily have any negative effects like going too high on calcium?
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Daily changes in calcium, even when not dosing, are very hard to accurately quantify by kit. Too small.

If you dose 1 dKH of alk per day, the expected calcium decline is only about 7 ppm.

Calcium is best measured over time and watched for the trend, not a single up or down.
 

animatedcorals

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Daily changes in calcium, even when not dosing, are very hard to accurately quantify by kit. Too small.

If you dose 1 dKH of alk per day, the expected calcium decline is only about 7 ppm.

Calcium is best measured over time and watched for the trend, not a single up or down.
Ohhhh ok you explain things really simply. So should I then dose calcium only when it is detected on my test kit (for calcium I use Red Sea) or just match calcium with my alkalinity dosage (which is 40 ml to get 7.4 - 8.4 daily) so 40ml of calc then 40ml of Alk at night? Thanks again
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Ohhhh ok you explain things really simply. So should I then dose calcium only when it is detected on my test kit (for calcium I use Red Sea) or just match calcium with my alkalinity dosage (which is 40 ml to get 7.4 - 8.4 daily) so 40ml of calc then 40ml of Alk at night? Thanks again

If using a two part designed for equal parts dosing, I dose the calcium part to match the alk part, and only adjust the calcium part when calcium is clearly trending too high or too low.
 

homer1475

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I used to dose calcium only when my test kits said I had to. Which was not very often, and I thought that was odd.


FWIW, for many years I never dosed equal amounts, and could never figure out why. After this long convo with randy we figured out I was dosing sodium bicarb, and using the recipe from BRS for calcium. The BRS recipe for calcium was designed as an eqaul part to soda ash, not sodium bicarb which is about half as strong as soda ash.

So if your dosing sodium bicarb(not soda ash), you need to cut the calcium recipe in half(1 and 1/4C per gallon of RO/DI).

Now that I undertsand what my error was, I dose equal amount of CAL to my ALK, and never see much change in my CAL.
 

animatedcorals

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If using a two part designed for equal parts dosing, I dose the calcium part to match the alk part, and only adjust the calcium part when calcium is clearly trending too high or too low.
I’m using BRS Soda Ash and BRS Calcium. So I’m going to match the calcium with the soda ash it sounds like right? Cause like you mentioned before calcium test kits are not detecting small changes so noticing every 3 days my calcium dropping from 430 - 400 while dosing soda ash 1dkh worth daily (my tank size that’s 40ml) if I was to dose 40ml of calcium that’s only 7ppm a day which makes sense why I’m not detecting any drops in my calcium. Does all that sound right? Sorry for the the back and forth. Thanks a lot fir taking time to help out
 

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I used to dose calcium only when my test kits said I had to. Which was not very often, and I thought that was odd.


FWIW, for many years I never dosed equal amounts, and could never figure out why. After this long convo with randy we figured out I was dosing sodium bicarb, and using the recipe from BRS for calcium. The BRS recipe for calcium was designed as an eqaul part to soda ash, not sodium bicarb which is about half as strong as soda ash.

So if your dosing sodium bicarb(not soda ash), you need to cut the calcium recipe in half(1 and 1/4C per gallon of RO/DI).

Now that I undertsand what my error was, I dose equal amount of CAL to my ALK, and never see much change in my CAL.
I thought I was the only one dosing Alk more than calc lol. But yea I’m dosing soda ash but I’m noticing my calcium drops 30ppm only every 3rd day give or take. But like Randy said some kits aren’t detecting small drops in calcium which would make sense because my soda ash dose is 1dkh a day and that’d be equivalent in calcium wise 7ppm of calcium so I think my Red Sea test kit got calcium just isn’t detecting those 7ppm drops
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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I’m using BRS Soda Ash and BRS Calcium. So I’m going to match the calcium with the soda ash it sounds like right? Cause like you mentioned before calcium test kits are not detecting small changes so noticing every 3 days my calcium dropping from 430 - 400 while dosing soda ash 1dkh worth daily (my tank size that’s 40ml) if I was to dose 40ml of calcium that’s only 7ppm a day which makes sense why I’m not detecting any drops in my calcium. Does all that sound right? Sorry for the the back and forth. Thanks a lot fir taking time to help out

Yes, that is my recipe and I'd dose both parts equally based on alk demand unless calcium is actually already too high or too low. ;)
 
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