Looking at a KHD...

[Ayrtoo]

Hey all,
Easy questions for you as my country has finally got a local ghl retailer!

Looking to get a khd standalone doser combo, so this will help keep my alk pretty stable. What are your thoughts on dosing calcium and magnesium, am I correct in understanding I can set to dose equal amounts of calcium and magnesium (if I got another ghl doser) all through the khd?

Or would you recommend I keep alk stable and manually sort out calcium and magnesium? My consumption isn't a whole lot, all Lps and probably only 10-15 pieces in my 900L aquarium.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Thanks
Ayrton

 

[Euphyllia97]

Equal dosing of calcium and Alk can be a good way to start. Eventually you can adjust the dosings according to your tanks needs. I’m dosing alkalinity on a daily basis and I manually add some calcium now and then. I know this is not the most efficient and stable way, but have never seen problems in my corals as long as alk is stable.

Magnesium will be consumed very slowly so I would suggest to just check that value over a couple of weeks and dose it manually every 2 weeks or so. Will not have big fluctuations.

 

[Ayrtoo]

Equal dosing of calcium and Alk can be a good way to start. Eventually you can adjust the dosings according to your tanks needs. I’m dosing alkalinity on a daily basis and I manually add some calcium now and then. I know this is not the most efficient and stable way, but have never seen problems in my corals as long as alk is stable.

Magnesium will be consumed very slowly so I would suggest to just check that value over a couple of weeks and dose it manually every 2 weeks or so. Will not have big fluctuations.

Makes sense, I forgot to add... The reason for asking if the khd has the ability to dose equal amounts on two other dosing channels is due to my tank using the AquaForest method which requires equal dosing across the 3 main elements.

 

[Dr. Jim]

I don't think it is a good idea to rely on your alkalinity readings to determine how much Ca and/or Mg is dosed. I would rely on manual testing of Ca and Mg, or buy an ION Director.

 

[Ayrtoo]

I don't think it is a good idea to rely on your alkalinity readings to determine how much Ca and/or Mg is dosed. I would rely on manual testing of Ca and Mg, or buy an ION Director.

My plan was to get my 3 levels to the recommended levels for the AF system and hopefully use the khd to keep my kh stable as needed and get it to hopefully dose calcium and magnesium at the same ML level. Then test all 3 twice a week to test reliability, the AF system for me has kept my 3 elements pretty close together over the last 12 months but I'm wanting to automate that. I'm also looking at moving over to the Triton system as a option.

So basically, can the khd tell a second dosing pump to dose the same amount of two other solutions?

 

[AquaPhilNJ]

I don't know of that option (i.e., to tell doser1 to be exactly the same as doser2) if it is available, however configuring the dosers is simple enough. You input your desired time and ml amount of each one individually.

However the kdh doesn't tell doser pump what to dose. The GHL KHD automates the measuring of your ALK dKH. Separately, the GHL doser will dose your ALK to whatever specified amounts. To be clear the KHD doesn't automatically inform the doser what it should dose.

KHD does have an option called Adaptive mode, where it modifies the dosers already specified dosing amount; (khd input being desired ALK, and desired % of change). If one puts 50% then it will decrease the ALK dosing by 50% if your ALK is measured 1 dkh above, or increase if below. if 0.25 dkh below increase by 12% and so on. Actually, GHL has many youtube videos online, this one explains what i'm trying to say much better ""

 

[Michael Gray]

Adaptive. Set to alter your already alk dosage it will taper your set dose down and up as said above. That being said if your equal dosing ca alk and others. U can indeed keep it equal. Put dosing pumps you want to stay equal dosing to each other all to adaptive mode. So I'd alk is high it tapers down alk, CA, and whatever u have together at the same percentage

 

[Dr. Jim]

My plan was to get my 3 levels to the recommended levels for the AF system and hopefully use the khd to keep my kh stable as needed and get it to hopefully dose calcium and magnesium at the same ML level. Then test all 3 twice a week to test reliability, the AF system for me has kept my 3 elements pretty close together over the last 12 months but I'm wanting to automate that. I'm also looking at moving over to the Triton system as a option.

So basically, can the khd tell a second dosing pump to dose the same amount of two other solutions?

I didn't quite understand what your plan was when I wrote my earlier response, so I'm sorry for my inaccurate reply. (I was thinking you wanted to use your KH level to determine dosages for Ca and Mg, possibly without regard to testing). But if you are planning to use the Triton system, or devise your own, then what Michael wrote is the better answer. I'm using the KH director to dose the Triton system (using 4 pumps). I use the "add-on" control mode instead of the "adaptive" (only because I prefer to work with absolute numbers rather than percentages).