Triton dose seems high?

[Whipples]

Hi Folks, just have a little dosing nervosa I am hoping to gain some insight on. I started Triton when I upgraded to my 100G in September, and since then my daily total dose has crept up to 36ml per day to stay stable on alkalinity. CA and MG seem to be holding true, albeit I test CA weekly and MG when I remember to, and my SPS frags are encrusting at the base and some nominal vertical growth. My hammers seem to be doing well and all that, so I can see it working.

My question is, with roughly 110G volume including sump and what seems to me as a smaller coral load (10 sticks, all 2" or shorter, 14 hammer heads 2-3" in diameter fully open, and 3 octospawn heads) compared to others, does this daily dose of 36ml seem high/extreme? It's roughly 4x the baseline dose, I watched the BRS160 video and they mentioned their dose is about 40ml and their tank is both more stocked and more volume than mine, so I feel like 36ml per day on my system has to go down at some point? If you are dosing Triton, did you notice your dose peak and eventually drop off? The appeal used to be the concentration of the Core7 program and I switched from Aquaforest because I did not enjoy mixing the three components every other week (that dose was ~90ml/day). In true reef nervosa fashion, I test my alkalinity with both a hanna checker and a salifert test daily at 8pm and they are consistent with each other and have not done an ICP test yet as the dose is slowly continuing to rise as time goes on. I use salifert for CA and MG, too.

 

[justingraham]

U dose by hand or with a doser

 

[Whipples]

GHL Doser 2.1, calibrated monthly.

 

[justingraham]

Well it seems like ur tank is consuming a little bit less then 2 dkh a day. If ur using a doser I do not see how it could be percipatating out. Unless ur doseing at the same time

I’m guessing ur at 8 dkh?
If u do not trust the dose shut off the doser for a day and see what ur tank consumes but if everything is ok then I wouldn’t mess to much tho that does seem like a lot of core 7

 

[Whipples]

Yeah it's programmed to dose 3ml every 2 hours, each element 15 minutes apart, for a total dose of each component of 36ml. Given that consumption, and faith I have in the doser, I wouldn't want to let it run a full day without anything out of fear of something worse happening. My theory is that my old tank or dosing regimen was missing something that is now present and it's causing a huge disparity in consumption, but I can't prove that. It just seems like a very high dose for what my tank currently has.

I target 8dkh but it floats 7.8-8.1 on the test kits, all within margin of error of the 8dkh target.

 

[justingraham]

Why don’t u dose 1.5 every hour?

 

[Whipples]

I like flat numbers and it gives me a bigger window to do maintenance in without worrying about impacting the dosing schedule.

 

[Tim@Triton]

Do you struggle with low pH? Are you using any CO2 scrubbers?

 

[Whipples]

Ph floats between 8.1-8.2 in a 24 hour period, no CO2 scrubbers or media.

 

[Tim@Triton]

An increase in initial dose is usually down to raising the system pH which comes back down over time, I mention the CO2 scrubbers as Core7 requires the C in the system and removing it can cause the system to need a higher dose to maintain.

 

[Whipples]

Only running a skimmer, live rock, refugium, and carbon as filter media, nothing else. My initial guess was that it was due to the lack of maturity in the system, I am hoping the dose begins to come down a bit as things stabilize, just wanted to see if that was consistent with other users experiences and your expectation. Let me know if you can think of anything else, just want to make sense of it.

 

[Tim@Triton]

The most obvious thing to check for which I think was mentioned before is to actually check if that much is actually being dosed, can you see the solutions going down equally by eye? Have you checked the end of the hose and directly beneath it that it is not precipitating and collecting.

 

[Whipples]

That I can confirm. The levels (demarcations) in my dosing container equal what GHL tells me I have left which tells me that my calibration is correct and that the right amount of fluid is hitting the tank. The ends of the dosing lines are clear, they drip right in front of my return pump to keep in line with the "dose in a high flow area". No physical blockages on the tube outputs. A real head scratcher.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

That I can confirm. The levels (demarcations) in my dosing container equal what GHL tells me I have left which tells me that my calibration is correct and that the right amount of fluid is hitting the tank. The ends of the dosing lines are clear, they drip right in front of my return pump to keep in line with the "dose in a high flow area". No physical blockages on the tube outputs. A real head scratcher.

Flow near the return pump is not turbulent in most cases, I'd wager you're precipitating much of what is being dosed. And yes your instincts on that dose being high are correct. I've changed over about 12 reefs to the Core7 supplements so far, and most are well stocked with hard corals. My highest uptake tank is about 330g in total volume and pulls 55mL of each part a day. In that tank alone there are probably over 200 heads of euphyllia, and about 30+ sps pieces and 2 Tridacna clams with noticeable growth margins. From the corals you've described in your system I'd be shocked if you were pulling more than 8-12 mL a day realistically- Probably less. Change your dosing location to another section with more flow or put a small powerhead in your return chamber to blast the spot where the lines dose the supplements. I've had to do this in a number of tanks where the flow through the bubble trap channel wasn't fast enough to dissolve the alk component. It is extremely easing to get some precipitation or clumping on every alk dose due to the high concentration of these supplements. Good luck! Your instincts were right on- so I'd try the changes I suggested and definitely start with a lower dose of 10-15mL and see what happens. It's an excellent product once you dial it in.

I'm sure Triton is pulling their hair out in a lot of cases with Core7 issues because many people don't realize just how much flow is needed at the point of dosing to truly break up the alkalinity component fast enough to avoid precipitation. So the customers just keep increasing the dose since their alk isn't holding at 8, when in reality their initial dose was fine or even too much - it's just that some if it was never making into solution in the tank water.

 

[Whipples]

I'll try a powerhead, but right now it's dropping directly into the return. Within 2-3 seconds of the dose hitting the water it gets sucked up into a 700gph return inlet and fed to the tank via two return outputs, and I've watched it suck the dose in and did not see particulates coming out of the returns in the display. I will give it a shot but I'm not seeing any collection of deposits anywhere in or around the tank either.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I'll try a powerhead, but right now it's dropping directly into the return. Within 2-3 seconds of the dose hitting the water it gets sucked up into a 700gph return inlet and fed to the tank via two return outputs, and I've watched it suck the dose in and did not see particulates coming out of the returns in the display. I will give it a shot but I'm not seeing any collection of deposits anywhere in or around the tank either.

2-3 seconds is way too long. It needs to begin getting dispersed right away. There's just no way I can quantify the math of your dosage with the minimal amount of relative uptake you should be seeing. The only answer is precipitation. It may not be collecting visibly but rest assured it is occurring. Also I caution against dosing directly into the return pump - that is a fast way to blow out a submersible pump. I suspect it has some buildup already depositing in the rotor well and shaft. Also, I know it sounds like a lot of flow but it is not turbulent in the same way a powerhead is. Return pumps shoot a fairly linear column of water through the pipes before it exits into the tank. I have seen return lines internally caked calcium carbonate deposits from people dosing directly into returns. - Have also seen quite a few return pumps ruined in much less time than their usual service life- even had one tank that the owner told me their prior service was dosing directly in front of their iwaki's intake which had managed to kill 2 iwaki pumps in 2 years- which is insane for such a reliable pump. Needless to say I've corrected that issue, but I would caution you and probably suggest using a powerhead and directing the dose to another chamber simply to extend the life or your arguably most critical piece of equipment, the return pump.

 

[Whipples]

I didn't think of the deposits but it makes sense, I'll try to love the dosing lines into the skimmer chamber with a powerhead. I put an MJ1200 in the return section for now to create the turbulence and the dose dissipated much faster. I cut the dose down and will test again in the morning to see if it worked. Thank you for the insight!

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I didn't think of the deposits but it makes sense, I'll try to love the dosing lines into the skimmer chamber with a powerhead. I put an MJ1200 in the return section for now to create the turbulence and the dose dissipated much faster. I cut the dose down and will test again in the morning to see if it worked. Thank you for the insight!

I think you're on the right track now. I can't fault anyone for not having a good idea of how easy it is to get precipitation when dosing concentrated KH additives - it's just one of those pieces of knowledge that only comes through experience with different dosing systems and methods of delivery. I think you'll be really pleased with Core7 once you get it dialed in.

 

[Whipples]

An update for anyone else who comes across a similar issue, so far my dose is down over a third and holding at 8dkh, definitely need to have sever turbulence wherever you may be dosing. @rockskimmerflow was spot on, and I appreciate @Tim@Triton for the input as well!

 

[Whipples]

Well in a strange turn of events, Alk is still dropping with the powerhead and a daily dose of 24ml.