Trying to figure out alk & cal. dosing

Pvtgloss

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Hey guys,
So I'm trying to figure out this dosing.
●I started dosing kalk way to earlier with just a few soft corals. That was short lived. ●But then when I got a few lps I started dosing afr. But my alk kept dropping and I was supplementing with soda ash. It was taking large amounts of AFR and alk to maintain #'s and eventually my tank clouded up with precipitate.
●So I chilled out on that and everything cleared up.
●Then I figured 2 part would be best because since Alf wasn't full fulfilling the alk needs.
●Started dosing alk to maintain via dos and hand dosing cal once or twice as needed.

It took 28ml of soda ash a day to maintain levels and I only had a few lps and a birdnestand Monti cap. So I figured I was already overdosing. It wasn't until I tried to vacuum the sand and found a ton of "concrete " that I decided to pullback and do some research.
I read a few answers from previous q's and took the advice to stop dosing for a week, shut of co2 scrubber to lower pH a little and start back slowly while dosing alk and cal equally.
●alk dropped to 6.6 and started dosing 5ml equally. Then raised it to 7ml.
●But then cal got above 450 so now I'm just dosing alk alone. Which kind of goes against everything I've been ready.im keeping levels stable like this but I'm concerned about precipitate. Or whether I'm even dosing correctly.

So I guess my question is whether I'm going about this correctly or will I eventually end up dosing large amounts of alk and cause precipitate problems again. Thank you for any I put. Sorry about the lengthy question

Screenshot_20221218-161736_APEXFusion.jpg
 

homer1475

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With ALK being so low, calcium consumption won't be equal.

Once you bring up the ALK to an acceptable level, dosing just ALK. Start back at dosing the cal in equilibrium.
 
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Pvtgloss

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With ALK being so low, calcium consumption won't be equal.

Once you bring up the ALK to an acceptable level, dosing just ALK. Start back at dosing the cal in equilibrium.
Awesome. I'll work on this. What's considered acceptable? 8dkh? Should I hand dose alk to raise it?
 

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Magnesium has a large role in preventing precipitation at higher levels of calcium and Ali, what are your magnesium tests coming out to?


Soda ash also precipitates very easily if not dosed slowly into a very very high flow area
 

homer1475

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Anything 7 and above.

I would shoot for 7.5 to 8.

Yes hand dose in one bolus dose is fine. Do not go over 1dkh a day though.

Use a calculator to figure out the dose to bring it up from 6.6 to 7.


I would also for now, switch to sodium bicarbonate as it does not raise PH, but has a slightly lowering effect in regard to PH.
 

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Keep the high pH with the scrubber. You just need a doser if you use soda ash as the it precipitates very easily if not added very slowly to a high flow area. Bicarb (or a mix) is better if you can't do this. Bicarbonate can be dosed in large amounts by hand without the issue of precipitation like carbonate. It doesn't raise the pH like carbonate, but your scrubber should be able to deal with that (or at least I'd think it would)
 
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Sweet. I have a dos and a poweerhead in the sump pointed toward the surface. I guess I'll just double alk dose until I reach 8dkh and then start with 5ml/day for both alk and cal. Thanks guys.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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What size aquarium are we talking about? That's critical to know if you are just not dosing enough, or have some other issue.

FWIW, precipitation of calcium carbonate (assuming any is happening) is not a mechanism to consume only alk. It removes a balanced amount of calcium too.
 
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What size aquarium are we talking about? That's critical to know if you are just not dosing enough, or have some other issue.

FWIW, precipitation of calcium carbonate (assuming any is happening) is not a mechanism to consume only alk. It removes a balanced amount of calcium too.

Hey Randy,

Thanks for taking time to look at my question.

I have a e170, 37gal display and 8gal in the aio chamber and a sump with 20gal. I round the total water volume to 55gal when subtracting sand and rock. I'm starting to get coralline algae but not much.
I have 2 torches. 2 acans, a birdnest and a montipora cap.and a few soft corals. So it's not that loaded. Everything is looking good atleast.

That's an interesting fact that precipitation effects alk and cal equally. Makes sense. I know I started this problem by taking bad advice and dosing kalk to raise alkalinity. I removed a lot of hard sand. There still may be some around or below the rocks where the pistol shrimp digs.

Before I "reset" my dosing I was dosing 28ml of brs soda ash (im not sure how to figure out how much dkh that is) everyday and barely maintaining 8dkh and maybe 20ppm calcium every 5 days.

I stopped all dosing and and let alk dropped to 6.6ish and started back at 5ml for both cal and alk. But it got to the point where cal was getting above 460 so I stopped dosing calcium and kept alk at 5ml a day. But then it starts falling slightly and I bump it up 7ml/day, then 10ml/day. Then it kinda looked like it was gonna slowly start dropping again and I reached out to you guy in fear of raising it again. This whole time calcium never really drops. And water changes keeps calcium pretty much stable.

When I'm dosing soda ash my pH stays around 8.2-8.29 with the co2 scrubber on. When I stopped dosing or was at 5ml/day pH was 7.9-8.

I suspect I have high co2 levels in the home because I had low pH before I installed a recirculating scrubber.

There's nothing big dead in the tank. My trochus snails did have a ton of babies and a lot ended in the sump and didn't make it. I probably have 30 tiny shells I needing to be clean out.

About six months ago I had a pencil eraser size toadstool that fell off and ended up lost in the crevices of my rock. Not sure if that would soak up alk.

I do have a small room and I vape nicotine A LOT. Could that cause alk problems?

Other than this alkalinity issue the tank has been a great experience. I really appreciate expertise and your time. Thank you
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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28 mL of the alk part is only adding 0.7 dKH per day. The balanced amount of calcium (28 mL) is only about 5 ppm per day.

At 7 ml a day, both additions are really small. 0.2 dKH and 1 ppm calcium per day.

Unless nitrate is rising substantially (which consumes alkalinity, I expect the calcium rising is test error or from a source other than the two part (such as the salt mix used for water changes).

Before I'd slow or stop the two part calcium, I'd double check the testing and the new salt water.

Personally, at 450 ppm, I'd still dose the balanced calcium. I'd do that until calcium actually got too high (over 500 ppm).
 
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28 mL of the alk part is only adding 0.7 dKH per day. The balanced amount of calcium (28 mL) is only about 5 ppm per day.

At 7 ml a day, both additions are really small. 0.2 dKH and 1 ppm calcium per day.

Unless nitrate is rising substantially (which consumes alkalinity, I expect the calcium rising is test error or from a source other than the two part (such as the salt mix used for water changes).

Before I'd slow or stop the two part calcium, I'd double check the testing and the new salt water.

Personally, at 450 ppm, I'd still dose the balanced calcium. I'd do that until calcium actually got too high (over 500 ppm).

Yes sir. Will do. I'll check back in in a few days. Thank you Randy
 

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