- Joined
- Jul 3, 2019
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I had a tank 'semi crash' about 9 months ago and I'm pretty sure it was due to an Alk swing (to low) because my calcium reactor was offline for ~3 days. Because of this, I'm very aware about Alk variance and have been trying to tune my Alk dosing to flatten out the curves. One hypothesis is that if I send more Alk (Sodium Corbonate) into the system in the morning to be available to the corals during zooxanthellae photosynthesis, and less at night when they are just relying on respiration, it will help flatten the variance. My lights start at 7am and turn off at 7pm, with the first and last hour being dramatically lower intensity / blue spectrum. This is with the normally scheduled 12am, 6am, 12pm, 6pm 4 times daily Neptune Trident testing schedule. I've since taken the calcium reactor offline (new build actually) and switched to the Balling method / dosing 3 part (BRS Calcium Chloride, BRS Sodium Carbonate, Tropic Marin part C).
<Q1>What is the likely primary biological/chemical cause of Alkalinity 'cycles' like this over a 24 hour day/night period?
<Q2>Is flattening the curve of Alkalinity a goal worth pursuing? Just dose evenly over a 24 hour period and be done with it?
In the below chart you can see my system's:
-Justin
<Q1>What is the likely primary biological/chemical cause of Alkalinity 'cycles' like this over a 24 hour day/night period?
<Q2>Is flattening the curve of Alkalinity a goal worth pursuing? Just dose evenly over a 24 hour period and be done with it?
In the below chart you can see my system's:
- PH swing from 8 - 8.3 with the peak at around 5pm and the minimum at around 7am.
- Alk swing from 8.25 - 8.65 with the peak between 6am and 12pm, and the minimum usually around midnight (although not consistently).
-Justin