Jestersix

B-Ionic Calcium & Alk 2 Part

Hi, i manually dose right now as well but about to switch to a brs dosers. Youre dosing both parts right? Seems like youre close to finding your daily dosing amount. Hope everything goes well.
 
blacktangs said:
Hi, i manually dose right now as well but about to switch to a brs dosers. Youre dosing both parts right? Seems like youre close to finding your daily dosing amount. Hope everything goes well.
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Hi yes I think i found my amount.

Yesterday my Alk was 6.9dkh and today was 6.9 again. I need to dose 0.5ml every other day to maintain this. Or 0.25 mls daily.
 
I agree. I would stop dosing and see how much Alk is being consumed over a few days. If its only 0.25ml, I think WCs will cover the uptake easily.
 
I test using a Hanna Checker. Id say its pretty accurate or pretty close. I tested twice. Yesterday i tested the new saltwater and DT water. So total of 4x yesterday.
 
Hey guys. For the Magnesium, this can be dosed in large amounts, correct? I require 1700ml to reach goal and 1/3 of that is around 566 mls. Im probably going to divide that by 5 days. Thoughts?
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Since you are only going up 100ppm, you could add it all at once.

Given my basic distrust of online calculators, I'd do as you suggested. If you test after the first addition and it does go up 20ppm (assuming you do 1/5 each time), I'd feel better about adding the remainder all at once.

By 'all at once' I mean slowly, perhaps taking a break after every 500ml.
 
I used an automatic dosing system for years and recently switched to manual dosing.

I had a few problems with the automatic system that turned me off:
1) Constant adjusting of the flow/dosing rate. This was really annoying. In my experience two things would happen. First the needs of the tank fluctuate. Adding corals changes nutritional requirements. Loosing corals (it happens to us all) changes the nutritional requirements. When your corals get bigger (hopefully!) their needs change. Add a fish or two and things change. It just goes on and on.
2) Second, the dosing system itself sometimes goes wobbly for a variety of reasons like debris getting stuck in the tube or hoses getting old. Yes, when its all working fine automatic dosing is a work saver. but you really have to keep your eye on things.
3) Precipitate! What a pain in the rear this stuff is. You doze off for a few days after filling your Cal/Mag/Alk containers and suddenly you notice precipitate because something has gone haywire.

Long and the short of it is that now I do things by hand and test more often. I have really noticed that my tank is happier because I am actually keeping on top of things myself and adding what is actually needed. If you can get a dosing system dialed in its a beautiful thing. My personal experience is that nothing stays dialed in for long and it wound up being just as much of a pain to keep things balanced with a dosing system as it was to do things by hand.
 
Franko said:
I used an automatic dosing system for years and recently switched to manual dosing.

I had a few problems with the automatic system that turned me off:
1) Constant adjusting of the flow/dosing rate. This was really annoying. In my experience two things would happen. First the needs of the tank fluctuate. Adding corals changes nutritional requirements. Loosing corals (it happens to us all) changes the nutritional requirements. When your corals get bigger (hopefully!) their needs change. Add a fish or two and things change. It just goes on and on.
2) Second, the dosing system itself sometimes goes wobbly for a variety of reasons like debris getting stuck in the tube or hoses getting old. Yes, when its all working fine automatic dosing is a work saver. but you really have to keep your eye on things.
3) Precipitate! What a pain in the rear this stuff is. You doze off for a few days after filling your Cal/Mag/Alk containers and suddenly you notice precipitate because something has gone haywire.

Long and the short of it is that now I do things by hand and test more often. I have really noticed that my tank is happier because I am actually keeping on top of things myself and adding what is actually needed. If you can get a dosing system dialed in its a beautiful thing. My personal experience is that nothing stays dialed in for long and it wound up being just as much of a pain to keep things balanced with a dosing system as it was to do things by hand.
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That's insightful. It makes perfect sense. How big is your tank? I would think the swings and fluctuations wouldn't be as drastic on a larger tank.
 
The needs do not fluctuate that much unless there is a massive change in the requirements. Meaning a massive die off or you added 20 new frags. Even then, the levels do not jump up and down suddenly, not on a day to day basis. If they do, its a sign of something else wrong. Changing the dosing values are easy as long as you know how much to add or subtract.

Precipitation can be fixed by varying the dosing times and dosing into a higher flow area. Allowing the Alk to fully dissolve before dosing Ca and making sure you have enough Mg will alleviate any of the issues.
 
Flagg37 said:
That's insightful. It makes perfect sense. How big is your tank? I would think the swings and fluctuations wouldn't be as drastic on a larger tank.
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I have a 200 Gallon tank. It has been set up for over 5 years and is pretty stable. But in my 20+ years of experience I have never had a tank reach and maintain any sort of equilibrium. Maybe I suck? One must always be open to that :cool:

Vincent...in my reef keeping experience, it is not that there are huge sudden swings on a day to day basis. You are right when that happens there is either a problem or a bunch of critters are removed or added. But even it what seems like a stable ecosystem (if we can call a tank that) there are changes. Fish get bigger, corals get bigger, equipment gets old or new equipment is added. The air we and the tank breathes changes with the seasons. The water, even when run through and ro/di filter is not always the same. There is just an endless amount of stuff influencing the tank and its needs and its chemistry. If automatic dosing was the answer to to maintaining a stable tank everyone would be doing it and we wouldn't have the "why is my stuff dying" threads all over these boards. I choose to dose by hand because it works better for me.
 
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