Tanks Alk consumption has increased 30% over the last 15 days

[Ibn]

I

I appreciate this thorough response.

1) Is it possible to run a CaRx and maintain PH above 8?

2) What are the equipment pieces that you would consider the most important to ensure the unit is operating effectively?

3) Are there any redundancies worth considering?

4) Roughly 40% of my dosing happens between 9pm and 7am to maintain calcium and alk. I assume under that structure I would leave the feed pumps and doser on, correct?

Thank you again for taking time to draft that response.

1) Easily. Especially if you have a second chamber to "offgas" any excess. I use a single stage and haven't had any issues with it. My current pH fluctuations in a 20G tank is currently 8.11 to 8.36. On a larger tank your pH fluctuations is gonna be less than that, but hard to say if the space where your tank is located doesn't get any fresh air with like a ton of people in there excreting co2 (different issue to a degree). Even with the windows closed, I'm seeing values of 8.0 - 8.25.

2. A decent regulator and a feed pump that's consistent. The reactor not so much so since there's a bevy of options out there and if you know what to look for you don't need the kitchen sink of a reactor.

3. Possibly a backup feed pump or a secondary co2 tank. Feed pump for if and when you need to switch out your dosing lines or a head replacement and the secondary co2 tank when you run out of co2 and the location that you typically refill your co2 tank at is closed for the weekend. Both are really easy to work around.

4) You're probably looking at 90% of the dosing during those times versus 40% if those are your typical photoperiod. If you're only looking at 40% currently, then maybe take a look at your program again since most corals consume the needed big three during the photoperiod instead of 24/7. You would definitely feed the tank during your photoperiod versus outside of those hours.

 

[JVU]

Side issue, but one thing I was surprised by after running the Trident for a while is that my corals use about as much Alk from 6p-12a as they do 12p-6p. In other words, for several hours after the lights go out they are still using the energy and carbon they acquired during photosynthesis to lay down calcium carbonate, so it should still be dosed at a similar rate.

 

[Plankton]

Side issue, but one thing I was surprised by after running the Trident for a while is that my corals use about as much Alk from 6p-12a as they do 12p-6p. In other words, for several hours after the lights go out they are still using the energy and carbon they acquired during photosynthesis to lay down calcium carbonate, so it should still be dosed at a similar rate.

You reminded me that in the trident manual they recommended setting up a profile like you described above. I’m still running constant dose across 24 hours and should add profile.

 

[Blaise006]

You reminded me that in the trident manual they recommended setting up a profile like you described above. I’m still running constant dose across 24 hours and should add profile.

Yea, my dosing is mapped to my PH level. I dose about every 15 minutes. Tedious to set up for sure. If I didn’t dose through out the night my alk would drop considerably.

 

[Plankton]

Yea, my dosing is mapped to my PH level. I dose about every 15 minutes. Tedious to set up for sure. If I didn’t dose through out the night my alk would drop considerably.

0.1 dkh drift over 24 hours by dosing evenly. 7.67 dkh trident is 8.2 as measured by Hanna. Will try to figure out profile to even that out a bit…

 

[Blaise006]

0.1 dkh drift over 24 hours by dosing evenly. 7.67 dkh trident is 8.2 as measured by Hanna. Will try to figure out profile to even that out a bit…

That’s amazing. Very envious.

I get a .1 drift in an hour if I slightly underdose.

 

[Plankton]

My 25G year old lagoon consumes 18 ml b-bionic alk per day; 75G 3 month old tank using 38 ml BRS alk per day. Bare bottom tanks, no clams, just SPS.

Unless you have a 12” giga clam or something I can’t imagine why your alk consumption is so heavy!

if you stop dosing alk, what is your tank consumption?

 

[Blaise006]

My 25G year old lagoon consumes 18 ml b-bionic alk per day; 75G 3 year old tank using 38 ml BRS alk per day. Bare bottom tanks, no clams, just SPS.

Unless you have a 12” giga clam or something I can’t imagine why your alk consumption is so heavy!

if you stop dosing alk, what is your tank consumption?

Idk, I get spooked after the first two hours cause it typically drops by .5 in those two hours and I am worried I’ll lose my sps if it drops any further.

 

[Plankton]

Idk, I get spooked after the first two hours cause it typically drops by .5 in those two hours and I am worried I’ll lose my sps if it drops any further.

Alk drops 0.5 dkh in first two hours? That’s some hard core biblical changes! Updated pics of tank and sump?

 

[Blaise006]

Alk drops 0.5 dkh in first two hours? That’s some hard core biblical changes! Updated pics of tank and sump?

Here is the chart from the last time I turned the dosers off.

Went from 8.5 to 8.15 from 17:00 to 19:00

The set up hasn’t changed all that much but I’ll snap a couple updated pictures in the afternoon. Ignore the circles in the sump picture. Old pic.

 

[Blaise006]

Also I’d like to mention how rapidly the dosing amount is increasing. 150ml -> 190ml in 5 days.

 

[JVU]

I think your Alk demand is way too high for what you have in your tank. WAY too high. You have a lot of coralline algae, and that could account for much of the uptake, but other than that there isn’t really a good reason for it.

Another pitfall to watch out for- Sometimes my Trident will drift and I’ll think I have to increase my Alk dosing to keep Alk reading steady, but actually I’m cranking my Alk up higher than I’d want it. Then when replace reagent bottles I get a crazy high Alk which is actually correct! This happened to me recently, just last week actually. I keep my Alk around 8.5 +/- 0.4 or so. Before reagent change it was reading 8.8, after it was 9.7! I had to turn off dosing for a while and reduce my dosing amount to get it back to target. I double checked with calibration solution and separate testing, it was the Trident at fault with drifting before reagent change.

 

[Blaise006]

I think your Alk demand is way too high for what you have in your tank. WAY too high. You have a lot of coralline algae, and that could account for much of the uptake, but other than that there isn’t really a good reason for it.

Another pitfall to watch out for- Sometimes my Trident will drift and I’ll think I have to increase my Alk dosing to keep Alk reading steady, but actually I’m cranking my Alk up higher than I’d want it. Then when replace reagent bottles I get a crazy high Alk which is actually correct! This happened to me recently, just last week actually. I keep my Alk around 8.5 +/- 0.4 or so. Before reagent change it was reading 8.8, after it was 9.7! I had to turn off dosing for a while and reduce my dosing amount to get it back to target. I double checked with calibration solution and separate testing, it was the Trident at fault with drifting before reagent change.

Thank you, I don’t think that is happening since I am testing 24 times a day right now so reagents are getting replaced so fast and test results are staying the same between those calibrations.

I do agree with this because when I usually tested slower I had the same experience.

I also agree this is quite insane. It’s been happening for months at this point and I check calcium and alk with Hanna and Red Sea multiple times a week.

I really hope I can find a solution to this soon.

 

[JVU]

I am testing 24 times a day right now

Wow. So if the test takes about 15 min to run Alk and about 30 min to run all 3, your trident is on about 1/3rd of the time, day and night? Mine is so noisy that would drive me and my wife nuts. Plus does that mean a 2-month supply of reagents only lasts you about a week and a half? Seems expensive and time-consuming.

 

[Blaise006]

Wow. So if the test takes about 15 min to run Alk and about 30 min to run all 3, your trident is on about 1/3rd of the time, day and night? Mine is so noisy that would drive me and my wife nuts. Plus does that mean a 2-month supply of reagents only lasts you about a week and a half? Seems expensive and time-consuming.

Noise hasn’t been an issue for us.

You are correct, it is on way more than I want it to because I have been trying to find a solution to this issue. I replace reagents about every 10 days, again I don’t want to.

I have been forced to test that much over the past two months because my dosing amount keeps increasing by such a large amount. On 6/5 or 6/4 I was dosing around 140/150mls. Today I am going to cross 200mls. That’s an full 1 ml per gallon increase in less than a week.

I had to start testing frequently to just stay on top of it and let controlled dosing counteract any swings while I sleep. It’s insane!

It is expensive and time consuming which is why I hope I can figure out a solution for this.

 

[Blaise006]

Worth mentioning as well I have had great success with all my acros (20-30 frags) over this whole time, but I feel that’s the result of me watching over alk and cal like a hawk.

 

[Blaise006]

I turned the doser off for 40 mins (would have dosed about 3mls during that time) Alk fell from 8.52 to 8.14.

 

[Blaise006]

I checked under the dosing lines and I don’t feel like there is an unusual amount of precipitation. Deffinitly a small bit but I would have expected a high amount after dumping in 100s of mls a day for months.

Thoughts?

This is from three heaters over 6 months since I last cleaned them. I don’t think that’s an abnormal amount. Does anyone else?

 

[Coral reefer]

I wonder if you kept lower levels if it would need less dosing to maintain?

 

[Blaise006]

I wonder if you kept lower levels if it would need less dosing to maintain?

I’ll slowly lower to 8 or maybe 7.8ish.
All my coral are growing and doing great. I don’t want to mess with a good thing. It is just hard to keep up with that amount of dosing and the daily changes.