Water Parameters

[SoulFish]

Hi guys on week 5 and I'm been doing 10% water changes each week and the total tank water volume is around 240 Gallons. My AK level are still dropping every 2 days, but look like they are now finally slowing down, only .1 drop over 2 days. CA is steady, but slightly low, and MG seems steady but also want to bump it up a bit.

I am wondering for you guys that dose, is it normal for a tank to require that much more AK than CA to keep the levels up? Or is this only because it's new and I would need to start backing off this amount? Doe these daily dosing numbers seem to be in the right proportions with each other? Or is something looking outta wack?

Today readings
AK 7.6 (Dropped .1 over 2 days)
CA 370 (Steady)
MG 1260 (Increase 60 over two days after water change)
Temp 82 (Varies 80-82)
SA 1.025 (Varies from 1.024-1.025)
-------------------------
Daily Dosing
AK 48ml
CA 14ml
MG 8ml

 

[molabecirovic]

Isn't your temperature to high? I would keep it under 80 ... I prefer 77-78, my chiller kicks in at 79. you may risk frying your live stock at that high temp.

It maters what kind of mix you are using to dose and at what concentration. As a new tank you need to test with your dosing and fine tune your dosing amount until you get constant reading, meaning play with the amount of liquid that you are dosing until you have a steady Kh in this case. Don't worry about the numbers, whatever it takes to achieve the ideal results.
I would bring the Kh to around 9-10 by manually adding a little larger amounts of Ak to your tank within a week and then you can fine tune the dosing amount for daily dosing. (BRS has a alkalinity calculator to help you out with the amount you would have to add to bring it to your desired goal http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-calculator )

Good luck

 

[zeroinverse]

Higher magnesium will help increase your calcium levels.
Magnesium & Calcium ions compete for space on "calcium carbonate surfaces". So higher magnesium helps block calcium from precipitating onto surfaces, keeping it in the water column, thus leading to higher calcium levels...

So up your MG and your CA should be easier to raise.
Your ALK may also be related to this, as well as the fact that generally ALK drops much faster anyways.

Crazy! 240 gallons... you're going to be dosing a LOT when you get corals all growing in there. ^_^