Dosing Fresh Salt

[+brian.srock]

Does anyone dose fresh saltwater? I'm currently using Instant Ocean which at a salinity of 1.026 the Mg is at 1320. I keep my tank at 1.025 to buffer it from going too high so this puts me at the 1280 range. Since I have been trying to accelerate my coral growth I have been shooting for 1400 in my tank. This also causes my Ca to drop to 400 and Alk to drop to 8 as well every time I do a water change which is usually weekly. The reason for the question is its usually recommended not to raise Mg/Ca/Alk by X amount per day but since their is no life in my salt water mixing bucket would it be ok to does Mg first, then Ca, then Alk say 5 minutes apart the full amount needed? Alk for example would raise from 8 to 12 which is more than the recommended 1.4 dKH a day. I always make 20 gallons of saltwater so I'm looking to streamline this and have 3 premarked containers for 20 gallons of dosing water made and just dump 5 minutes apart then test alk after 5 minutes. How's my plan?

[+brian.srock]

Anyone?

[victoly]

Yeah, you're ok to dose fresh saltwater by waiting a few minutes between chemicals. As long as they're not visible, it's unlikely that youre going to have a heavy precipitation. You're bucket will probably encrust with more precipitate than if it was just straight saltwater, but not by much. Of course, longer is better, but i dose my tank in 5 minute increments between parameters.

[FarmerTy]

With respect to water changes and keeping certain parameters at certain levels, it seems an uphill battle. You're just going to be diluting the concentration with each water change and dosing to get it back to that point. That seems like quite the chore to do this on a weekly basis.

If it were me, I'd just go with what the levels that the salt mix gives me and not fight them too much. Once you get a calcium reactor or 2-part dosing system, then I would perform less water changes and allow the supplementation to drive the numbers. At that point, you can tweak it to whatever numbers you prefer to run. I don't think targeting a higher alk or higher magnesium level is going to give you that much better growth to be worth trying to drive numbers up weekly as you dilute them during each water change. Just my 2 cents bud.

You'd probably get more growth just keeping nutrient levels in check and dosing aminos every couple of weeks. Oh yeah, and making sure your return line doesn't get clogged!

[victoly]

Maybe a good interim step is to switch to a different salt with higher alk/ca/mg (like rscp or salinity)

[George Monnat Jr]

Here are some responses to my questions on RC about adding kalkwasser to ASW. The threads may have more information for you.

NOTE ON ADDING KALKWASSER TO ARTIFICIAL SALT WATER

Randy confirmed that adding kalk to ASW is a bad idea, mainly due to abiotic precipitation, and suggested that I do 2-part (baked baking soda and calcium chloride). Tim (tmz) recommended adding the vinegar or vodka (carbon dosing) separate from the kalkwasser anyway. Randy also discouraged mixing the baking soda in ASW, “Artificial salt water already has alkalinity pretty high so I would not generlly add more to it. You'll risk precipitation of calcium carbonate from it.”