Kevin S. Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 Has anyone had to deal with this? I have been dosing around 500ml a day with Alk and CA trying to keep up on a 125 with about 95 gallons of actual water volume. I have precipitation on the glass also. A ionic imbalance is the only thing that it can be as I do not have enough coral or tank to justify this amount. The plan is to cut the dosing way down and do several 20% water changes over the next few weeks, or to start with a much larger water change. If anyone has any advice on this situation I would appreciate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 What are your current alk and Ca levels? Mg too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 It might also just be that your measurement is inaccurate and reading too low. In other words your levels might be much higher than your test kits are showing you. Double check with a different test kit before you make any changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 4, 2015 Author Share Posted December 4, 2015 Alk has been at 9.3 for the last 5 days. Testing with a salfert kit and CA has been hard to maintain but started at 420 and has dropped to 340 over 3 days even with dosing 588 ml over a 24hr period. Using a new API calcium kit and had it checked a local store to confirm my #s' I do a 20% water change every month, last one was 11-21-15 I do not have a mag test on hand but will be getting one done soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 4, 2015 Author Share Posted December 4, 2015 Im using BRS soda ash and calcium chloride also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 I am who Kevin S was talking to about ionic imbalance. For the record he is dosing 540ml of BRS Soda ash in appx 95 twv which should raise his alk from 9.3 to 17.3 daily. That's a consumption of 8dkh daily!! And 588ml of BRS calcium chloride daily which should raise his Ca levels from 420 to 480. For a daily consumption of 60ppm. The precipitation was a dead give away to me that his ionic balance was shot off. Plus he is running Kalk in his ATO. I recommended several small water changes or a couple large ones to reset the tank. Turning off the doser and waiting for the alk to start dropping. After a full 1 dkh has been consumed turning his alk doser back on at 15ml 2 times daily. And adjusting slowly until his target alk has been reached. Same with calcium after the alk is close to dialed in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 4, 2015 Author Share Posted December 4, 2015 Thanks Reburn for explaining it better Going to get some Red Sea salt mix and start the water changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 How do you get an Ionic Imbalance? I don't understand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 By dosing too much of either Ca2+ or CO32-. CaCO3 will precipitate until a stoichometric balance is achieved (equal balance of the two). In practice, there are lots of little intermediate reactions that take place, especially since lots of the biology in our tanks are consuming both at non-constant rates. What that means is that we don't need to perfectly balance the two, but that if you dose too much of either that you get precipitation on your glass/pumps, etc until things balance out either on its own or by water changes.What is your SPS load like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 4, 2015 Author Share Posted December 4, 2015 Its kind of subjective but I have about 8 softball size SPS colonies and several frags, a 12" diameter chalice one 6" clam along with other coral an lps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted December 4, 2015 Share Posted December 4, 2015 Thank you victoly, I couldn't have said it better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Kevin, Here are my results of testing your water: Alk - 7.6 dKh Ca - 440 ppm Mg - 1300 ppm All parameters seem in line with just the alk a tad lower than what I like to run at 8 dKh but 7.6 dKh is perfectly fine. I would shut off all dosing for a day and stop running kalk in your ATO to see what your true consumption in a day is. Then, based off of that, kick your dosing back online to compensate for the daily uptake rate of your tank. I believe you mentioned you were reading the BRS dosing instructions incorrectly and have remedied that already. I'd like to also caution to dose alk and Ca at different times of the day so you are not allowing them to react directly and precipitate out. I haven't used 2-part in awhile but perhaps at least an hour apart sounds safe... For instance, dose alk at 10am, then dose Ca at 11am. One thing that you'll want to remedy though is your salinity. I tested it with my digital refractometer and it was at 1.029. I'd gradually lower it by mixing your new saltwater at a lower salinity until you've brought it down to 1.024-1.026. Hope that helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Ty just hit the same point I was thinking about, precipitate occurs when you mix alk and Ca at the same time and right next to each other. A lot of people put their automatic dosers right next to each other and turn them on at the same time. If you can schedule the time, I would definitely separate the two and also try and schedule them early morning when the pH of your tank is at it's lowest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 6, 2015 Author Share Posted December 6, 2015 Thank you very much Ty, now I see my refractometer is off and my calcium test is off. I do dose each 2part 1 hour apart also. The reason for the precipitation is the volume that I was dosing Im sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Can you program to dose in small increments throughout the day? Like 10 seconds every hour instead of once a day for 4 minutes? That way it will decrease the quantity delivered at time of dosing and will also help reduce alk/Ca swings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 6, 2015 Author Share Posted December 6, 2015 Yes you can, you can program it anyway you want. You can do 1 ml every min if you want or 5 ml 24 times a day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 Two times a day so sufficient. At max I can't imagine you going over 20ml 2 times a day for quite a while. At 30ml a minute the doser would be on for less then 2 minutes a day. I would keep it simple. Not your burning up over a dkh a day total then maybe go to 4 times a day. KISS in this situation I believe would be best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 So Kevin has explained to me that his tank from Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon (roughly 24 hrs), his alk dropped from 7.3 dKh to 6.0 dKh. From this point on, we know that his tank consumes roughly 1.3 dKh of alk daily. For supplementation purposes, since he is using 2-part, with a total water volume of about 95 gallons, he would need to dose 88.2 ml/day of alk a day to keep up with his tank's demand. I would at this point, dose the alk level back up to 7.3 dKh or whatever his preferred alk level is (just try to increase it less than 1 dKh/day) and then set his dosers to add 88.2 ml/day. This should keep his alk pretty stable from this point on and it will need to be checked and tweaked occasionally to keep up with growing demand. Just repeat the same process for calcium to know how much calcium to dose/day as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 In case this might be useful info: I dose approximately 1 minute every two hours in my system, with Ca and Alk 5 minutes apart. Never had any problems with this approach causing undue precipitation. My pumps are rated at 1.1ml/minute Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 8, 2015 Author Share Posted December 8, 2015 I did a 30g water change Sunday morning and tested late that afternoon my Kh was 7.3. I waited 24 hrs and did the KH test again at the same time with a Salifert kit and got a KH of 6. So using the BRS calculator and a water volume of 95 gallons I would need to dose 190 ml or so to get it back to 7.3 which tells me my tanks consumption for a 24 hour period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Kevin, Sorry bro your wrong. You have to make sure you select dkh from the drop down menu rather then meq/l or ppm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 I did a 30g water change Sunday morning and tested late that afternoon my Kh was 7.3. I waited 24 hrs and did the KH test again at the same time with a Salifert kit and got a KH of 6. So using the BRS calculator and a water volume of 95 gallons I would need to dose 190 ml or so to get it back to 7.3 which tells me my tanks consumption for a 24 hour period. Where are you getting the 190 ml number from? Are you using soda ash or sodium bicarbonate for your alk dosing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 8, 2015 Author Share Posted December 8, 2015 Oh wow thanks Reburn , yeah then it would be 88 ml in a day. I did not know that, Yes im using soda ash Ty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 So Kevin has explained to me that his tank from Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon (roughly 24 hrs), his alk dropped from 7.3 dKh to 6.0 dKh. From this point on, we know that his tank consumes roughly 1.3 dKh of alk daily. For supplementation purposes, since he is using 2-part, with a total water volume of about 95 gallons, he would need to dose 88.2 ml/day of alk a day to keep up with his tank's demand. I would at this point, dose the alk level back up to 7.3 dKh or whatever his preferred alk level is (just try to increase it less than 1 dKh/day) and then set his dosers to add 88.2 ml/day. This should keep his alk pretty stable from this point on and it will need to be checked and tweaked occasionally to keep up with growing demand. Just repeat the same process for calcium to know how much calcium to dose/day as well. Did you see my earlier post Kevin? I'd do the same process for your Ca. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin S. Posted December 15, 2015 Author Share Posted December 15, 2015 So over the last few weeks I have done 2 30g water changes one week apart. I have no problem keeping my calcium up and it is around 460 most of the time. The problem is that I still can not keep my alkalinity up. It still drops 1 dkh every day and I do not want to get back into overdosing. I calculated the usage by turning off the dosing pump and not running the Kalk and testing over a 24 hr period. As of now I am doing 132 ml a day of each. I dose 12 times a day of each alk and CA over a 24 hour period alternating every hour between the two. What should I do now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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