2 part dosing programming apex
- Thread starter jonnyu
- Start date
DRThompson
2018 FMAS President
What kind of pumps are you using? How much are you dosing?
I use the Osc feature to dose mine with Drews dosers...... This is my alk, it doses for 8 min 50 sec once an hour during the night.
Set OFF
Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/008:50/051:10 Then ON
If Time 10:45 to 21:55 Then OFF
If pH > 8.35 then off
My ca is the similar except it starts 30 min later (notice the Osc program difference)
Set OFF
Fallback OFF
OSC 030:00/008:50/051:10 Then ON
If Time 10:45 to 21:55 Then OFF
I use the Osc feature to dose mine with Drews dosers...... This is my alk, it doses for 8 min 50 sec once an hour during the night.
Set OFF
Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/008:50/051:10 Then ON
If Time 10:45 to 21:55 Then OFF
If pH > 8.35 then off
My ca is the similar except it starts 30 min later (notice the Osc program difference)
Set OFF
Fallback OFF
OSC 030:00/008:50/051:10 Then ON
If Time 10:45 to 21:55 Then OFF
Daimyo68
Active member
+1
DRThompson: Not sure if you see this, but your have a total cycle time of 60 minutes for Alk, and a total cycle time of 90 minutes for Cal. They will be in sync and come on at the same time every 3rd hour because of the 30-minute initial OFF time in the Cal programming. (If you look at your Graphs, you should see where they are coming on at the same time).
I ran into this issue a couple years ago, when I visually noticed that Alk and Cal were dosing at the same time.
This change will prevent that... the Alk and Ca will never dose closer than 15 minutes apart:
[Calcium]
Set OFF
Fallback OFF
OSC 015:00/008:50/066:10 Then ON
If Time 10:45 to 21:55 then OFF
I also add the "If pH > 8.35 then off" statement to my calcium code, so that if the ALK is off for an extended amount of time, calcium is off also, according to pH. This prevents an imbalance in both levels due to calcium continuing on as normal.
Do you know how many ml of alk and calcium you want to dose?
If you go to the brs website there is a calculator that you can use to determine how much you need to dose to get your levels to where you want them but first you need to figure out how much alk and ca your tank consumes.
They should be set to equal amounts but that's not always the case.
Also Russ from the Neptune forum has a site you can use with an OSC calculator on it. All you do is plug in the numbers and the times you want and it will confirm if your program is correct. His site is reeftronics.net
Hope that helps. Seems easy but sometimes it gets confusing.
DRThompson
2018 FMAS President
Thanks for that guys:headwallblue: crackem has the proper fix, updated code
It doses to the second I believe. I use a Drews doser from brs which is 1.6 ml even tho I've never actually calibrated them. I have 4, alk, ca, kalk, and mag.
Daimyo68
Active member
I thought you were running a 90 minute cycle intentionally, hence my changes to your code to keep a 90min cycle. Either will work.
Ok so does this look good? Starting out slow.
I can't see tapatalk on my iPhone
Ok now I see it I guess cause I quoted it
Depends on a few things..
Your programming looks good but where did you get the 2 minutes from? Do you know how many ml of part A and B you need?
What's your total water volume?
What is your alk at now?
What is your calc at now?
What about mag?
What lvl do you want to keep them at?
If you visit reeftronics.net there is an Osc Calculator you can use. Basically you put the amount in ml that you want to dose, put the times that you want to dose, and it will tell you if your programming is correct.
Just trying to help. If you've already figured everything out than looks like your good to go.
Also I could be wrong but I think your doing 13doses with ca and 12 doses with alk.
Last edited:
Also go to Bulkreefsupply and use the calculator there to determine how many ml you need to go from your current levels to the ones you want to maintain.
Be careful not to raise them up to fast. Spread the dosage out over a few days if you need to raise them up a lot.
I think the recommended max amounts to raise in 24 hrs are 1.4 dkh alk and 100ppm for calcium.
Good luck
Daimyo68
Active member
+1 on Crackem's post.
First thing you should do is manually dose the tank to get to the parameters you want.
Then do not dose for 3-4 days. During these few days, check your levels every day, at the same time, and record them on paper.
After the last day, figure out how much you drop each day for both Calcium and Alkalinity, and then average them out. These totals will be your starting point.
Take those numbers and use the brs calculator to figure out your needed total daily dose. Once you know that, then you can code the apex to spread those amounts out over a 24hr period.
As a side note, I would add the "If pH > 8.35 then off" to the calcium code also. This will keep the calcium from dosing, just like the alkalinity.
IMO, it helps prevent an upset in the balance if your alk was to stay off for an extended amount of time.
.
First thing you should do is manually dose the tank to get to the parameters you want.
Then do not dose for 3-4 days. During these few days, check your levels every day, at the same time, and record them on paper.
After the last day, figure out how much you drop each day for both Calcium and Alkalinity, and then average them out. These totals will be your starting point.
Take those numbers and use the brs calculator to figure out your needed total daily dose. Once you know that, then you can code the apex to spread those amounts out over a 24hr period.
As a side note, I would add the "If pH > 8.35 then off" to the calcium code also. This will keep the calcium from dosing, just like the alkalinity.
IMO, it helps prevent an upset in the balance if your alk was to stay off for an extended amount of time.
.
