I'm just in the process of setting up a dosing system on my 93gal reef using peristaltic pumps controlled by my APEX. So every day I've been testing to try and "dial it in" One thing I have noticed is that the Calcium uptake is a steady 15ppm/day but the alkalinity is all over the map. I'm up to 6.8 dkh per night (which is 200ml of Redsea reef foundation b stock solution) and still manually adding anywhere from 1.7-6.0 dkh worth of solution to try and reach a dkh of 12. every day I'm adding 25ml to the dosing program to try and reach equilibrium.
This just seems off to me. Why would I be using so much buffer? Is this just a symptom of a bigger problem? Is it the buffer I'm using? I used to dose weekly by hand. My tank would always test out at about 8.6dkh and I would add 34 ml of the liquid form of reef foundation b and be done with it. I know the stock solution is about a third of the concentration of the liquid form but I honestly thought I would use about 100ml per week. I didn't test every day so the dkh must have shot up to 12 when I dosed then just dropped very quickly again without me knowing. My tank must like being at 8.6dkh.
Other parameters: PH 7.8-8.2 (daily swing per apex), Ca 460ppm, mg 1400, temp 78.5-79 deg, NO3 1ppm, PO4 .04ppm dosing 6ml/day of NOPOX (been doing so since January)
1. Is this Normal or should I be concerned about adding too much buffer?
2. is a 12dkh an unreasonable goal?
3 Should I be using pure sodium carbonate instead of the red sea product?
Thanks in advance
Dave
This just seems off to me. Why would I be using so much buffer? Is this just a symptom of a bigger problem? Is it the buffer I'm using? I used to dose weekly by hand. My tank would always test out at about 8.6dkh and I would add 34 ml of the liquid form of reef foundation b and be done with it. I know the stock solution is about a third of the concentration of the liquid form but I honestly thought I would use about 100ml per week. I didn't test every day so the dkh must have shot up to 12 when I dosed then just dropped very quickly again without me knowing. My tank must like being at 8.6dkh.
Other parameters: PH 7.8-8.2 (daily swing per apex), Ca 460ppm, mg 1400, temp 78.5-79 deg, NO3 1ppm, PO4 .04ppm dosing 6ml/day of NOPOX (been doing so since January)
1. Is this Normal or should I be concerned about adding too much buffer?
2. is a 12dkh an unreasonable goal?
3 Should I be using pure sodium carbonate instead of the red sea product?
Thanks in advance
Dave