Consumption in relation to lighting and dosing in an sps system.

[MammothReefer]

I currently dose evenly spread out via a 24 hour day. It seems to work pretty good, and helps me obtain consistent results when testing at the same time. However in my unending quest for stability I decided to test alk a few times over the course of a day this weekend. I was surprised to find a fair sized swing taking place within a 24 hour period.

I'm currently splitting my dosage into 16 doses of 5.5ml so I'm not dosing a lot at any given time. This leads me to believe I have rather large changes in demand during the course of 24 hours.

So for those of us that CAN control when we are adding our supplements via dosers. Who is scheduling your dosing times around demand to keep your parameters as level as possible during the course of a 24 hour period, and when in relation to your lighting schedule are you doing so?

I've never really paid much attention to "when" our corals grow, I couldn't tell you with any certainty that I see a greater demand when the lights are on or off at this point in time.. So before I go crazy and test every couple hours for a few weeks to see when my demand is, I'm wondering if any of you have done this yet, and what have you found? I have to wonder if this is going to be a constant thing across the board or will we find that every bodies tank differs a little bit depending on some undetermined variable.

Please post both your lighting times and dosing times if you are currently doing this, and if not then why, or if you have in the past and stopped then why as well.

Thanks
-B

 

[D' kingfisher]

i use litermeter 3 with two remote pumps, it doses 150x of whatever u dose a day. it takes away my gues work.

 

[MammothReefer]

Did a little googling during my lunch break and came across this article (see below). It discusses how corals grow quicker during the day.

The way I'm currently setup, I'm doing 16 doses I every hour and half or so, which means in theory only 4 of my 16 doses are taking place while my lights are on. However this is the time period where my tank in should have the highest demand from what I'm reading.

I believe what is happening is while my lights are off my doser keeps dosing and my alk/calc start to swing up, then my lights come on demand picks up and my alk and calc are depleted quicker then I am dosing during this time period. I then test typically between 10-10:30 which is right at near the end of my light cycle, and things have reduced back to normal.

What I'm thinking I need to do if I want to reduce my daily swing is have a larger % of my dosing take place during the 6 hours my lights are on, or maybe +/- a couple hours before and after lights given for sun light in the room, and how long it takes for corals to "wind down" from peak building. I should then lower the amount of dosing from say midnite to the following day when my frag tank lights come on.

What are your thoughts?

http://www.coralscience.org/main/articles/biochemistry-2/how-reefs-grow



"Why do corals grow faster during the day?

Laboratory experiments have shown that corals grow a lot faster during the day; why is this exactly? There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon. The first process which may increase aragonite precipitation is the high production of ATP by the calicoblastic cells, as they receive significant amounts of carbohydrates from the zooxanthellae; the measured ATP content in Galaxea fascicularis tissue was about 35% higher in light-incubated colonies compared to dark-incubated ones. A lot of ATP means that ample energy is available for transporting calcium and bicarbonate ions to the calicoblastic fluid. A second process which mediates light-enhanced calcification is an increase in tissue pH levels during the day, as zooxanthellae take up more CO2. Corals have less difficulty with depositing aragonite at higher pH-levels, as the aragonite saturation state increases. The third possible reason for elevated calcification during the day may be the activation of the Ca2+/H+ pump, which is light-sensitive, thereby pumping more building blocks to the skeleton3. Finally, extra bicarbonate production may yield extra building blocks for synthesizing the skeleton (table 1). In overall, the process of calcification can be summarized with the following equation:"

 

[divewsharks]

hmmm... it means that i should probably adjust my dosing as well. Right now I dose more at night than I do during the day. I did it this way to help buffer my PH at night.

 

[MammothReefer]

I would test first to see, this is all theory for me at this point. I haven't tried moving my doses yet I'm still waiting to do a few other things first before I setup my new doser and program in this new regiment.

 

[bobkill]

Still brings up good points - i will switch to the load before lights and see any changes - I have been chasing this un-catchable pink elephant of faster growth - sooooo I am in