Dosing additives

[dragon174]

my tank is a 120 gallon display with a 50 gallon sump (30 gallons of water volume in the sump). total system volume of approximately 130 gallons with 95% of the Corals in the tank being SPS.

i have been adding the Sea Lab #28 replenisher blocks in the sump for about four months and everything has been doing really well. about a month ago, the number of SPS Corals in the tank was increased and i was worried about the Calcium level in the tank so i started dosing the Kent Tech CB part A&B every other day. my Calcium runs about 480 PPM.

when i add the Tech CB part A&B to my sump, the pH jumps 0.4 points. i have the pH probe in the sump and i'm wondering if i shouldn't put it in the main display to get a more accurate reading? i'm worried that the fluction when dosing is going to affect the Corals.

i haven't seen any negative effects on the Corals yet, but i haven't had very good luck with fish lately. i've lost a sailfin tang and kole tang in the last three weeks. the sailfin i had for two months and was doing great. this is the second kole tang that bit the dust and he was eating like a pig.

temp: 79 - 80 degrees
pH: 8.4 (unless i dose A&B - then it shots up for a couple hours)
SG: 1.026 ~ 1.027

i don't have any room under my tank for a Calcium or Kalk reactor, but should i look at adding one or am i worring too much?

 

[psteeleb]

I dose 2 part and have a lot of sps in a 300g+ system

I do my additives twice a day to keep from spiking the ph

Always try and keep your ph swings under 0.2. Even 0.2 can be very stressful it in a very short timeframe, it could be what got your fish, hard to say without more information.

 

[dragon174]

thanks for the feed back.

do you think i should move the pH probe into the main display to get a more accurate pH reading instead of keeping it in the sump?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I do not believe the Sea Lab blocks are worth using. The claims that it makes to "control" additions is ridiculous. All it is is a block of stuff that slowly dissolves and is added to the tank water at a particular rate whether you actually need anything in it or not.

You can measure pH in the sump just fine. I do.