Dosing

[Marnimoo0]

Hi there,
Only 1 year into this hobby and learning lots! However.... when I first started reef things went quite smoothly with no major set backs but now as my reef has grown I am really struggling to keep my kh, mag and calcium steady.
100 l
I have skeleton corals and softies.
I have no sump
Run hydro internal skimmer
Efx 200 external filter
Fish, live rock, corals and cuc
Salinity 1.025
Kh 7.6
Cal 380
Mg 15.60
Ammonia 0
No2 0
No3 3
P04 0
Ph in the morning with lights off 7.8 - 8
My fish are happy but my corals seem to fluctuate with happiness and I think its because I can't keep my kh,mag and cal steady.
When I dose with reef foundation they seem to sulk even more. Should I be dosing little and often (regularly ) or just now and then (bigger amounts)
Thanks

 

[RobZilla04]

If you want to raise the levels you need to do so slowly. Alk & Cal are both on the low end of the scale. IMO shoot more for 8 dKh and 410 Cal.

Best advice is to monitor your livestock and let them tell you what conditions they like.

 

[bertoni]

[welcome]
Do you have an estimate of the daily consumption level? Many tanks require daily dosing. I'd try measuring the alkalinity every day for a few days at least, to see what's happening. If the alkalinity drops much, dosing every day will help get a realistic value for consumption. I'd keep the alkalinity in about a 1 dKH band.

 

[hkgar]

Once you determine a daily dosage amount here is a guide to determine how much to dose.

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

[mcgyvr]

test to try to come to a "daily consumption rate"
pick the values you want to maintain..
dose accordingly..
test to ensure that dose is correct in that its keeping levels stable..

simple as that..

 

[ryeguyy84]

Here's what I do when I need to adjust my dosing.

Day 1: figure out where you want your numbers to be. for me I keep Alk at 8DKH, cal at 420 and Mag around 1350 - 1400.

then test, and write down all the values you saw, then dose to your ideal value. ***note*** this may need to be done over a day or 2 as you don't want to increase ALK more than 1.4dkh in a 24 hour period

wait an hour or so and then test again to confirm you are up to ideal.

Day 2:
enjoy the tank

Day 3:
Test again and see how your levels fluctuated from the ideal. Example:
Ideal
Alk - 8
Cal - 420
Mag - 1400

newly tested values:
Alk - 7.4
Cal - 400
Mag - 1400

so this says your tank used .6DKH, 20ppm Cal and Mag stayed the same over 3 days. so your daily values are just those numbers divided by 3.

I dose Alk/Cal equally based on the Alk number so you can use an online calculator to figure out how much to dose daily from there.

Hope that helps.

 

[bertoni]

Waiting a few days to check for the drop in levels can work if the consumption rate is very low. For tanks like mine, that went through 2-3 dKH per day, it would be counterproductive. If the change from day to day is close to the noise limits of the test, then waiting a few days would be required. I'd check daily for a bit, personally.