Isn't that a lot more work?

[Dustin07]

Looks good. Agree on the pH being a little low. I was having a problem with low pH a while back. But, since I've started dosing soda ash daily, my pH has been around 8 at night and 8.2-8.3 during the day.

well I found some recipes and whanot on on how to bake the baking soda, quantities to start with etc then got home, started testing parameters, feeding the tank, then cooking dinner for my wife cause she had a longer than usual day and completely forgot to bake some soda lol. kH was up slightly but still below 9, Mag seems to have landed specifically at 1350 on the dot.

I'll likely have another late night myself so tonight I won't test anything but tomorrow I'll give it all a gander, see where ph, kh, cal, and mag are and give this soda ash a go!

do you keep a bottle of the soda ash pre mixed that auto doses ? I read to test with 2 tspn at first, but then I read other folks pre mixing a lot more than that into a gallon of distilled water and setting up an auto dose.

 

[griss]

I will say, with the soda ash, my Alk stays around 8 and pH 8-8.2/8.3 as stated above. If I use the soda ash to push the Alk higher, my pH gets too high.

I might start dripping Kalk again in conjunction with the soda ash to see what that does.

 

[Dustin07]

Came home last night to much dirtier than usual glass so I cut the feeding back a lot and just gave the fish some pellets. topped off ATO, checked salinity, and called it a night. I didn't get home until 8pm ish so the lights were already changing to moonlight and the corals were changing for the evening a bit. Didn't test anything, but I have a feeling I'll be testing everything tonight and maybe doing a small water change if something bad happened.

I did add a little reef roids to the tank with Tuesdays feedings, which often causes a spike but that one seemed a little harsh for how little I used. I'm getting close to banning reef roids from my house. Just hard to throw away a 75% full container of useable food.

This morning things looked better, but it was only about 5am and tank lights still off so I spot lighted around and things seem fine.

 

[griss]

do you keep a bottle of the soda ash pre mixed that auto doses ? I read to test with 2 tspn at first, but then I read other folks pre mixing a lot more than that into a gallon of distilled water and setting up an auto dose.

Ooops, I missed this question. I buy the Bulk Reef Supply soda ash, mix it with RODI water and keep a gallon on hand. I don't currently have my dosing pump setup because...I just haven't done it I have a 40 breeder, about 5 gallons in the sump and a 15 gallon refugium. I dose about 10-15mL per day. I only add about 5mL at a time into a high current area. The soda ash solution is highly alkaline and adding too much at once can cause a dangerous spike in pH and can also precipitate calcium out of solution.

 

[Dustin07]

Ooops, I missed this question. I buy the Bulk Reef Supply soda ash, mix it with RODI water and keep a gallon on hand. I don't currently have my dosing pump setup because...I just haven't done it I have a 40 breeder, about 5 gallons in the sump and a 15 gallon refugium. I dose about 10-15mL per day. I only add about 5mL at a time into a high current area. The soda ash solution is highly alkaline and adding too much at once can cause a dangerous spike in pH and can also precipitate calcium out of solution.

Good info, thank you!
yeah I don't have my auto doser set up yet either. I still have to learn how it works for one thing, but for another, I just don't even know for sure how I'm going to set it up (space constraints). although for now I like doing things manually, gives me more interaction with the tank and the products. (learning and observation opportunities)