Mark's 150 gallon

[markalot]

Still looking fantastic and super mature, Mark.
Fingers crossed on the lokani.
My Red Robin grows with the exact same pattern as yours.

Thanks Matt.

So that 7.0 KH kept talking to me, so I tested again today.

9.1 Grrrrr

Doser is OFF, Kalk diluted, the tank starves until I figure out where it's at.

9.3 Salifert, 9.1 Hanna.

No visible damage but colors faded. I expect issues over the next week or so, we'll see.

 

[joshky]

Sorry to hear about the SSC and Lokani Mark, glad the RTN has at least stopped for now. Your tank is looking really fantastic otherwise, keep it up man!

 

[markalot]

Sorry to hear about the SSC and Lokani Mark, glad the RTN has at least stopped for now. Your tank is looking really fantastic otherwise, keep it up man!

Thanks Josh, nice to see you around.


So KH 9.3 at 4PM,

8.8 at 6:30PM,

8.6 at 8:30PM

Give or take hobby grade test inaccuracies.

Pretty consistent usage. I'll test tomorrow morning around 5:30am and then decide if I want to turn on the doser and for how long.

 

[markalot]

Repeating above

9.3 at 4pm
8.8 at 6:30pm
8.6 at 8:30pm
8.5 at 6AM
8.1 at 4PM

 

[reefmutt]

That’s crazy..
Do it for a couple days.. curious to see if it repeats..
I’m going to try that too.

 

[markalot]

6:30 7.9 KH

Doser still off.

 

[markalot]

So here's my mad science thinking, and it may apply to older tanks with a huge coral load.

For the sake of discussion, lets say my daily Alk usage is 2 KH. If I dose that over 24 hours then my morning Alk will be 8, end of light cycle will be 7, and then it will climb to 8 by the next morning if we assume corals do not use any Alk at night (which is what many are confirming). This assumes I'm dosing enough for 1KH during the 12 hour day and another 1 KH overnight so the drop is only half of the total daily usage.

Maybe 1KH is no big deal, but what if My Alk usage is something crazy, like 6 KH daily?

Suddenly I'm doing daily swings from 9KH in the morning to 6KH in the evening. That's pretty flipping huge! As you can see, continuing 24 hour dosing and continuing to raise the amount as the tank grows actually decreases stability due to the difference in day/night usage.

That's my theory. I don't have an expensive 24/7 Alk doser but I am doing numerous tests here for the next day to see if I see the pattern. Because my KH spiked to 9 my doser is off but Kalk is still being added via my timed topoff every 15 minutes. It's saturated Kalk so using the calculator and figuring my usage is about .8 gallons daily, this equates to 0.6KH of Kalk added daily.

So far my daily measurements with Salifert, backed up by Hanna, are:

9.3 at 4pm
8.8 at 6:30pm
8.6 at 8:30pm
8.5 at 6AM
8.1 at 4PM
7.9 at 6:30 PM

Next reading at 8:30 after the white lights dim for the evening. Blue LED stays on until 10 so that probably accounts for some of the overnight Alk usage.

 

[reefmutt]

All sounds plausible.
I’m sure with those big stags are a strong draw..

 

[markalot]

All sounds plausible.
I'm sure with those big stags are a strong draw..

We'll see I guess.

9.3 at 4pm
8.8 at 6:30pm
8.6 at 8:30pm
8.5 at 6AM
8.1 at 4PM
7.9 at 6:30PM
7.7 at 8:30PM

A drop of .9 KH a day requires 96ml of Randy's Recipe 1 (BRS equivalent) which is lower than the 120ml I was dosing but not horribly low.

What will it be tomorrow morning? With Kalk back to full strength I am guessing a steady to a slight rise to 7.8. It's a wild guess based on some more usage before the blue LED's go off plus the Kalk addition. If all goes as planned tomorrow evenings KH reading should be 6.9 to 7 KH give or take testing errors.

Hell, if the acros are happy their usage might pick up so there's really no telling. All is good as long as usage stays the same or increases IMO.

 

[markalot]

8.0 KH this morning. How about that.

There are testing kit errors so I doubt this is an exact number.


Review

9.3 at 4pm
8.8 at 6:30pm
8.6 at 8:30pm
8.5 at 6AM
8.1 at 4PM
7.9 at 6:30PM
7.7 at 8:30PM
8.0 at 6:30AM


I expected Alk to rise due to Kalk dosing and it did. I expected up to .3 and testing twice I got 8.0 twice so I think this is a decent reading. There should have been some usage after the 8:30 reading due to the blue LEDs being on full blast until 9:30. Most likely I am dosing more Kalk that I thought, which is likely since it's a guess based on how long topoff lasts. 5 gallons last a little over 5 days.

So, if all goes as expected this evenings Alk should be 7.2 KH, tomorrow morning 7.5, tomorrow evening 6.7 if I don't turn on the doser.

Running the calculator and getting the amount to raise Alk from 6.7 to 7.5 I get aprox 80ml (I'm using 140 gallons as tank volume + sump - equipment and rocks).

Doser is set to 120ml over 24 hours so what I think I will do is put it on a timer so it goes on Saturday at 10am and off at 10pm. This should dose 60ml which is not enough to fully maintain Alk. A good start.

 

[markalot]

Awesome news.

Power failed at 3pm, still off at 11pm, might be off all night. lol. Unpacked the generator I bought 2 years ago, filled it with oil ... gas ... no gas, drove to fill up gas container ... worked like a charm. Enough spare power to light the Dining room and play some games. So no Alk test until tomorrow.

 

[Pife]

Awesome news.

Power failed at 3pm, still off at 11pm, might be off all night. lol. Unpacked the generator I bought 2 years ago, filled it with oil ... gas ... no gas, drove to fill up gas container ... worked like a charm. Enough spare power to light the Dining room and play some games. So no Alk test until tomorrow.

I know it's a pain but at least you had the means to keep your system up and running!

 

[markalot]

Now saying 4pm tomorrow! Cripes.

 

[markalot]

Still no power. The little Champion 1500 watt generator is running both tanks, a small box freezer, charging phones, providing a wifi hotspot, and running this laptop. 450 watts. I need to hook up more stuff!

 

[markalot]

Power back on at 11:45. 75.8 in the big tank, 75.4 in the 40 gallon. Used 4 gallons of gas in the generator. Everything looks fine and happy, but you know how that goes.

 

[nemodan]

Hi Mark.... I was reading the Alk postings. If I am correct, at around 6:30 PM you always had ~8 dkh.

What you saw, I see it as something normal when we are dosing to keep the Alk. In the ocean is always the same. Due to that I am always measuring Akl at 10-10:30 PM. My doser start at midnight and stop at 6 PM. During the day I have variations. So i decided to measure alk always at the same time.

Best
Daniel

 

[markalot]

Hi Mark.... I was reading the Alk postings. If I am correct, at around 6:30 PM you always had ~8 dkh.

What you saw, I see it as something normal when we are dosing to keep the Alk. In the ocean is always the same. Due to that I am always measuring Akl at 10-10:30 PM. My doser start at midnight and stop at 6 PM. During the day I have variations. So i decided to measure alk always at the same time.

Best
Daniel

Hi Daniel,

yea, I'm trying to figure out when the usage is to see if I can get more stable than 24 hour dosing. It seems my usage matches the light cycle, Noon until 10 PM being the highest. I don't want to overthink this so I have the doser set to dose 10AM till 10PM but I still haven't turned it back on yet because Alk is still falling from my spike. Power failure did not help.


Back to testing.

7PM 7.3 KH
9AM 7.7 KH

I suspect 7PM reading was off, it was in between colors and I didn't bother with the Hanna. Doser will not go on until I reach 7 KH in the morning.

Remember timed topoff with saturated Kalk is running so the rise in KH overnight is expected.

 

[markalot]

7PM 7.3 KH Salifert, 7.6 Hanna.

Not going to turn on doser yet.


Generator is set for storage. Added StaBil Fuel Stabalizer and followed instructions to store for 6 months. Will have to run again before winter to topoff fuel, run for 15 minutes, add more sta-bil.

The tank savior. Purchased in 2015 for $200 (list $250). Because I didn't have to heat the tanks this little guy kept a freezer cold as well. Wife suddenly happy with purchase. Ha!

 

[janci]

Interesting measurement you are doing.
Alk uptake at night is less or nihil (not sure) for corals.
My calcium reactor comes with a light sensor that is placed under the LEDs to dose less at night and avoid KH swings between night-start and morning.

The CaRX is DaStaCo and works fully automatic so I have no idea what the dosing rate is between day and night.
Seems like someone did this research before and put this in the controller/timer of the CaRX.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

[markalot]

Interesting measurement you are doing.
Alk uptake at night is less or nihil (not sure) for corals.
My calcium reactor comes with a light sensor that is placed under the LEDs to dose less at night and avoid KH swings between night-start and morning.

The CaRX is DaStaCo and works fully automatic so I have no idea what the dosing rate is between day and night.
Seems like someone did this research before and put this in the controller/timer of the CaRX.

That's very interesting, thanks for sharing. I had no idea CaRx ractors had day night modes.

So I'm still wrestling the beast but I have it pinned down below 7 now and to the point where, barring any unexpected events, I should be able to get the Alk usage and dosing locked in.

Still seeing the small rise in Alk due to Kalk dosing, which is not a problem IMO. The 4PM to 8PM drop yesterday was a little steep so I've upped the daily dosing by 15ml to compensate. I'm not home at noon or I could get more data points.

Doser on at 10am, off at 10pm. Alk started around 6.7 and I suspect it rises to near 7 before peak lighting, then dropped down to the measured 6.6 near the end of the light cycle. I know I am sick and tired of all the testing so as soon as I'm comfortable with the day to day stability then I'm done with this round.

You can probably guess that running a shorter dosing cycle and dosing more might lead to more stability, maybe, though at some point dumping too much 2-part in at once will not be a good thing.