Should dosing 2 part always be equal?

[nighthawk26]

Hi guys. Relatively new to the hobby. ON top of that, the chemistry side of things is hard for me to wrap my head around. It was suggest by a friend in a local forum to post here, so hoping someone can help.

I have a 220DT tank linked to a system in my fish room which is a 75G sump and 40G frag tank. System is about 45 ft away so my best guess is I'm around 330 total system gallons or so.

Tank has been up since August with no lights or livestock till October. Cycled well, had cyano here and there till just recently. No visual issues to speak of. I have maybe 3 or 4 larger lps pieces, and JUSt started with some SPS. roughly 4 baseball or softball size wild Aussie pieces. Aside from that, I have a blonde naso tang, 4 green chromis, 4 lyretail anthias, 2 pj cardinals, and 2 clowns. I have not run GFO or carbon for about 6 weeks. Before that was running only cause I assumed I had phosphates as I had cyano. Although testing with hanna said 0, I do know cyano consumes phosphate. On the DT I dun 4 Radion G2 and frag tank 1 G2. I use Red Sea Coral pro salt so has elevated elements and higher alk, alc and mag.

That said, I was noticing my tank was still low so I started dosing. I currently have the following parameters tested with Salifert kits.

Alk 9.8
Cal 460
Mag 1350
Phosphates 0
Nitrates .20
Nitrite 0

Dosing wise I dose 32ml alk, 52ml calc, and about 20ml mag.

I test every few days out of paranoia, and for over a month, these numbers vary VERY little. I use a Neptune Dos and change out about 3GPD throughout the day. Evap wise I add about 2 or so gallons per day.

Aside from that, I do add half dose every few days ZEOVIT LPS, Phols special, and Coral snow.

I think that's about the most detail I can give.

I guess the questions are mostly based on the idea that I've been told dosing should be EQUAL parts calc and alk, but this is not my situation. Also considering I don't have a ton in my tank presently.

Any comments are appreciated.

 

[disc1]

Sometimes it doesn't work out equal. The corals always consume it in equal amounts, but that's not always the whole story.

For example, if your salt mix is a little higher in calcium than you run your tank but has the same alkalinity as your tank then every time you do a water change it's like dosing a little extra calcium. If that difference is large enough and you do water changes often enough then it will skew your amounts towards less calcium than alkalinity.

 

[droog]

When people say equal parts, they are usually talking about 2-part additives, it sounds like you're dosing three individually? Are you using the RedSea Reef Foundation A/B/C for that?
I used to use those three RedSea products but I found it hard to keep things balanced. I'm sure they work, but I found it difficult to dial in given errors/tolerance of our test kits.

My chemistry became much more stable after I switched to a commercial 2-part dosed equally (alk is the only one I test now).

Your numbers look good to me though. If they are stable over the long term, I wouldn't worry about the unequal dosing amounts.

-droog

 

[nighthawk26]

OK Disc1, that sort of makes sense to me.

Droog, I am dosing true 2 part. B Ionic calc, and alk.

Anyone else?

I'm almost wondering if 32ml alk, and 52ml cal in a system volume of 330g is really close enough that it's irrelevant given the accuracy plus minus of the kits, and how you interpret the colour. Essentially, if I made both 52, or 32, would it essentially render the same "result" for me, and am I way over thinking.

 

[bertoni]

I think that dose is so small that any inaccuracy in the calcium dose would be lost in the noise. Personally, I'd just dose 32 ml calcium to save a tiny bit of money, but either way should be fine.

 

[sticky polyps]

I just had to adjust my dosing pumps tonight after testing. Went up on alk and down on calcium, the alk was already dosing more volume than the calcium. My tank is newly setup though and just starting to get some coraline spots. Calcium was creeping up to 470 ppm and alk is down from 8.4 to 7.5 DKH

 

[Reel North]

Jake - just curious. Did you test mag as well? I'm running a calcium reactor, and my mag went way down lol. I need to go back to skool for chemistry.

 

[sticky polyps]

Jake - just curious. Did you test mag as well? I'm running a calcium reactor, and my mag went way down lol. I need to go back to skool for chemistry.

I did my friend. I would recommend Kent tech M for raising mag, or if you would like, BRS magnesium chloride/sulfate blend if you don't mind mixing it up. The BRS videos are great for learning by the way...

I don't use a calcium reactor so can't give you any tips but, try your best to get them locked in, your tank shouldn't use much mag so daily dosing might not be nessasary.

Keeping your alkalinity and salinity (and temperature) steady is the most important for keeping the most sensitive invertebrates.

 

[bertoni]

Some people are successful with a bit of magnesium media in their reactor to keep that parameter stable. It might be worth trying.

 

[Reel North]

My mag drops 30-40 a day. I ordered some zeomag from BRS to add to the reactor.