What's up with my alk consumption?

[Bdial]

It's been over a year since I've had to dose anything. Long story short. Tank Seam gave out. Lost everything. Lost the passion. Ran fish only with very very very little maintenance.

Now the tank is back and in great condition. I have about 40 different pieces of coral, 30 of which are sps. Now this month I've started watching my alk and cal. There was no change initially and my water changes kept things stable. I was doing 10 gallons twice a week. My total water volume is about 130gallons.

My alk and cal consumption started to show on tests. Red Sea pro kit. 0.1dkh every other day. I know it's not much but I'm trying for stability. When it became 0.1 a day I set up a dosing pump. I'm dosing seachem reef fusion for cal and alk. So it was about 4ml a day. I dosed 4ml alk and cal a day and watched the levels. This was around 4-14. I tested daily and there was about a 0.1 point fluctuation for the next week. Well say user error. I bumped it up to 10ml a day which should have raised it .25 a day. But it stayed at 7 even for several more days. Two days ago I raised it to 12mls a day. Which should have raised it 0.3dkh a day. Now two days later my dkh went from 7 to 6.7.

My question after all that rambling. Does this seem normal. should my consumption increase with my dosing Like that. Should I just chill out and let it ride?

 

[coraldude]

In having huge swings for 12.6 dkh to 8.4. Every 24 hours. I have no clue If this is normal or out of control..


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[Servillius]

Get your mag right. Until you do that there is little point even testing alk.

 

[Bdial]

Magnesium was 1380 last test. That shouldnt be the issue. Recommended levels between 1250 and 1350. Heck it's been at 1450 with no issues.

Should I stop dosing calcium so it drops a bit and balances out?

 

[Servillius]

Magnesium was 1380 last test. That shouldnt be the issue. Recommended levels between 1250 and 1350. Heck it's been at 1450 with no issues.

Should I stop dosing calcium so it drops a bit and balances out?

If mag is fine chances are you're just being overly sensitive to small changes. Test your all and walk away for a week then test it again at the same day and time. Use that as the basis for your calculations. Daily variations and testing uncertainty are messing you up.

In 130 gal tank 12ml of anything is nothing. When I switched to a calcium reactor I was dosing 200ml of ESV A and B daily.

 

[Bdial]

I've been up to nearly 100mls in my last tank. I know that 12 mls is nothing. But in this tank it's still .3 dkh. If I was using Randy's recipe that's 55 mls and 70 mls using the esv b ionic.
I'll let it run for a few days and see.
I do note that there is noticeable growth since daily testing and adjustments.

 

[Servillius]

I've been up to nearly 100mls in my last tank. I know that 12 mls is nothing. But in this tank it's still .3 dkh. If I was using Randy's recipe that's 55 mls and 70 mls using the esv b ionic.
I'll let it run for a few days and see.
I do note that there is noticeable growth since daily testing and adjustments.

I skipped saying it to avoid talking about too many subjects at once, but it's fairly likely that your corals really appreciate the newfound carbonate and are soaking it up.