Bolus dosing

[Carni_Vora]

Not sure why you folks think the word claim implies I think it untrue.

I’m just trying to sort the false claims from the true claims.

Oh I don't think anything you say is untrue or that you don't mean well. I am just coming across rude in general

Just nevermind me

 

[elysics]

With the amount of hype and people trying it out no questions asked I think we'll know in a week or two if it works with regular bicarb lol

 

[Garf]

With the amount of hype and people trying it out no questions asked I think we'll know in a week or two if it works with regular bicarb lol

Fresh saltwater can certainly get to 90 DKH with bicarb, I've done it.

Exceeding the limewater evaporation limit

Mind blown. Got to the 90DKH solution before it was all dripped into the tank. A few calcium crystals added, dissolved in 1 pint(ish) 1/3 teaspoon added, dissolved after quick stir; I’ll keep hold of this and see if it’s stable. pH of resulting solution is 8.05ish pH of startup saltwater is...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[areefer01]

Neither is people asking me for a picture of my tank. But here we are. It's merely adding some weight to the fact that this isn't just something cooked up by FM and it's "fan base" that doesn't do what it says it does.

I hear you. The "picture" request can be viewed as a challenge card especially with new members or no badges. Honestly we as a community need to move past post and badge count thing but that is out of my control. So I do hear you. However sometimes it helps with these discussions. As noted above some post who don't have displays, or new systems, or lots of frags, etc.

In any case I'm not here to challenge or bash the system in question. Whatever works for a hobbyist is fine by me.

 

[Hats_]

Neither is people asking me for a picture of my tank. But here we are. It's merely adding some weight to the fact that this isn't just something cooked up by FM and it's "fan base" that doesn't do what it says it does.

I mean, you claim a whole lot and only back it up with some graphs. We're all hobbyists who keep a tank for the looks so I really don't get how asking for a picture of how your tank looks is irrelevant. We're all aiming for the same thing which is a nice and healthy looking tank so of course we are going to ask for pictures.

Hell, If I thought the way I ran my tank was groundbreaking the first thing I would do is show pictures. The proof is always in the pudding!

 

[Garf]

The lack of detail on the weird alkalinity effect has drawn me to make up an alternative hypothesis for the alkalinity table top effect. Doesn't appear that it needs to be correct, just parroted enough times, so that folk believe it.

The massive initial dose of light and bicarb is causing inhibition of the calcium carbonate formation / photosynthetic machinery preventing calcium carbonate formation / growth during the light, thus consuming no alkalinity. I have noticed alkalinity consumption in the dark at about 20% of total consumption, thus the fall off, when the lights go down. In my mind this low alkalinity consumption having such a drastic effect on alkalinity confirms the lack of alkalinity liberated from the initial dose, maybe as suggested precipitated out with calcium, which as it happens is the opposite of the goals of the method.

If anybody has any questions, I'll just make stuff up which compliments my theory.

 

[formallydehyde]

No, nothing will bind bicarbonate in a way tht protects it. Such a thing reacts with it as an acid/base reaction, making something new.

Easiest to see with formic acid to make the formate in AFR or Acetic acid (vinegar) to make acetate as in Salifert all in one:

HCO2H (formic acid) + HCO3- (bicarbonate) --> HCO2- (formate) + H2O + CO2

HCO2- (formate) + 1/2O2 --> HCO3- (bicarbonate)

and

CH3CO2H (acetic acid) + HCO3- (bicarbonate) --> CH3CO2- (acetate) + H2O + CO2

CH3CO2- (acetate) + 2O2 --> HCO3- (bicarbonate) + CO2 + H2O

A peptide of, say, aspartic acid or glutamic acid would behave similarly. I doubt they use a pure single amino acid peptide, as opposed to some cheap protein product, but I have no idea.

They do mention it's a peptide polymer and polyglutamic acid is cheap enough because it's a cosmetic ingredient. $14 for 10 grams on eBay with free shipping lol

 

[Pod_01]

The lack of detail on the weird alkalinity effect has drawn me to make up an alternative hypothesis for the alkalinity table top effect. Doesn't appear that it needs to be correct, just parroted enough times, so that folk believe it.

The massive initial dose of light and bicarb is causing inhibition of the calcium carbonate formation / photosynthetic machinery preventing calcium carbonate formation / growth during the light, thus consuming no alkalinity. I have noticed alkalinity consumption in the dark at about 20% of total consumption, thus the fall off, when the lights go down. In my mind this low alkalinity consumption having such a drastic effect on alkalinity confirms the lack of alkalinity liberated from the initial dose, maybe as suggested precipitated out with calcium, which as it happens is the opposite of the goals of the method.

If anybody has any questions, I'll just make stuff up which compliments my theory.

Well to make it somewhat believable …. You need HTU and YouTube channel ….

 

[Pod_01]

They do mention it's a peptide polymer and polyglutamic acid is cheap enough because it's a cosmetic ingredient. $14 for 10 grams on eBay with free shipping lol

You guys are killing, are you telling me I am adding cosmetic ingredients to bring out the best colour out of my corrals:

Just don’t tell my wife where the mascara disappeared to….

 

[Garf]

Well to make it somewhat believable …. You need HTU and YouTube channel ….

Personally I would like to see some evidence that upto 50% of the bicarb is gassed off as CO2 through the skimmer which appears to be the claim if combining the disappearing alkalinity and altering calcium/alkalinity ratio sections of the HTU. For what it's worth I use kalk (mega strength) to replace nearly all evap, and add a glug of bicarb once a day to make up the shortfall.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Just a comment on judging tank husbandry by look, the only thing that can do is say that if you do everything identical to the tank in the picture, that one could expect similar results.

What it cannot do is say whether any individual practice used has a positive, negative, or no net effect at all unless one intentionally changes that practice to something else and looks for effects.

 

[Toob]

I do, of course, although I'm not certain on the relevance to this thread nor the data I've shared from my own findings so had not shared in fear of muddying the discussion.

See attached - last night I stumbled across an acro frag I got 1 week pre Bolus and a more recent one I took of it too which is attached aswell

Thanks for sharing a pic of your tank. I have a hard time believing this amount of coral *actually* consumes 2.0dkh every day, though.

@DutchReefer420 can you post a pic of your tank? I would love to see what 2.5dkh per day looks like.


Here’s my tank - lots of SPS growing fast and it only consumes 1.0dkh per day or so:

 

[Pod_01]

Personally I would like to see some evidence that upto 50% of the bicarb is gassed off as CO2 through the skimmer which appears to be the claim if combining the disappearing alkalinity and altering calcium/alkalinity ratio sections of the HTU. For what it's worth I use kalk (mega strength) to replace nearly all evap, and add a glug of bicarb once a day to make up the shortfall.

I also don’t follow the bicarbonate being converted to CO2.

I know oceans soak up CO2, I am not sure about the reverse.

But I also don’t know enough about the ocean buffer mechanism to say the process can be reversed.

Reversed as in from Bicarbonate to carbonic acid to CO2.

With all the acidification of oceans discussion this is the general information:

I need a easy to follow book on ocean buffering systems or models.

Just my opinion but FM and Frag Farm should stick to reporting what they observed and under what conditions. Claude does state that he did or does lot of experimenting and nothing wrong with that. He has nice coral farm so he appears to knows what to do. If dosing bicarbonate in the morning provides better growth etc… Great information to have.

The why it works and the science behind it maybe should be left to people like Randy.

Also as an aside as hobbits we may not be collecting the best data/ information. I still suspect there is something wrong with my KH director or perhaps the secret ingredient added to the FM KH is messing up the reading.

 

[ingchr1]

Thanks for sharing a pic of your tank. I have a hard time believing this amount of coral *actually* consumes 2.0dkh every day, though.

@DutchReefer420 can you post a pic of your tank? I would love to see what 2.5dkh per day looks like.


Here’s my tank - lots of SPS growing fast and it only consumes 1.0dkh per day or so:

How does water volume factor into consumption rate?

 

[elysics]

How does water volume factor into consumption rate?

Corals don't consume dkh, they consume chemical mass. dKH consumption is roughly proportional to the coral mass/water mass ratio. If the same corals with the same growth are in a tank half as big, the dkh consumption will be double. A tank with a bunch of open water for fish to swim in will have a lower dKH drop than a tank that's filled top to bottom with coral, even if they are just as healthy and growing just as much

 

[Toob]

Corals don't consume dkh, they consume chemical mass. dKH consumption is roughly proportional to the coral mass/water mass ratio. If the same corals with the same growth are in a tank half as big, the dkh consumption will be double. A tank with a bunch of open water for fish to swim in will have a lower dKH drop than a tank that's filled top to bottom with coral, even if they are just as healthy and growing just as much

Thanks. @Welsh Reefer. looks like he has some happy sps, but the tank is quite sparsely populated and “empty” compared to mine, which isn’t packed wall to wall but definitely has much higher stony coral density.

Obviously this is a highly subjective qualitative comparison, but even so the difference in alk consumption is so large in the wrong way that I am very skeptical. Would love to see more pics of bolus tanks supposedly consuming these massive quantities of alk. @DutchReefer420

 

[Kennya]

Thanks. @Welsh Reefer. looks like he has some happy sps, but the tank is quite sparsely populated and “empty” compared to mine, which isn’t packed wall to wall but definitely has much higher stony coral density.

Obviously this is a highly subjective qualitative comparison, but even so the difference in alk consumption is so large in the wrong way that I am very skeptical. Would love to see more pics of bolus tanks supposedly consuming these massive quantities of alk. @DutchReefer420

Just as a reference this is a "non-bolus" tank. Total net volume around 135litres, DT around 100l sump 35l. Im currently dosing 65ml of balling light KH per day which calculates to 2.4 dKH. Lighting is 8 T5. I reckon around .2 dKH is down to nitrate production but that still leaves around 2.2 dKH consumption per day.

 

[Welsh Reefer.]

Thanks. @Welsh Reefer. looks like he has some happy sps, but the tank is quite sparsely populated and “empty” compared to mine, which isn’t packed wall to wall but definitely has much higher stony coral density.

Obviously this is a highly subjective qualitative comparison, but even so the difference in alk consumption is so large in the wrong way that I am very skeptical. Would love to see more pics of bolus tanks supposedly consuming these massive quantities of alk. @DutchReefer420

It's not as sparse as it looks - water volume certainly plays a part too, I'd add more pics but we are distracting from the science here and I completely agree with Randys comment around posting further tank pics etc. I do understand it was helpful to prove I wasn't a fraud as new member etc

 

[Welsh Reefer.]

As suggested by @Garf I have now dosed 2dKH of Balling Light according to their packaging guideline of 10ml in 100L raises dKH by 0.5 - so for a 2dKH gain we'd need 40ml in 100L

I mixed up a fresh solution of 1ltr of salt water using FM salt - 39g into 1000g of RO and mixed for 10 minutes using a magnetic stirrer

Tested salinity using a calibrated Milwaukee salinity tester - 35ppt.

Tested alk on the fresh batch with a brand new unopened Salifert kit I had in the cupboard- titrant remaining 0.46ml 0.44ml 0.46ml - averages out to 0.453ml = 8.45dKH

Based off the above dosage for FM KH at 40ml/100L = 2dKH then the test dosage is 0.4ml (with a brand new syringe, good old amazon multi packs!) which I took from my own premixed dosing container I administer to my tank just once a day now!

Mixed again using the magnetic stirrer for a 5 minutes and retested alk using the same procedure, titrant remaining - 0.32ml 0.33ml 0.33ml average = 0.326ml = 10.3dKH

To me, it's fairly clear here that the stated potency on the tub is correct given some allowances for hobbyist grade testing equipment and the fact it was performed by me, in my kitchen which far from resembles a lab environment, nor am I a Reef Chemist!

Claude has reiterated last night on the FG video that it is bicarb, pH tests of the solution seem to agree, home testing by myself ties in with the stated potency - yet myself and many others are seeing these substantial pH gains when dosing bicarb in one lump as opposed to throughout 24hrs - noticeable even before lights come on and shortly after dosing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

As suggested by @Garf I have now dosed 2dKH of Balling Light according to their packaging guideline of 10ml in 100L raises dKH by 0.5 - so for a 2dKH gain we'd need 40ml in 100L

I mixed up a fresh solution of 1ltr of salt water using FM salt - 39g into 1000g of RO and mixed for 10 minutes using a magnetic stirrer

Tested salinity using a calibrated Milwaukee salinity tester - 35ppt.

Tested alk on the fresh batch with a brand new unopened Salifert kit I had in the cupboard- titrant remaining 0.46ml 0.44ml 0.46ml - averages out to 0.453ml = 8.45dKH

Based off the above dosage for FM KH at 40ml/100L = 2dKH then the test dosage is 0.4ml (with a brand new syringe, good old amazon multi packs!) which I took from my own premixed dosing container I administer to my tank just once a day now!

Mixed again using the magnetic stirrer for a 5 minutes and retested alk using the same procedure, titrant remaining - 0.32ml 0.33ml 0.33ml average = 0.326ml = 10.3dKH

To me, it's fairly clear here that the stated potency on the tub is correct given some allowances for hobbyist grade testing equipment and the fact it was performed by me, in my kitchen which far from resembles a lab environment, nor am I a Reef Chemist!

Claude has reiterated last night on the FG video that it is bicarb, pH tests of the solution seem to agree, home testing by myself ties in with the stated potency - yet myself and many others are seeing these substantial pH gains when dosing bicarb in one lump as opposed to throughout 24hrs - noticeable even before lights come on and shortly after dosing.

How does this relate to the claim that was made that the full alk boost did not show up instantly?

Can you do a pH check in this same experiment?

How fast do you see the pH effect? The drop is instantaneous, then as the water blows off CO2, the pH rises. How fast that happens depends on the degree of aeration, but will always take more than a few min.