Bolus dosing

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

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 big of a pH boost do you see with how much alk dosed (before lights on) and how fast do you see it?

Can you also try dosing actual bicarbonate to the tank to track what happens with pH?

 

[Welsh Reefer.]

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.

My own KHD and manual testing shows how this, somehow, differs in a live reef tank environment which is effectively what the HTU is saying re. phenomenon vs a controlled sample in a jar.

I'll try a repeat with pH probe in, but it's Sunday eve now and a busy week working away ahead so may likely next weekend.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My own KHD and manual testing shows how this, somehow, differs in a live reef tank environment which is effectively what the HTU is saying re. phenomenon vs a controlled sample in a jar.

I'll try a repeat with pH probe in, but it's Sunday eve now and a busy week working away ahead so may likely next weekend.

The HTU provides no plausible reason for such a effect.

What process takes the alk that you know you added and immediately hides it from a test? Precipitation of calcium carbonate would explain it, but that just loses the alk dosed, and is not presumably the explanation, since it would be a reason to not use this method.

 

[Garf]

10ml in 100L raises dKH by 0.5 - so for a 2dKH gain we'd need 40ml in 100L

Isn't that the dosing rate for soda ash?

 

[ingchr1]

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

Exactly, water volume is something that needs to be taken into consideration.

"Non-Bolus" tank using ~2dKH/day. It's a 40 gallon AIO, ~31 gallons of water volume.

 

[Pod_01]

Isn't that the dosing rate for soda ash?

If you read through the discussion this seems to be one of the questions. FM states it is bicarbonate but the stated dosage leans to soda ash…
When I measured pH of my mix it see to be bicarbonate/ maybe my probe is shot.
FM claims they add something to improve potency and that in fact it is bicarbonate…
Maybe that something is causing the phenomenon.

Interesting times, but with all this confusion I am starting to look at my Tropic Marin Original Balling boxes. At least content of those is known quantity and hopefully they don’t break the science… or the buffer system.

 

[Hans-Werner]

The question is does it work. A lot of people in germany tested this method and it does. You can see it by going in to german forums or just in the yt comment section of the videos from fm. not everybody uses dosing pumps. there are people that dose once a day by hand. one of the biggest public reef tanks in germany is dosing kh only once in the morning since 7 years and they have phenomal growth. its the nature museum in karlsruhe. there are many videos on yt where you can see their reef progessing. so imho its a nother discussion should it work, because it does. before attacking the idea maybee give it a chance instead of stating it shouldnt work because xyz.

Just for clarification: Vivarium Karlsruhe is using sodium bicarbonate, not any brand product. Please do not confuse both.

That their tanks are running so extremely well is thanks to an extremely enganged guy, Johannes Kirchhauser, "Leiter" (manager, director) of the Vivarium. He has good ideas and also the skills and abilites how to present them in a public aquarium.

 

[Hypnotize]

Just for clarification: Vivarium Karlsruhe is using sodium bicarbonate, not any brand product. Please do not confuse both.

That their tanks are running so extremely well is thanks to an extremely enganged guy, Johannes Kirchhauser, "Leiter" (manager, director) of the Vivarium. He has good ideas and also the skills and abilites how to present them in a public aquarium.

And they dose liters of Vodka every day does this mean we all must dose Vodka?

 

[Garf]

If you read through the discussion this seems to be one of the questions. FM states it is bicarbonate but the stated dosage leans to soda ash…
When I measured pH of my mix it see to be bicarbonate/ maybe my probe is shot.
FM claims they add something to improve potency and that in fact it is bicarbonate…
Maybe that something is causing the phenomenon.

Interesting times, but with all this confusion I am starting to look at my Tropic Marin Original Balling boxes. At least content of those is known quantity and hopefully they don’t break the science… or the buffer system.

Yes, not answered apart from FMs insistence it's bicarb and trace despite users evidence it's not. It certainly looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. Perhaps the timing of the dose is important in the fact that you don't see the water go cloudy, it's dark, the lights must be off, apparently, lol. The other insistence on a powerful skimmer would also help clear this precipitate up, presumably. If so, this method is just a way to add calcium carbonate dust as suggested in multiple threads previously, heck I've even done it, when adding new sand as a "Method". One thing I didn't notice though, that's the apparent total lack of consumption of alkalinity through most/all of the lighting cycle, which has evidence in this method.

Edit - I gave an alternate hypothesis in post #206, it's looking quite good at the minute.

 

[RandomReefer420]

Edit - I gave an alternate hypothesis in post #206, it's looking quite good at the minute.

Yeah, all the testers, public aquariums and competitors completely missed the first thing anyone would be looking for.

I get the scepticism but precipitating out half the dose everyday with no one noticing isn't it.

 

[Garf]

Yeah, all the testers, public aquariums and competitors completely missed the first thing anyone would be looking for.

I get the scepticism but precipitating out half the dose everyday with no one noticing isn't it.

I think you will find bicarb would be ok, this stuff doesn't look like it is bicarb. Claude sais he's tried it on 4 out of 8 systems, why only 4?
As previously stated, bicarb doesn't increase pH as suggested. If you look at the HTU, the pH increase is apparently key to it's success. These facts do not marry up. I've been adding a dose of bicarb every day for months (as I expect many others do) to top up my kalk usage, I see pH drops a little as Randy has described, not an increase that can be explained by any other means than photosynthesis and kalk.

 

[RandomReefer420]

I think you will find bicarb would be ok, this stuff doesn't look like it is bicarb. Claude sais he's tried it on 4 out of 8 systems, why only 4?

I don't know, you'd need to ask him. If it was me, it would be to have something to bench mark against and see what the longer term effects or downsides are.

 

[Garf]

I don't know, you'd need to ask him. If it was me, it would be to have something to bench mark against and see what the longer term effects or downsides are.

I've edited my previous post.

Another edit - seems I'm in for a disaster dosing kalk and adding a dose of bicarb according to FM. What on earth?

 

[Welsh Reefer.]

I think you will find bicarb would be ok, this stuff doesn't look like it is bicarb. Claude sais he's tried it on 4 out of 8 systems, why only 4?
As previously stated, bicarb doesn't increase pH as suggested. If you look at the HTU, the pH increase is apparently key to it's success. These facts do not marry up. I've been adding a dose of bicarb every day for months (as I expect many others do) to top up my kalk usage, I see pH drops a little as Randy has described, not an increase that can be explained by any other means than photosynthesis and kalk.

Assume it's benchmarking. He did elude to comparing and contrasting when asked by Adam.

I will dose my daily dKH of bicarb instead of FM when I get back home and report back with the preparation of the solution and GHL data. If it works as I've seen with Balling Light, I'd be keen to see what theories you come up with next! Perhaps we'd get an admission there may be something to this with what Fauna/Frag Farm have released.

Conversely if it does not behave in the same way I will also record this as I use Balling Light anyway, I've nothing to lose - it 100% works as stated for me when using Balling Light.

The key seems to lie in timing of the dose, it's certainly not precipitating out half it's dose or clouding up the water (that would have also happened in the control solution I made to test alk), it's summer time - it's not like my house is dark at 10:30am when bolus goes in, it's in a very well lit room so that would be immediately obvious

 

[Garf]

Perhaps we'd get an admission there may be something to this with what Fauna/Frag Farm have released.

Certainly.

 

[RandomReefer420]

I've edited my previous post.

Another edit - seems I'm in for a disaster dosing kalk and adding a dose of bicarb according to FM. What on earth?

Without data using just bicarb it's impossible to say whether it's what ever fauna marin put into their bicarb to double the saturation or some other ( perhaps yet undescribed ? perhaps unique to aquariums in high co2 environments ? ) phenomenon.

Claude said in the Frag Garage chat that he would be releasing a document with his reasoning for kalk being bad sometimes soon. I expect it will be just as controversial as Bolus!

I'm mostly just glad I didn't hit buy on a saturated calcium reactor last week. I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.

 

[Pod_01]

Claude sais he's tried it on 4 out of 8 systems, why only 4?

I am quite sure Claude is using FM KH on all systems. As mentioned by others it is good idea to compare, claims of 40% growth improvements have been made. To use Bolus on half of his systems seems reasonable.

FragFarm converted all of his systems. That is what he stated.

I have not seen precipitation with FM KH and I tried few systems, baked soda, hydroxide, kalk, AFR etc.. With the elevated pH alternatives I could always see the white residue. FM KH it is clear and I have no calcium buildup on pumps. With hydroxide my pump seized up.

Yes, not answered apart from FMs insistence it's bicarb and trace despite users evidence it's not.

There are definitely trace elements in FM KH if you add Trace3 to it. Based on my ICP tests I would say the trace supply works well with FM system.

 

[Garf]

what ever fauna marin put into their bicarb to double the saturation

The evidence so far would be "Heat" 200C for about an hour, lol.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Just for clarification: Vivarium Karlsruhe is using sodium bicarbonate, not any brand product. Please do not confuse both.

That their tanks are running so extremely well is thanks to an extremely enganged guy, Johannes Kirchhauser, "Leiter" (manager, director) of the Vivarium. He has good ideas and also the skills and abilites how to present them in a public aquarium.

Thanks, Hans-Werner.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The evidence so far would be "Heat" 200C for about an hour, lol.

lol

I hope they realize that if you take bicarbonate and add anything acidic or basic to it (perhaps including the peptide), it may no longer be bicarbonate. Just because you put it into the bottle does not mean it is still there.