BRS Dosing rig

[Jeeper]

Well I am chasing KH on a daily basis so I decided to take the plunge and get the BRS dosing kit to automate things a little bit. I am a little bit intimidated though as I don't want to overdose and kill anything. I also bought a used Reef Keeper Lite plus that I need to figure out how to run at the same time. I have had everything a week but I keep finding reasons/excuses not to install everything.

 

[CastAway]

Hey @Jeeper!

What all do you have in this new set-up? Do you have hard corals that are consuming alkalinity and Calcium?

 

[Jeeper]

Well I have 11 total frags in the tank and its a little bit of everything. I guess they are sucking the crap out of the alk in my tank. I'm measuring it as consuming .5 a day. I did a 20 gallon water change this weekend and tested my change water at 10.5 (tank was sitting at about 8.4) and didn't test till last night and it was .52 ML on the Salifert test which is like mid 7's. I dosed it a tsp and retested at 7.7 last night. Planning on hitting it with another tsp tonight. I have been alternating between Seachem Reef Complete for my Calcium and Mag and Reef Builder for my Alk. Dosing 15 ml of reef complete in the mornings and 1 tsp of Reef Builder at night. Calcium has been between 395-420 and Magnesium 1260-1300's. Everything seems to be doing great except for one Acan and my hammer are recovering from a peppermint shrimp attack (he now lives in the sump).

 

[cale0721]

Are you noticing any white build up on Heaters or pumps?
I'm not familiar (haven't used)with the product your using for alk. I always used baking soda with the c02 baked off for my alkalinity. I dose 12ml every 3 hours. I try to stay at 9dkh

 

[cee]

It does seem a little strange that 11frags are drawing alk down .5 dKh per day, especially if you have at least 100 gallons of water ( which I'm just guessing at given your 20 gallon change). Don't know about the products you use however. You're not dosing vinegar or anything else, are you? I'd start the dosing at 1/4 what you think you need, test daily, and only increase based on your dosing and test results. It still bothers me your alk. drops that fast, I have about 40 SPS and 20 or so lps, most of which are colonies, and that's about my daily consumption rate.

 

[CastAway]

That's where I was headed @cee. I don't dose Ca, but won't that drive alk down? Could the fluctuations be timing based? Surely there's no real demand, and something else is up here....

Is your sand bed clumping at all @Jeeper?

 

[Jeeper]

I'm pretty sure it's just baking soda in a seachem bottle. I used baking soda a couple days before I got this stuff (ordered it before I found baking soda did the same thing). I'm guessing my total water volume is about 90 gallons. I use a 10 gallon trash can and 5 gallong buckets so it's easier to change 20 than 18..

 

[Jeeper]

No clumping or white residue.

 

[CastAway]

Are you noticing any white build up on Heaters or pumps?
I'm not familiar (haven't used)with the product your using for alk. I always used baking soda with the c02 baked off for my alkalinity. I dose 12ml every 3 hours. I try to stay at 9dkh

Wow. I rely upon my Ca reactor for alk. I had no idea there could be this kind of rate of consumption. The reactor has made me ignorant.

 

[cale0721]

Wow. I rely upon my Ca reactor for alk. I had no idea there could be this kind of rate of consumption. The reactor has made me ignorant.

Yea baking soda has been my savior. It's like 75 cents a box and it makes a gallon of alk for me. Which last me like 6-8 weeks. Recently my demands are more since adding 8 new SPS frags.

 

[BlueDevil]

How do you folks dose such high levels of Alk without it messing with your pH? My tank is soon going to filled up with a bunch more frags and I will need to increase my Alk dosing. I'm currently dosing it via Kalkwasser ATO.

@cale0721 - how are you dosing your alk? Dosing pump connected to a time/controller?

 

[Jeeper]

I bought this http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-2-part-calcium-alkalinity-total-package-with-dosers.html and I have two one gallon containers I will use for my dosing chemicals. I will probably mess with the reef keeper this weekend and see if I can get it all running. I have a 4 year old and a 16 month old that try to crawl under the tank with me whenever the doors are open so I normally mess with stuff after they go to bed. Last night I was adjusting my return pump and drain, flow and wasn't paying attention and pumped water over the side of the tank. Luckily it was about a cup before I shut the return pump off but it still made a huge mess ><

 

[cale0721]

How do you folks dose such high levels of Alk without it messing with your pH? My tank is soon going to filled up with a bunch more frags and I will need to increase my Alk dosing. I'm currently dosing it via Kalkwasser ATO.

@cale0721 - how are you dosing your alk? Dosing pump connected to a time/controller?

Honestly I got to a point to where I stopped chasing PH. I have a jebao dp- 4 right now I have calcium and alk hooked up via the doser. I used to do kalk in my ato but got frustrated with it bc my alk was never steady. Lots of swings and after losing a few nice SPS I broke down and switched to dosing. Since then all my SPS have taken off in growth.

 

[cale0721]

I bought this http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-2-part-calcium-alkalinity-total-package-with-dosers.html and I have two one gallon containers I will use for my dosing chemicals. I will probably mess with the reef keeper this weekend and see if I can get it all running. I have a 4 year old and a 16 month old that try to crawl under the tank with me whenever the doors are open so I normally mess with stuff after they go to bed. Last night I was adjusting my return pump and drain, flow and wasn't paying attention and pumped water over the side of the tank. Luckily it was about a cup before I shut the return pump off but it still made a huge mess ><

That's a great set. Can't go wrong with brs. I use their mag and calcium but make my own alk. I don't currently run a aquarium controller but i think you'll be in business when you get it all setup.

 

[Jeeper]

Ok it took a while but I finally got everything installed. My ALK doesn't seem to be dropping as fast as it was. I set it up to dose 10ml a day but I think I will cut it back to 5. Calcium is measuring higher too so I will probably start with 5ml a day with it. Both of my BRS dosing pumps are supposed to be 1.1ml a minute and they run at 2.0...

 

[cale0721]

Looks great! Keep us updated.