Dosing experts advice needed

[Sakosreef]

Hi everyone, I recently installed an apex system on my tank, I have the dosing pump as well it just hasn't been installed yet. I initially set the unit up about a week ago and I got an really low alk reading initially i think the number was 5dkh. I went ahead and started doing some brightwell liquid alk 8.3 and set my Apex to test the water 8 times a day, I dumped half of the 250ml bottle over 2 days time in my tank to raise alk and now I use esv 2 part. Anyways my alk readings have been so weird to me, my alk has been dropping pretty fast, around .5 dkh a day. I only have one single head of hammer in my tank and minimal coralline growth. Would love to know if this is normal, have not dosed any calcium to my tank, only mag to raise it. Are these numbers normal, would love to hear from you guys.

 

[Suohhen]

.5 a day isn't all that high at all, completely fine in fact. Alk is one of those things that just simply needs to be locked in. Measuring 8 times a day is fine but measuring the same time a day is usually recommended but it looks like your looking to have the apex control the dose so that is fine. As for dosing there are a lot of potential problems that could happen and I highly recommend to read up thoroughly on it, make sure you have redundancy, and start with hand dosing first to get a hang of things.

 

[Sakosreef]

.5 a day isn't all that high at all, completely fine in fact. Alk is one of those things that just simply needs to be locked in. Measuring 8 times a day is fine but measuring the same time a day is usually recommended but it looks like your looking to have the apex control the dose so that is fine. As for dosing there are a lot of potential problems that could happen and I highly recommend to read up thoroughly on it, make sure you have redundancy, and start with hand dosing first to get a hang of things.

Really appreciate the input, I was reading other people's alk consumption a day and they were saying in a tank with over 20 frags of Acro their tank was consuming 1dkh of alk a day, I thought with one hammer frag how much alk can my tank be consuming. Any recommendations on a good read that will explain dosing? I hand dose now while my trident tests for me, I plan on keeping my alk between 9-9.5, allowing only a .5 dkh swing. I have to go into detail with my apex to have it test alk twice a day, morning and night.

 

[Stigigemla]

Without coral consumption of Ca, Mg and kH a loss of 0.5 kH a day is extreme.
Ca and Mg has a lot to do with the solubility or precipitation.
What are Your values?

 

[Deep]

Really appreciate the input, I was reading other people's alk consumption a day and they were saying in a tank with over 20 frags of Acro their tank was consuming 1dkh of alk a day, I thought with one hammer frag how much alk can my tank be consuming. Any recommendations on a good read that will explain dosing? I hand dose now while my trident tests for me, I plan on keeping my alk between 9-9.5, allowing only a .5 dkh swing. I have to go into detail with my apex to have it test alk twice a day, morning and night.

How old is this tank ? Agree 0.5 DKH with just a hammer is high and dont think can be explained by other biological processes consuming Alk. Did you ever measure Alk with any other kit before you setup Trident?
I would stop dosing altogether. There is no need. Your hammer is not going to be impacted and you dont have any other coral.

Can you get a hanna Alk or atleast a salifert kit to cross check your Alk levels?

 

[Suohhen]

It might seem crazy compared to sps only tanks that use 1 but the tank itself can have hugely varied demand.. Coralline alone can suck up a lot and alk specifically is used not just by coral but by some bacteria as well.
I do not suspect precipitation as the op posted their Mag which is in a good range. The other issue with precipitation can be dosing but if you're hand dosing ESV I think you would probably need to dump them in at the exact same time to see any significant precipitation.

 

[Sakosreef]

How old is this tank ? Agree 0.5 DKH with just a hammer is high and dont think can be explained by other biological processes consuming Alk. Did you ever measure Alk with any other kit before you setup Trident?
I would stop dosing altogether. There is no need. Your hammer is not going to be impacted and you dont have any other coral.

Can you get a hanna Alk or atleast a salifert kit to cross check your Alk levels?

I checked my alk with a Hannah checker and it gave me a reading of 1.7dkh which really confused me. I'm prepping to add a lot of coral to my tank so I wanted to set up my trident to get stable parameters. The tanks has been wet for about 8 months, I changed my rock out about 3 months ago, used all dry rock but I had media in the sump since the beginning. I plan on getting an icp test within a few days to see how accurate my trident is.

 

[Sakosreef]

It might seem crazy compared to sps only tanks that use 1 but the tank itself can have hugely varied demand.. Coralline alone can suck up a lot and alk specifically is used not just by coral but by some bacteria as well.
I do not suspect precipitation as the op posted their Mag which is in a good range. The other issue with precipitation can be dosing but if you're hand dosing ESV I think you would probably need to dump them in at the exact same time to see any significant precipitation.

When you say precipitation, what exactly is that?? I have new coraline growth but it's not growing all over the back glass, just my mp40s are covered in coraline, some of my rock has coraline on it now as well but not seeing aggressive growth.

 

[Sakosreef]

Without coral consumption of Ca, Mg and kH a loss of 0.5 kH a day is extreme.
Ca and Mg has a lot to do with the solubility or precipitation.
What are Your values?

Posted screenshots of my parameters, my ca and mag have been way more stable than my alk, ive brought my mag up to 1350 but just today my alk went from 9.1 down to 8.77 and it's only 1:18pm, the 9.1 reading was probably around 8am this morning

 

[Suohhen]

When you say precipitation, what exactly is that?? I have new coraline growth but it's not growing all over the back glass, just my mp40s are covered in coraline, some of my rock has coraline on it now as well but not seeing aggressive growth.

Precipitation is a process whereby cal and alk combine together out of the water column to form calcium carbonate (argonite) crystals. It happens in every system but the process is poisoned by magnesium and so in a system with adequate mag you won't typically see any abnormal amount of precipitation.
The other risk of precipitation is from allowing 2 part solutions to combine before spreading into the system. This is far more of a risk with dosing the alk component too fast so it is generally recommended that you don't go too fast and place the solution into a very high flow area, ideally a sump overflow section.

 

[Sakosreef]

Precipitation is a process whereby cal and alk combine together out of the water column to form calcium carbonate (argonite) crystals. It happens in every system but the process is poisoned by magnesium and so in a system with adequate mag you won't typically see any abnormal amount of precipitation.
The other risk of precipitation is from allowing 2 part solutions to combine before spreading into the system. This is far more of a risk with dosing the alk component too fast so it is generally recommended that you don't go too fast and place the solution into a very high flow area, ideally a sump overflow section.

I hand dose, but I usually dose a lot at once, probably 1/4 cup at a time in front of my mp40s, by adding it slower, will it not drop as quickly??

 

[Suohhen]

I hand dose, but I usually dose a lot at once, probably 1/4 cup at a time in front of my mp40s, by adding it slower, will it not drop as quickly??

If it is precipitation slowing down could help but you have a solid way to test it with your Triton.

 

[Deep]

I checked my alk with a Hannah checker and it gave me a reading of 1.7dkh which really confused me

hanna Alk is one of the more accurate test kits available. Before you add anything you need to get your cross verify whether your trident results are anywhere near accurate.

 

[jassermd]

Following as I had similar issues in the past.
Hope this helps...

Just this past week, after a full new set of reagents and calibration, my alk readings:
Prior to new reagents: 9.09
After new reagents/calibration: 9.04
Hanna before: 9.8
Hanna after: 9.8
New batch of salt w/ Hanna (Brightwell Neo-Marine): 6.9 (bucket says approx 7.5 dKh)

Same issue with Ca:
After new reagents/calibration: 360
Before new reagents/calibration: 425
Hanna: 525 (which has always read that high when my Ca was 425 w/ Trident)
Again, nothing changed.
Use the information for what it's worth...

I've learned to use the Trident to monitor trends, not for the "exact" value. If my alk is at 9 and stays +/- 0.2 of 9, I'm happy. I really don't care that the Hanna and Trident don't match. I've learned to only really be concerned about what the coral look like, how they are acting, and watch the trends.
I've tested and retested Ca and alk repeatedly with both Hanna and Trident and the values just don't line up. Most recently, Ca was 425 before new reagents and calibration, and after it was 360. Nothing changed in my dosing or my tank.

The other thing I've learned with Trident is that any micro airbubble, or debris will cause issues with testing. I've seen alk readings as low as 5 with NO changes in dosing or otherwise. Repriming the sample line and retest, I get 9...
I will say that I had much more instability before the tank was well established and fully stocked with coral. Before it was fully stocked, I had a lot of variability in the readings. Again, may be anecdotal, but it makes sense if you think about it...

I wish I had better advice; you're not alone in your frustration!

 

[blasterman]

You could have *ZERO* corals in your tank and alk can still dive over a full point per day. Alk is consumed by all kinds of biological processes in your tank and gets consumed quickly in younger tanks. Algae, bacteria beds etc eat alk at an astonishing rate. So do corals as they are calcifying.

Calcium however is almost exclusively consumed by hard corals and clams or coralline to a lesser extent. Do you have rapidly growing hard corals or clams? If not, then your calcium will likely barely move and in fact it's a waste of time monitoring it. Whatever your salt mixes at leave it alone. Same with mag.

As your tank matures alk consumption will steady, slow down and will get to the point it won't move much unless you have hard corals consuming it. Closer to 1:1 with calcium.

Even if you buy a bunch of frags calcium will barely move. A 100gal has so much calcium in it a bunch of frags would take a year to consume 25% of it.

So, testing calcium right now is a waste of time along with mag.

As per Suohhens excellent advice I would start with hand dosing alk from a box of baking soda once a day until it stabilizes. Once you get the full theory of alk consumption down via practice you will have a better time troubleshooting your gear.

 

[Sakosreef]

If it is precipitation slowing down could help but you have a solid way to test it with your Triton.

Im going to get an ICP done, if my params are close to the ICP I wont question it, I guess ill just blame it on the tank being fairly new along with the tank establishing itself. My alk dropped from 9.1 to 8.64 yesterday, didnt dose anything to see how much my tank consumes a day and that seems to be the trend, about .5 dkh a day.

 

[Sakosreef]

Following as I had similar issues in the past.
Hope this helps...

Just this past week, after a full new set of reagents and calibration, my alk readings:
Prior to new reagents: 9.09
After new reagents/calibration: 9.04
Hanna before: 9.8
Hanna after: 9.8
New batch of salt w/ Hanna (Brightwell Neo-Marine): 6.9 (bucket says approx 7.5 dKh)

Same issue with Ca:
After new reagents/calibration: 360
Before new reagents/calibration: 425
Hanna: 525 (which has always read that high when my Ca was 425 w/ Trident)
Again, nothing changed.
Use the information for what it's worth...

I've learned to use the Trident to monitor trends, not for the "exact" value. If my alk is at 9 and stays +/- 0.2 of 9, I'm happy. I really don't care that the Hanna and Trident don't match. I've learned to only really be concerned about what the coral look like, how they are acting, and watch the trends.
I've tested and retested Ca and alk repeatedly with both Hanna and Trident and the values just don't line up. Most recently, Ca was 425 before new reagents and calibration, and after it was 360. Nothing changed in my dosing or my tank.

The other thing I've learned with Trident is that any micro airbubble, or debris will cause issues with testing. I've seen alk readings as low as 5 with NO changes in dosing or otherwise. Repriming the sample line and retest, I get 9...
I will say that I had much more instability before the tank was well established and fully stocked with coral. Before it was fully stocked, I had a lot of variability in the readings. Again, may be anecdotal, but it makes sense if you think about it...

I wish I had better advice; you're not alone in your frustration!

my hammer has never looked better, it was a little bigger than a quarter size when I got it and now its probably 3 inches in diameter and looks like its splitting. I'm with you on the Hanna readings, I'm not sure what it was, maybe scratches on the couvet or something but Hanna gave me a reading of 1.7 dkh alk. I plan on doing an ICP very soon just to see what my parameters will be on that, if that gives me totally different params, I have no idea what ill do.

 

[Sakosreef]

You could have *ZERO* corals in your tank and alk can still dive over a full point per day. Alk is consumed by all kinds of biological processes in your tank and gets consumed quickly in younger tanks. Algae, bacteria beds etc eat alk at an astonishing rate. So do corals as they are calcifying.

Calcium however is almost exclusively consumed by hard corals and clams or coralline to a lesser extent. Do you have rapidly growing hard corals or clams? If not, then your calcium will likely barely move and in fact it's a waste of time monitoring it. Whatever your salt mixes at leave it alone. Same with mag.

As your tank matures alk consumption will steady, slow down and will get to the point it won't move much unless you have hard corals consuming it. Closer to 1:1 with calcium.

Even if you buy a bunch of frags calcium will barely move. A 100gal has so much calcium in it a bunch of frags would take a year to consume 25% of it.

So, testing calcium right now is a waste of time along with mag.

As per Suohhens excellent advice I would start with hand dosing alk from a box of baking soda once a day until it stabilizes. Once you get the full theory of alk consumption down via practice you will have a better time troubleshooting your gear.

I will be doing an ICP to see what my params are according to the ICP, if my params are night and day between my trident and the ICP, I guess ill contact Neptune. My tank is still fairly new, started with dry rock, I have a lot of soft corals but only one hammer. I have very little calcium consumption, I plan on adding an XL bubble coral probably 8 inches in diameter, a 3 headed frogspawn, 3 different frags of monticap, and some beginner sps like birdsnest, pocilipora, digi, and some stylo. Wonder what my alk consumption will be then, but I will be doing the ICP prior to adding everything so I can assure my params are not extremely low or extremely high, I want redundancy and a steady trend of consumption.

 

[Suohhen]

Im going to get an ICP done, if my params are close to the ICP I wont question it, I guess ill just blame it on the tank being fairly new along with the tank establishing itself. My alk dropped from 9.1 to 8.64 yesterday, didnt dose anything to see how much my tank consumes a day and that seems to be the trend, about .5 dkh

Periodic ICP tests are always a great idea but one caveat is that the only one that provides alkalinity results is ATI. Alk is not an element so they must be doing a titration test to the sample before the icp.

 

[Sakosreef]

Periodic ICP tests are always a great idea but one caveat is that the only one that provides alkalinity results is ATI. Alk is not an element so they must be doing a titration test to the sample before the icp.

Got it! The place I'm going to take my water for testing is called Unique Corals, they do the ICP in house but I'm also gonna do the Triton N-Doc test which they send out to Germany for testing and that will have my Alk readings.