Help me learn to dose!

[Schulks]

I've had this aquarium running about 4 months now. I have been adding coral very slowly and have kept it somewhat stable. Still, I have had some unhappy corals

I cracked down and have been testing morning and night. I dose BRS soda Ash and all for reef. I have 2 separate schedules for the soda Ash. One for dosing during the day and one for dosing during the night. All for reef is on one schedule.

The problem is last night I went up 0.2 dkh and the previous night the alkalinity was stable so I'm not sure if I should lower it or just hold course. 0.2 is a big amount to raise after being stable.

Here are my test results and the notes are how I've adjusted doses over the last week. Sorry my hand writing is bad I can translate if you need.

 

[Schulks]

 

[Waters]

.2 is not a large amount.....I would maintain your current dosing schedule. Mine changes by that much daily and I dose with a Trident/DOS, testing 4 times a day. If it continues to drop or raise then you can consider making small changes.

 

[14 foot reef]

Tank Size, water volume, filtration methods, Top off methods for evap ?

Really need a lot more info before the forum, members can really guide you.

If this system is 500 gallons techniques and approaches will be way different than if this is a 20 gallon.


And MOST important, especially with a small tank is SALINITY.

If you are evaporating large amounts and your salinity is always changing, dosing will never stabilize.

 

[Schulks]

Tank Size, water volume, filtration methods, Top off methods for evap ?

Really need a lot more info before the forum, members can really guide you.

If this system is 500 gallons techniques and approaches will be way different than if this is a 20 gallon.


And MOST important, especially with a small tank is SALINITY.

If you are evaporating large amounts and your salinity is always changing, dosing will never stabilize.

Sorry i didnt think most of it was relevant
But you are right! Lol
My aquarium is running all the bells and whistles.

The tank is an Innovative marine 50 gallon and trigger triton 20 sump. It is about 46 gallons total.

I have a reefmat 250 and royal exclusive mini bubble king 160. I leave the skimmer running 24/7 on a wet skim. I am auto water changing about 5% a week with my hydros system.
Hydros is also my ato.

My salinity is at 34 ppt. I need to go up about 0.5 ppt more but I have been delaying it lol

 

[Schulks]

.2 is not a large amount.....I would maintain your current dosing schedule. Mine changes by that much daily and I dose with a Trident/DOS, testing 4 times a day. If it continues to drop or raise then you can consider making small changes.

I see. So I should slow down my adjustments and base them on more tests instead of one. Thanks

 

[Reefering1]

What's in The tank? How long has it been running? Fts...

 

[Schulks]

What's in The tank? How long has it been running? Fts...

The tank has about 12 frags(LPS mostly, 5 acan frags, one that is growing well ), a couple 20 ish head zoa colonies, and a gold hammer with 2 heads.
I think most of my uptake is my gulf live rock that is covered in coralline. It also came with a large coral that is about 2 baseballs. Not sure whatbit is.

I also have a7 head torch but I'm picking it back up this weekend. I moved it to another reefer to heal for a while.

 

[Reefering1]

Full tank shot(picture)

 

[Schulks]

I am at work right now but this is the most recent I have

 

[Waters]

I see. So I should slow down my adjustments and base them on more tests instead of one. Thanks

Correct......the proper way to do it would be to determine how much your tank consumes per day and start your dosing based on that. Since you have already have an amount that you have been using, I would continue as you are and just watch for large swings or trends.

 

[Reefering1]

What's the daily consumption?

 

[Schulks]

About 3.75 mL Afr (Actual 7.5ml of 50% diluted AFR)
16 mL BRS Soda Ash

EDIT: i want to dose more AFR but my calcium jumped to 485 after adding the auto water changer. Perhaps 485 is ok but now I'll need to readjusted afr as my calcium drops some

 

[Schulks]

What's the daily consumption?

 

[Schulks]

Correct......the proper way to do it would be to determine how much your tank consumes per day and start your dosing based on that. Since you have already have an amount that you have been using, I would continue as you are and just watch for large swings or trends.

Ahh I get it.. I started dosing AFR by following tropic marins instructions. They say to dose a specific amount and then add a specific amount once a week based on testing. This is because AFR is a slow releasing alkalinity supplement.

Sometime after starting I read how other people are using AFR and realized I was going through more alk than calcium. So I added soda ash. I guess I did add it based on how much I was dropping between tests and how much the instructions said each mL would raise alk. Then adjusted based on daily tests.

Hopefully this works out for me.