how far apart to dose?

[Lynnmw1208]

I just got B-ionic today to start dosing tomorrow as my alk has dropped from 8.5 dkh to 7.8 dkh in a matter of a couple weeks and my calcium is all over the place.

My question is how far apart do you guys dose these? I will be manually dosing at first until I get my dosing pumps for my birthday or Christmas (hopefully)

Also should I use baking soda to raise my alk first before starting my daily dosing? My calcium level is still ok at 420.

[foxrazr]

I started dosing myself last week b-ionic for my 180 gallon. I started dosing what the bottles say 1ml every 4 gallons. I have a ph monitor in the aquarium I never let the pH go higher than 0.2. After I dose the first part i let the water circulate for 10 minutes and then dose part 2 slowly and recheck levels after an hour or so. I seems to work so far for me.

[jeffreylesser]

I just got B-ionic today to start dosing tomorrow as my alk has dropped from 8.5 dkh to 7.8 dkh in a matter of a couple weeks and my calcium is all over the place.

My question is how far apart do you guys dose these? I will be manually dosing at first until I get my dosing pumps for my birthday or Christmas (hopefully)

Also should I use baking soda to raise my alk first before starting my daily dosing? My calcium level is still ok at 420.

That drop is not too major for a couple of weeks time. I'm not sure I would invest in a dosing pump for that amount of use. But to answer your question I dose 10 minutes apart in my system once every hour. Use this calculator to determine how much you need. I find it very helpful. I have never met the owner of the link, JDIECK, but he/she is a saint in my book.

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

I wouldn't recoup all of this alk in one dose. Go ahead and use Part A to do this. Part B is a little trickier in this regard because I think it has other elements like magnesium and iodine in it (not stated on the product, but its in there). If you are adding a lot to bring calcium up you may find other elements a little out of whack.

[jeffreylesser]

I started dosing myself last week b-ionic for my 180 gallon. I started dosing what the bottles say 1ml every 4 gallons. I have a ph monitor in the aquarium I never let the pH go higher than 0.2. After I dose the first part i let the water circulate for 10 minutes and then dose part 2 slowly and recheck levels after an hour or so. I seems to work so far for me.

This is a little concerning. Unless you have a demand for alk in your tank, and you know what this is, I would not recommend using this product. The results could be disaterous. To be honest I do not know why the label says this. I really enjoy using ESV products, but just blindly using 1ml per 4 gallons without testing at least the alkalinity in the tank is a big mistake. You really need to test your alkalinity(and calcium to be thorough) to determine your demand and dose accordingly. Use the link I posted above. Read Randy's articles on alkalinity in the sticky at the top of the forum.

[foxrazr]

This is a little concerning. Unless you have a demand for alk in your tank, and you know what this is, I would not recommend using this product. The results could be disaterous. To be honest I do not know why the label says this. I really enjoy using ESV products, but just blindly using 1ml per 4 gallons without testing at least the alkalinity in the tank is a big mistake. You really need to test your alkalinity(and calcium to be thorough) to determine your demand and dose accordingly. Use the link I posted above. Read Randy's articles on alkalinity in the sticky at the top of the forum.

I am testing alk and calcium. I test alk with salifert and API test I test calcium with salifert and the Hanna checker to confirm. I also test magnesium with Elos and salifert. I'm not dosing blindly. Maybe the demand in my tank is not that great. If I would dose what the calculater told me I would be in trouble since the calculator amount is greater than what I stared dosing. By the way I started dosing 40 ml of part 1 and I'm dosing 10 ml in am and 10ml in pm and that keeps my dkh of 8.3 and I only dose 15ml of part 2 and that keeps my calcium at 450.Now check the calculator to see how much I have to dose on a 180 gallon total water including the displaced water of the live rock. You will see that the calculator wouldn't apply to my situation.

[jeffreylesser]

I am testing alk and calcium. I test alk with salifert and API test I test calcium with salifert and the Hanna checker to confirm. I also test magnesium with Elos and salifert. I'm not dosing blindly. Maybe the demand in my tank is not that great. If I would dose what the calculater told me I would be in trouble since the calculator amount is greater than what I stared dosing. By the way I started dosing 40 ml of part 1 and I'm dosing 10 ml in am and 10ml in pm and that keeps my dkh of 8.3 and I only dose 15ml of part 2 and that keeps my calcium at 450.Now check the calculator to see how much I have to dose on a 180 gallon total water including the displaced water of the live rock. You will see that the calculator wouldn't apply to my situation.

I'm not sure I quite understand where you were going with the numbers. I do think the calculator would work fine on a 180 gallon system. You need to estimate your actual water volume for it to work, not the capacity of the tank. If you wanted to, you could actually use the alk numbers and your dosage to determine the actual water volume of your tank. But.. if your are testing your alk, and dosing accordingly then super. The goal is stable alk/ca. I was concerned about the advice given to the op, and I was also concerned about your tank.

[Lynnmw1208]

here are the graphs of cal, alk and mag and what my readings were. http://www.reefnook.com/reefrx/users/799-lynnmw1208/reefs/691-125-gallon/reports
For some reason calcium is all over the place and I use the same test kit (new red sea reef foundation kit) and make sure I do it the same way each time. the high mag test may be skewed as the vial needed to be cleaned and has since then been cleaned. It leaves a residue each time that's really annoying.

I was going to do dosing just to keep my params more stable. my LFS doses this stuff every day except water change day and his tanks look amazing :) I am new to this so please keep the advice coming! I really appreciate it.

[HighlandReefer]

The dosing rate for alk, calcium and mag will differ from tank to tank. It will depend on the number of organisms that use these chemicals in your tank, like coral and coralline algae. The salt mix you use can have a significant effect as well, since some salt mixes are high in the alk, calcium and mag where as others are low.

You dose these chemicals to meet your demand and using the Reef Chemistry Calculator to determine the amounts you need, as has been suggested is a good method.

Randy provides more details in this article:

The “How To” Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners,
Part 2: What Chemicals Must be Supplemented
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-04/rhf/index.php

[HighlandReefer]

The coral and coralline algae use the chemicals at around this rate:

2.8 meq/L alk per 20 ppm calcium and mag is only used at a rate of about 6% of the calcium by weight. So you can see that alk is used much faster than calcium and calcium is used much faster than mag. ;)

[HighlandReefer]

With Two-parts, there are basically 2 chemicals used for dosing alk.

1) Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) which will not increase your pH.

2) Baked baking soda (sodium carbonate) which will increase your tank pH sigfincantly, so you should drip this to prevent too high a pH spikes.

Many of the commercial two-parts use a mixture of the 2 noted above.

For increasing your alk level it is best to use sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), since it will not cause spikes in tank pH. If your tank suffers from low pH problems it would be better to maintain the alk by dripping the baked baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). ;)

[jeffreylesser]

here are the graphs of cal, alk and mag and what my readings were. http://www.reefnook.com/reefrx/users/799-lynnmw1208/reefs/691-125-gallon/reports
For some reason calcium is all over the place and I use the same test kit (new red sea reef foundation kit) and make sure I do it the same way each time. the high mag test may be skewed as the vial needed to be cleaned and has since then been cleaned. It leaves a residue each time that's really annoying.

I was going to do dosing just to keep my params more stable. my LFS doses this stuff every day except water change day and his tanks look amazing :) I am new to this so please keep the advice coming! I really appreciate it.

I have not seen that tracking software before. I track my changes in an excel spreadsheet, but that website is neat. I will have to check that out.

The culprit may be in your water changes. What brand salt are you using? What are the stated levels for this salt? Are you putting any other additives in your tank?

Do you mix your own salt? I have used many brands of salt, and to get consistent results close to the manufacturers claims I found I really had to mix the bucket extremely well. I don't use bucket salt anymore(ESV) but I got the best results by actually pouring the bucket of salt in four or five other buckets, mixing those individually, and then putting it back together. Almost the same state of mind as you would shuffle a deck of cards. Magnesium seemed to be one of the elements that would get distorted pretty badly(+/- 150) in a bucket that wasn't mixed well. I'm sure it has something to do with the size or the weight of the crystal. The second part to getting a good mix with the salt is to avoid precipitation. To do this add the full amount of water first, then mix in half the salt. Wait for it to dissolve then add the second half.

If you don't mix your own salt you are at the mercy of the LFS.

Once you have consistent water for water changes, and you know your alk consumption, you should be able to keep you alk, ca and mag stable. The ESV 2 part has magnesium in it, and I have not had to supplement magnesium since using this two part product. Expect to still test alk regularly. As your tank matures and grows your demand will increase. You will test one day and find your alk crashed at 6 because your corals are growing faster. Get it back up to your level, and then measure the drop over 24 hours and adjust your dosing. Mostly likely in these events you will want to add equal parts a and b to get back to your desired level. When you get into this cycle or if you are having trouble manually dosing the two part get a dosing pump at this point. I have had good results with the Bubble Magus dosing pump, and there are a few other low cost alternatives out there that I am sure work just as well or better.

[Lynnmw1208]

I have not seen that tracking software before. I track my changes in an excel spreadsheet, but that website is neat. I will have to check that out.

The culprit may be in your water changes. What brand salt are you using? What are the stated levels for this salt? Are you putting any other additives in your tank?

Do you mix your own salt? I have used many brands of salt, and to get consistent results close to the manufacturers claims I found I really had to mix the bucket extremely well. I don't use bucket salt anymore(ESV) but I got the best results by actually pouring the bucket of salt in four or five other buckets, mixing those individually, and then putting it back together. Almost the same state of mind as you would shuffle a deck of cards. Magnesium seemed to be one of the elements that would get distorted pretty badly(+/- 150) in a bucket that wasn't mixed well. I'm sure it has something to do with the size or the weight of the crystal. The second part to getting a good mix with the salt is to avoid precipitation. To do this add the full amount of water first, then mix in half the salt. Wait for it to dissolve then add the second half.

If you don't mix your own salt you are at the mercy of the LFS.

Once you have consistent water for water changes, and you know your alk consumption, you should be able to keep you alk, ca and mag stable. The ESV 2 part has magnesium in it, and I have not had to supplement magnesium since using this two part product. Expect to still test alk regularly. As your tank matures and grows your demand will increase. You will test one day and find your alk crashed at 6 because your corals are growing faster. Get it back up to your level, and then measure the drop over 24 hours and adjust your dosing. Mostly likely in these events you will want to add equal parts a and b to get back to your desired level. When you get into this cycle or if you are having trouble manually dosing the two part get a dosing pump at this point. I have had good results with the Bubble Magus dosing pump, and there are a few other low cost alternatives out there that I am sure work just as well or better.

first, thanks for all the info highlandreefer!

That site is ok... I have some issues with it sometimes but it does graphs and that is what I need. I could use excel but I'm lazy lol

I am using red sea coral pro salt and this is from their website on what params it should have http://www.redseafish.com/uploadimages/salt-tables.png

I keep my salinity at 1.025. I just did a water change August 24th or something around there. i just bought reef crystals as my new salt so things may change. anyone know what the params for reef crystals are? I can never seem to find them. :fun5:

As for dosing pumps, I just mainly wanted them so I didn't have to manually dose my daily dosage once I figure out what that dosage is. I was thinking the BRS ones on timers until I get a controller. I just added 30 mL of part 1 and 2 today and I will check my values later one and see where I am at for tomorrow.

Again, thanks for all the help! I just want to keep my params consistent as I have begun to see fluctuations lately.