2-part dosing amounts

Yeah that seems a little excessive. I dose about 80 ml a day of each and my 120g is pretty heavily stocked with sps colonies. Are you using recipe 1 or 2? How fast is your coraline growing?

Coraline has slowed down. Recipe 1. I do 5 gallon monthly water changes, redsea coral products salt. And yeah, tank in the sig.

I have used the reef chemistry calculator to get my mag over 1300, but it doesn't seem to get over 1300.. I'll try again

I've noticed I have to dose what seems excessive when I have a clam...they suck up a lot. You may find it is cheaper and easier to just increase your water changes than to fiddle with dosing right now.

96slowbra wrote: It says I need to add 16oz. How many days should I split that over? In the past when adding a manual dose I have had problems when I just add calcium. Has anyone had problems by not increasing both together?

Over the course of 1-2 days should be fine, however, I've safely raised my mag by 100 throughout the course of a day with no problems....watch your salinity levels while raising though, you may notice it spike a little as you increase Mag


Edited by bur01014 - October 29 2012 at 11:58am

ReefdUp wrote: I've noticed I have to dose what seems excessive when I have a clam...they suck up a lot. You may find it is cheaper and easier to just increase your water changes than to fiddle with dosing right now.

I would not suggest this route, as most affordable salts are not in complete balance.  Thus, you may find yourself on a never ending chase of the perfect balance of water parameters.  In other words, water changes can often complicate your levels when trying to achieve complete balance when dosing.   Once you get your levels in balance, it will literally be set and forget....until you do a waterchange, then you need to test to determine it's impact. 

In addition, you need to be dosing the 2-part solution equally, not raising and lowering them together can lead to a difficult balancing act and precip.  Please refer to Randy's articles on the subject, as his expert advice has brought great success to my tank. 

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

You can skip through the DIY recipe and review the dosing instructions. 

Another thing I have found helpful  to dial things in is to turn off your automatic dosers completely.  Dose alk and cal (& Mag) by hand until you're at the desired levels.  Then wait exactly 24 hours and test again.  Record how much your levels dropped in the 24 hours.  Then use those numbers and this calculator http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html to figure out the daily consumption of your tank and how much you need to dose per day to maintain your tank at your desired levels.  I did this and found I was overdosing, leading to precip. and Cal/Alk cancelling each other out basically...turned my fine sand into live sheet rock too .

This can be frustrating, but once you dial it in after a week or so of testing, it can make your reefing experience much better.




Edited by bur01014 - October 29 2012 at 12:24pm

And sorry about the grammer my new phone doesn't work with my fat fingers lol

Today

That will only take you so far... Once you fill your reef with corals all the things we love the consumption rate is more than water changes can support. But it isn't that bad. I have just been lazy and haven't checked my water in a month. I also neglected it a little after I moved, I left it in my roommates house for almost 2 weeks, then moved it and have been lazy. I hated my new aquascaping so much that I got lazy. Last weekend I fixed it, now I getting it back on track.

My 2-part system has been great, but my corals are just getting bigger and i haven't turned it up there till I was way behind

ReefdUp wrote: bur01014 wrote: I would not suggest this route, as most affordable salts are not in complete balance.  Thus, you may find yourself on a never ending chase of the perfect balance of water parameters.  In other words, water changes can often complicate your levels when trying to achieve complete balance when dosing. Â  Once you get your levels in balance, it will literally be set and forget....until you do a waterchange, then you need to test. I suggested increased water changes as the OP is not dosing a lot, is fairly new to reefing, has a smallish tank, is only <10% water changes per month, and is having some difficulty figuring out dosing. For many people in that sort of situation, a water change is much more simple and easy than constant testing to figure out dosing amounts and how much a water change impacted the dosing amounts. Although no salt is perfect, a good one will replenish levels (probably back up to NSW levels in his case), and natural precipitation will balance it out. Even if the OP goes to 10% weekly water changes, a bucket of decent salt for ~$50 will last him 10 months. This will also help replenish trace elements that the average aquarist can't test for. IMO, keep things as simple as possible until you're really ready. Dosing isn't difficult once you get the hang of it, but at this point...is it worth it for you?

 
I disagree, and this is why:

1.  He is in fact dosing a lot...55 ml a day for a 60 gallon tank, accounting for rock, is more than 1 ml uptake per gallon water.....at this dosage, a drop of 1 dkh of alk could occur in 1-2 days...swings are bad...

2.  Water changes used to chase water parameters is a band-aid approach....sooner or later you need to dose and figure it out....especially taking note of his caps in his tank shot, they're alk hungry

3.  Yes his tank is small, making it easier to dose and change levels....water changes on small tanks actually increase the subsequent risk for alk swings, which can be detrimental

4.  Working through this is a great way for him to learn about his tank and about caring for his corals from a long-term standpoint.  Yes, he states he is "new" to reefing, but his tank shot and questions alone tell a different story.