Ok guys, our discussion topic for the June meeting will be on "Dosing". That can cover a lot of ground and we will cover as much of it as possible. If you have specific areas of interest please post them on this thread so we can be sure to discuss each of them.
I like this topic mainly because I am trying to dial in my dosing for my ALK still needs some tuning...It likes to stay down around 7.4 dkh. I have been slowly tweaking the ml per night.
Maybe magnesium with BRS mix? Mine has been coming up with the Fritz but I think I'd like it a bit higher still.
Whats your level for Mg? I'm curious because I use BRS two part and fritz salt. I never really have to dose Mg with fritz they seem to keep that level pretty high in their mixes.
Yesterday it was 1215 but that was before about a 12-15 gallon water change. It seems to be going up ... or maybe not falling as far as fast. Calc and Alk are holding though ... I've just started using Fritz though ... so it may just take a while to see results.
Hiya, I'm also adjust to an Alk crash while I was on vacation. Depressing needless to say. So, this topic maybe helpful. Also, a lot of folks chase their PH and we always tell them not to. We may want to discuss WHY you don't chase the PH. I really don't know myself.
Here's a screen shot of my pH log taken this afternoon. That precipitous drop in pH compared to previous two days begins at 11 am. Great illustration of the relationship between CO2 and pH in our aquaria. One other thing we didn't talk about was dosing raising salinity. In tanks with heavy alkalinity/calcium consumption that are using things like BRS 2 part you can notice increased salinity. Na2CO3 (soda ash) and CaCl2 when used by corals to build their skelton results in calcium carbonate (CaCO3) which is the coral skeleton and NaCl (x2). Right now I'm only dosing about 50cc of alkalinity per day but back when I had several large growing colonies of hard coral I was dosing 3x that amount and saw my salinty slowly creep up over time. Not a big issue but one that can occur.
I completely missed the discussion so I'll ask ... my magnesium is lower than I'd like. I believe it is very slowly rising with the change to Fritz salt but so far it hasn't gone above 1215. Could I just dose up to 1350+ and then see if the salt mix will maintain that level rather than waiting for forever for it to raise it with water changes? Everything else is holding steady. Alk is around 7-8 and calcium is consistently around 440.
Hiya, You might want to slowly get your ALK up to 8-9. I showed the best growth at that level. I'd also slowly raise the Mag, don't adjust stuff fast in your tank. It could shock the corals.
I've read not to raise mag more than 100 per day. I'm not much more than that off so I think I could get it there in a couple days and probably be fine. I'm pretty sure I have some Alk solution of some sort in the box of randomness that came with my stuff. I'll see if I can bump it up a tad. Even with water changes, I've noticed it trending down while the mag has been trending up. Oddly calcium is consistently 440 no matter the other parameters. I know the 3 work together somehow but they don't seem to be moving together at this point. Will hold with water changes and testing and see where things go.