What do you do?

G

grod205

Good morning everyone,
I have another question regarding dosing and I guess when it pertains to DSPS tanks. Doesn't really matter though, that's just my current situation. I currently dose my tank manually and been recently contemplating the idea of a calcium reactor, or a dosing pump. Just in case, it is a 125AGA w/ a 40g sump. Currently, I use BRS 2 part and kalkwasser. Ive been recently discussing this w/ a buddy of mine but figured I could also come here and get opinions on what others like about one or the other/how they would do it different now. At this time, Im finding myself dosing 30mLs of alkalinity every morning before I go to work. Thats trying to keep my ALK at 7.8-8.0dkh. If I miss a morning dose (which has happened once or twice to me), that evening I can expect the test to come out to 7.0dkh, thats with full saturated kalkwasser via the ATO. Calcium is also getting kind of annoying to dose aswell. N/E way, as diligent as i try to be, im actually getting kind of tired of having to worry about this in the AM as i don't want the tank to have an ALK swing thus came the idea of the reactor/the dosing pump. What's everyone doing, why did you do one over the other? I like being hands on and all but have being kinda motivated lately to challenge my self on how stable i can keep my parameters, even if it means making an attempt to automate the process. Any suggestions/thoughts would be greatly appreciated, thanks everyone.

Current parameters:

-ph-8.14-8.30
-NH3-undetectable
-NO2-undetectable
-NO3-undetectable
-SG-1.026-27
-Temp-78
-PO4-undetectable
-ALK-7.8dkh
-CAL-430ppm
-Mg-1470ppm
-Sr-10-16mg/L
-I2-0.06
-K-430
-Fe-0
 
Well, I just recently read an article by Randy Holmes-Farley that told me that I had been "chasing alk" - that is my words - when I should have been adding more lime water instead. My comments here may, or may not be pertinent to your situation, but I mention them just in case.

Alkalinity shows a wide swing on test kits, and can make us think that while our calcium seems to be in line, that our alkalinity is either too low, or too high. According to Randy, most of the time this condition can be attributed to either too little, or too much lime water being dosed to the tank.

Where you are showing a "low" alkalinity could mean that you should dose a little more lime water every day. I see that you could take the calcium up a bit from 430 anyway. I have 120 gallons of actual water in my system and manually dose 1.25 gallons of saturated lime water every day, and could easily dose more if I need to. I have more evaporation than that, and can make more water evaporate if it is needed to make room for more lime water topoff!

If you go through the forums you occasionally see reports - and some do not report these incidents so that others can learn from their disasters - where calcium reactors go on the blink and kill all of their sps coral. And these occurrences are with seasoned aquarists. I personally tend toward the hands on approach that we both are employing at the present time for safety reasons, and for other benefits that come from this approach as well, if possible.

David
 
Copy that, thanks for the info. I have a 5 gallon bucket @ 2 tsp per gallon on kalkwasser. It pretty much only lasts me 2 days. I just got a 40 gallon reservoir that I'm going to hook up for the ATO, just saving up for the continious pump I'm going to use. I guess I'll keep thinking about it, but i've also read of reactor disasters myself, I guess when it rains it pours.
 
@grod205 wrote:
Copy that said:
I drip lime water from a siphon jug, and have an automatic top off that runs on gravity feed to a simple Kent Marine float valve in the sump. Right now I think that if the calcium/alkalinity requirements in this system were to exceed what I can provide it with lime water, I would reduce the amount of coral in the system so as not to have to employ other methods. But, that is me, and I could change my mind at some point.

David
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