The Holy grail for dosing

[Niagarafirecorals]

I just wanna say I think I have found the Holy Grail when it comes to dosing ( for me anyways ) As most of you know I never stop looking for ways to better my tank and the health/growth of my corals. Well let me tell you I believe I have finally found the combination I have been looking for all these years. I have been running a calcium reactor for a while now and love it but they come at a cost...and that's chronic low PH. My PH was always 7.7 to 8 at the very highest. Knowing that a PH level of 8.2 - 8.3 was much more desirable for what I was trying to achieve I set out to hit these numbers constantly. I will say this will obviously not be for everyone. I backed off my calcium reactor slightly and allowed my DKH to drop down and level off which it did at 6.8 to 7 DKH. I then added a DIY kalk stirrer which used a reactor sitting on top of a magnetic stirrer ( worked great ). I started out by adding 1000 mils of fully saturated kalk nightly to the tank which made no real difference. Moving forward over the course of the next 8 - 10 days I raised the level of kalk added nightly by 500 mils every 1 - 2 days and it wasn't until I hit 8000 mils I started seeing a difference. DKH started to slightly rise and my PH was running 8.0 - 8.15 now. I did notice at this point my DIY kalk stirrer was struggling to keep up and I of course wanted to add more. Sooo I ordered the Avast kalk stirrer and carried on. Now with a PH probe directly in the reactor I can monitor the PH making sure the solution was staying fully saturated above 12 ph and what a difference. Believe it or not I got to 10000 mils of fully saturated kalk nightly and running my calcium reactor 24/7. This was achieving a DKH of 8 and a PH of 8.10 - 8.20... Almost there!!!! The final step I added a Co2 scrubber. I now currently am running 10000 mils of fully saturated kalk at 12.5 ph along with my calcium reactor running 24/7 and a Co2 scrubber recirculating air directly from my skimmer cup and I sit happily at 8.1 DKH and my PH runs from 8.25 at the low to 8.35 high. My goal was to dose as much kalk as possible allowed by my evaporation rate. My ATO is only coming on a hand full of times a day now compared to 30 times a day previously. Now I have to say in only the few weeks I have had this running I can clearly see the growth rate on my acros has exploded and the polyp extension on everything in the tank is amazing. Everything and I mean everything is super happy and I am happy to say I have never seen my system looking this good EVER. I also learned that my tank is evaporating ALOT more water then I would have ever guessed. For anyone not familiar with the conversions 10000 mils is 10 litres I'm adding daily and its still not quite enough so I'm most likely losing 11 - 12 litres daily to evaporation. Just thought I would share this little journey with everyone because I believe its a game changer for me and may help someone else someday.

 

[Luke_L]

Looks like I'm buying another pm-1 module for another pH probe... lol

 

[Niagarafirecorals]

THEN


NOW

 

[Andrew D]

Wow, thanks for sharing Steve. It sounds very complicated and potentially difficult to keep tuned. I tried a calcium reactor many years ago on my smaller tank and never liked the fine tuning it required so have ben dosing b-ionic ever since. Expensive but as idiot proof I think as you can get. I keep on top of alk and calcium levels but haven't checked ph in a long time. I like the idea of supplementing with kalk though, god knows I top off enough.

 

[Niagarafirecorals]

Wow, thanks for sharing Steve. It sounds very complicated and potentially difficult to keep tuned. I tried a calcium reactor many years ago on my smaller tank and never liked the fine tuning it required so have ben dosing b-ionic ever since. Expensive but as idiot proof I think as you can get. I keep on top of alk and calcium levels but haven't checked ph in a

Its actually quite the opposite Andrew. Simply put dose kalk to match your evaporation rate. Doing it using a stirrer and dosing pump is just to regulate the intervals in which its dosed and can be as in my case done during night hours when the lights are off to help minimize your ph swings. This being said kalk alone in some cases like mine and most likely yours will not be enough to keep your levels at desired levels so you would need to top that off. This could be done in any form 2 part, calcium reactor etc etc. I use the calcium reactor for 2 reasons...the fact I already had one running obviously and the main reason that I started using it in the first place and that is the proven benefits that they provide being the most natural way to dose. I would also point out that I'm guessing back when you tried running a calcium reactor you were pushing water through it and trying to regulate the effluent flow at the exit line which I agree extremely difficult to tune. Most of us running them now PULL the flow through the reactor with a kamora continuous duty dosing pump set to an exact rate. which avoids back pressure in the reactor and is a simple turn of the knob on the CO2 or dosing pump to tune it. Calcium reactors run this way can now be tuned with exact accuracy in 1 minute without issue.

Hope this helps...cheers

 

[Luke_L]

Its actually quite the opposite Andrew. Simply put dose kalk to match your evaporation rate. Doing it using a stirrer and dosing pump is just to regulate the intervals in which its dosed and can be as in my case done during night hours when the lights are off to help minimize your ph swings. This being said kalk alone in some cases like mine and most likely yours will not be enough to keep your levels at desired levels so you would need to top that off. This could be done in any form 2 part, calcium reactor etc etc. I use the calcium reactor for 2 reasons...the fact I already had one running obviously and the main reason that I started using it in the first place and that is the proven benefits that they provide being the most natural way to dose. I would also point out that I'm guessing back when you tried running a calcium reactor you were pushing water through it and trying to regulate the effluent flow at the exit line which I agree extremely difficult to tune. Most of us running them now PULL the flow through the reactor with a kamora continuous duty dosing pump set to an exact rate. which avoids back pressure in the reactor and is a simple turn of the knob on the CO2 or dosing pump to tune it. Calcium reactors run this way can now be tuned with exact accuracy in 1 minute without issue.

Hope this helps...cheers

I agree when I used to try and run one without the Kamora it was nothing but a headache now just set it and forget

 

[Andrew D]

Thanks Steve. Yeah, it's been a while so I'm sure the technology and process is easier now. My tank is pretty big with a hefty alk demand so the cost of a CR is likely prohibitive not to mention the space it would require. I will look into dosing kalk though, either to replace my top-off or to supplement it. Everything is running so well now though I'm a little leery of tinkering too much especially since I'm out of town for 4 days a week right now. Maybe the next time I mess up my parameters...

 

[Luke_L]

Maybe the next time I mess up my parameters...

Hahaha, I'm not the only one??? Lol