Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board - 2-Part Dosing; A Question for those who dose throughout the day and night

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- - 2-Part Dosing; A Question for those who dose throughout the day and night (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=111398)

Dose Alk and Calc every hour spaced 30 mins apart. Seems to have worked well so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregzz4 (Post 929285)

Hmm, total opposite of what I do right now

PH is lowest early in the morning (before the lights come on), and alk boosts that, and is highest in the evening when the lights have been on most of the day. I spread the dosing over several hours.

My Part A & B are twice daily, staggered 6 hours apart. Part C is sprinkled in between for good measure :)

Thanks for all the replies everyone
You've helped confirm my thoughts

I'm now dosing Alk and Ca every 2 hours each, and 1 hour apart. So Alk @ 6, Ca @ 7, Alk @ 8 etc.
This works well as dividing my previous dosing times by 12 comes up with round numbers for the new timer settings; each minute per day is 5 seconds of on time per cycle :wink:

Hopefully this will extend the life of my pumps by not heating them up running for up to 90 mins/day solid. But, on the other hand, it may kill them by having them turn on and off so much more ....

I've decided against breaking up my Mag dosing as I'm only running the timer for a total of 12 mins/day.

I'll be happy if this new stability shows some improvement in my corals.

Certainly, there is no harm in dosing more often. You don't have to dose multiple times per day unless you're going through a lot of solution. If your alkalinity drops 1 dKH (or more) over 24 hours then one dose per day will cause your alkalinity to bounce up and down 1 dKH which isn't beneficial. Calcium swing doesn't matter as much, but it's worth considering as well. Magnesium doesn't change much over 24 hours even in high-demand tanks, so once or twice per day is plenty.

If you want to be really anal about it...pH drops as the night goes on, so dosing alkalinity late night/early morning can help with that, but it gets used up during the day and the alkalinity will be lowest just after lights out, so that's negligible. Calcium gets used up during the day, so it makes sense to dose calcium during the day. Check charts on pH readings (if you have a controller) and check alkalinity at varying times of the day and figure out what is the best method to keep both pH and alkalinity as stable as possible.

how much you dosing of each