Maintaining Levels in Tank

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by maron6977

Try putting a bag over your head , see how long you last !
CO2 is what comes out the tail pipe of your car .
By the way , I run a cal reactor & no fear of leakage .

If you put a bag over your head you would suffocate quickly, but if you inhale someone's exhale breath I think you could last a few days weeks even, but you may suffer brain damage.

Say what??

Exhaust fumes from your car is carbon monoxide last I checked... unless your car runs on oxygen lol
People breathe out Co2 not the same but please correct me if I am wrong.

[Potatohead]

Car exhaust contains both

Anything is poisonous in high enough concentrations but carbon monoxide is MUCH more poisonous than carbon dioxide

[maron6977]

Originally Posted by Potatohead

Car exhaust contains both

Anything is poisonous in high enough concentrations but carbon monoxide is MUCH more poisonous than carbon dioxide

Yes , correct
Car produces co & hc , then runs thru catalytic converter to produce mostly co2 & water

[gmann]

sorry I didn't want to start another thread so since it was related figured id post here:

in terms of dosing would this be the correct procedure?

1. once calibrated, test params and use reef calculator to figure out how much is needed to reach desired levels
2. set dosing amounts
3. after monthly water change, re-test and reset dosing amounts based on new params
4. repeat step 3 after every water change?

not sure if I have a bad batch or not, but I noticed my aq reef salt produces a low ca. i am going to open another box, although I bet they will be part of same batch. Also considering H2Ocean since it has higher CA levels.

[whatcaneyedo]

Wow some of these posts hit a whole new level of ignorants that I haven't seen for a while on this forum. Okay heres a story for all of you unnecessarily paranoid folk. About 10 years ago I had a roommate looking after my tank for a week while I went out of town. One day (probably the day I was returning home) while feeding the fish or topping off the water lost to evaporation he bumped one of the valves further open on the C02 regulator. What I came home to was an empty 20 lbs C02 cylinder (which had been full when I left) two very alive roommates (although I felt like killing them myself), and one ticked off tank. The pH was low and the fish were gasping but not dead. I dealt with the problem quickly, no one died or even noticed for that matter and all of the fish and coral lived too.

Most hobbyists use smaller 5 or 10 lbs C02 cylinders which do not contain enough gas to do anything harm unless you accidentally open the valves and purge the entire thing into your tank (a pH controller should stop this) or start sucking on the end yourself. FYI too much Ca or Alk solution from a 2 part dosing system can nuke a tank too.

Compressed gas cylinders don't just rupture on their own either. It takes a strong impact to damage the unit and send it flying like a missile. Sitting idle in a house you'd need a toddler with a hammer or a good old fashioned house levelling earth quake to make that happen.

[Potatohead]

Originally Posted by gmann

sorry I didn't want to start another thread so since it was related figured id post here:

in terms of dosing would this be the correct procedure?

1. once calibrated, test params and use reef calculator to figure out how much is needed to reach desired levels
2. set dosing amounts
3. after monthly water change, re-test and reset dosing amounts based on new params
4. repeat step 3 after every water change?

not sure if I have a bad batch or not, but I noticed my aq reef salt produces a low ca. i am going to open another box, although I bet they will be part of same batch. Also considering H2Ocean since it has higher CA levels.

FOr the first week or two I would be checking alk daily and the other stuff every 2-3 days until you are confident it is dosing correct amounts. Even after that I would still check alk almost daily and everything else once a week or so.

[gmann]

Originally Posted by Potatohead

FOr the first week or two I would be checking alk daily and the other stuff every 2-3 days until you are confident it is dosing correct amounts. Even after that I would still check alk almost daily and everything else once a week or so.

thanks I will do this.

[DKoKoMan]

You should be able to maintain your levels with the doser without much issue. Eventually when/if the tank demand gets too high, you may need to reevaluate or get creative.

[gmann]

yeah just trying to figure how to dose properly before I run out and buy it this weekend.

[tang daddy]

Not sure what salt you use but I use IO and AF

IO we all know is low in mg and ca alk closer to 9.5 and above
When I do a 25g wc with this salt I add about 6 tbsp of calcium chloride to buffer the ca closer to 460. Mg I don't bother as my tank was reading above 1800

For AF salt I don't add any chems.

I think once you have figured out how much your tank consumes daily then checking alk weekly same with ca and mg is fine. As long as you're starting off with a base line dose you can tweak the cycle.

I am currently dosing 7ml of sodium bicarbonate 14 times per day of my solution as its quite diluted tho about 8tbsp to 2.5 l of water. The reason for spreading the doses is it will raise ph and in a smaller systems of 100g it can rise quite quickly if dosing larger amounts in less doses.

Everyone's tank is different and consumes less or more so should test new batch of SW mix to see where your params are then add to it to get it as close to the tank params. Most people aren't too fussy but that will help your params to stay more stable.

Now I am testing every week and a half and the alk is always rock steady at 8.5 ca above 420 and mg 13ish.

I am actually more concerned with making sure po4 is low so my tank will uptake more ca