Dosing - can't find the right levels.

[mark]

for the Ca tester some negative threads here and other forums about ease of use (lack of) and non-repeatability.

[doch]

Originally Posted by mark

for the Ca tester some negative threads here and other forums about ease of use (lack of) and non-repeatability.

Yeah, I'm not 100% sold on this one.... err... well.. I guess I am since I bought one... lol. I do trust my elos Ca, so I'll go home and test with both and see what's up. The Phosphate and Alk ones seem great!

[Tracey2]

Sailfert is good for mag, I would definitely replace your elos if its going up wihtout adding. I like the alk & phosphate hanna but am not loving the calcium and feel I have to double check it with my sailfert, disappointing to have to have 2 test kits. I find if I focus on alk and keeping it steady everything else falls into place, unless calcium is really high making it difficult to maintain alk, I test alk, calculate dose and just dose calcium equally.

[doch]

UN-#$%&ing-believable.

Come home today and run a test.

Mg... same as yesterday... this to me is positive believe it or not.
Ca... Hanna Checker says 486, Elos says somewhere between 250 and 300. Judging from the comments here, I'm going to side with the Elos, and give dirty looks to the Hanna.
Alk. F. FFFFFFF. I can't believe it. Tested yesterday... ~5dKh, added a little alk raiser.... 14.8. WTF!?!?!? I'm running 250 gallons of water... I added approximately 2 heaping spoons worth of this stuff along with the normal daily dose. Seriously?
Dosing pump for the Alk is off... I'll test again tomorrow... hopefully it comes down.

BTW... I also ran out of the Hagen KH test fluid, so I can't comment on the difference between the 2. Last i checked though, they were very close to the same. What's with the Hanna Ca Checker? They sure seem to have pooped the bed on this one... 200 ppm off of the Elos? Wow.

[Myka]

So right now the only doser running is the calcium? I would just leave it like that and alkalinity and Mg will sort itself out.

Boost your calcium up to 450 ppm (over 24 hours)...this will lower the alkalinity a bit. I have had alkalinity up to 19 dKH before it started to irritate corals.

Did you have dosers before the move?

[doch]

Originally Posted by Myka

So right now the only doser running is the calcium? I would just leave it like that and alkalinity and Mg will sort itself out.

Boost your calcium up to 450 ppm (over 24 hours)...this will lower the alkalinity a bit. I have had alkalinity up to 19 dKH before it started to irritate corals.

Did you have dosers before the move?

Yeah, I did. That's the thing... it went so smoothly the first time around. I set them up, guessed at 20 mL/day, tested the next week, adjusted to 25mL/day, and it was perfect. Done.

I'll add a little Ca and try again tomorrow. Thanks

[viperfish]

What kind of dosing pumps are you using? I ran your Alk numbers (5 to 14.8) on the BRS calculator with your tank volume and it would take 630 ml of recipe 1 to gain that much. So whatever you're adding is some potent stuff. I still think there must be an error on the testing side of things, either with the kit or the method. An alk increase of that much would kill almost any SPS and shock the hell out of any other coral. I'm with fishytime on this one, go get yourself some bulk chemicals, and use accurate dosing pumps. You only need two pumps, the Mag doesn't get dosed as much as the Calk and Alk, I actually use an IV bag for Mag and it works like a dream. Once you have the right hardware, go to the BRS site and follow their instructions to the letter and I guarantee you will have success.