What would you do? Again with the x@#^*! Dosing

[spawn]

If I had a dollar for every time I've bumped manually & raised the maintenance dose to try & stabilize I could have paid for the doser twice already

Originally Posted by Myka

Ugh...I can't believe you're still fighting with this!

If it was my tank I would manually bump the calcium to about 400 (380 is fine), then in an hour bump the alkalinity up to 7 dKH (ish). Then increase the dosers by a couple mL. In 3 days repeat until you test one day and the numbers are still at 400 and 7, then you have the dosing amount right. Have you tried this sort of thing?

Once you have figured out the dosing amount you can manually bump up the levels to where you want them (say 420 and 8? whatever you want). You may need to manually bump up the levels once a week or so for the first month or two while the tank settles in. Plus, as the tank grows the demand will go up and you will have to bump the levels and the dosers. I was bumping my dosers up by 1-2 mL 2-3 times a month for a year, now I'm only increasing the dosers once a month or so.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by spawn

If I had a dollar for every time I've bumped manually & raised the maintenance dose to try & stabilize I could have paid for the doser twice already

How often were you testing and manually dosing?

[spawn]

Originally Posted by Myka

How often were you testing and manually dosing?

Well that's probably more like if I had $10 bucks for every time. Since august it's been weekly testing & adjusting. Because that's when the dosing stop maintaing & started to push salinity. It's been a **** show since

[Myka]

Originally Posted by spawn

Well that's probably more like if I had $10 bucks for every time. Since august it's been weekly testing & adjusting. Because that's when the dosing stop maintaing & started to push salinity. It's been a **** show since

Once a week testing and dosing should have solved the issue. Something just isn't right. Do you have a TDS meter? You're using BRS stuff right? I could go mix up say 1/4 tsp in 2 cups of RO/DI water and test the TDS of each, then you can do the same. I am using Sodium bicarbonate for alkalinity though. Could rule out a concentration issue, although I don't think that's likely. Have you tried emailing BRS? They have pretty good customer service.

I'm assuming you have double checked all the simple, easily overlooked stuff like measurements of water and chems? Have you checked that the dosers are operating properly? Maybe they aren't dosing what they say they are? Maybe measure the water in the dosing vessel, and measure again 24 hours later?

As I've told you before, the salinity in my tank slowly goes up as well. I have to add about 2 liters per week to keep salinity down. It is from a buildup of chloride. However, I also do a large 75% or so waterchange 3-4 times per year which helps flush excess chloride out. Chloride has been one of the elements that people are questioning in "old tank syndrome" crashes and general aging demise. No one knows for sure yet. We do know that in many captive reefs the chloride ions are much greater in number than in wild reefs.

[shrimpchips]

Originally Posted by Myka

Once a week testing and dosing should have solved the issue. Something just isn't right. Do you have a TDS meter? You're using BRS stuff right? I could go mix up say 1/4 tsp in 2 cups of RO/DI water and test the TDS of each, then you can do the same. Could rule out a concentration issue, although I don't think that's likely. Have you tried emailing BRS? They have pretty good customer service.

Not if he's using the wrong supplement.