I am curious to get an educated perspective on the dosage challenges / curiosities that I've encountered since switching to 2 part.
I ordered one of the BRS 2 part kits about 6 months ago and used up a gallon of each calcium chloride and soda ash over the course of a few months, always keeping them in equal parts and testing 1-2x per week. I dialed in to keep my dkh at 8 and resulting Ca was always in the 430-450 range and the experience / results were as I'd expected.
When I ran out, I ordered the parts separately and I believe I then ended up with sodium bicarbonate inadvertently. I immediately noticed my kh dropping and ended up with nearly double the daily dose previously to get it to maintain 8 dkh. This very quickly shot the Ca up well beyond the 500ppm end range of my salifert test kit. I had to drop the Ca dosage way back down to get it back in the proper range and ended up with my steady state being roughly 1 part Ca to 2 parts Alk. I guess I'm curious if it's typical for you to need 2x the bicarb vs soda ash? I thought they were both equal parts with Ca, just one had a bigger effect on pH?
When that sodium bicarb ran out, I ordered soda ash and my alk dosing went back down, but now it has leveled out at roughly 1 part alk to 1.3 parts Ca. I'm curious if this atypical as I thought generally the dosing should be equal parts, or do many people end tuning to something other than a 1:1 ratio?
The other curiosity is my Mg has been consumed very significantly as of late. In spite of doing 10% weekly water changes with Tropic Marin Pro salt, my Mg drifted down to nearly 1200ppm. I started using the BRS Mg supplement on a supplemental doser for a week at 100ml / day (on 95g system vol) to get it back up into the 1300's and since then I've had to dose daily ~20ml to maintain. I thought that Mg was more stable and I'm curious if this is unusual or if I should expect to keep dosing Mg ongoing?
As mentioned, my system is ~95g. I'm currently dosing 34ml soda ash + 45ml calcium chloride + 20ml magnesium. My daily pH range is 8.1-8.3. I have a lot of corals, although many are still rather small frags, but they have been growing pretty significantly over the past few months as things have really matured in my 1 year old system.
All this is just to ask if there is any cause for concern or it just is what it is and keep testing / adjusting to maintain regardless of where the dosing takes me?
Thanks!
I ordered one of the BRS 2 part kits about 6 months ago and used up a gallon of each calcium chloride and soda ash over the course of a few months, always keeping them in equal parts and testing 1-2x per week. I dialed in to keep my dkh at 8 and resulting Ca was always in the 430-450 range and the experience / results were as I'd expected.
When I ran out, I ordered the parts separately and I believe I then ended up with sodium bicarbonate inadvertently. I immediately noticed my kh dropping and ended up with nearly double the daily dose previously to get it to maintain 8 dkh. This very quickly shot the Ca up well beyond the 500ppm end range of my salifert test kit. I had to drop the Ca dosage way back down to get it back in the proper range and ended up with my steady state being roughly 1 part Ca to 2 parts Alk. I guess I'm curious if it's typical for you to need 2x the bicarb vs soda ash? I thought they were both equal parts with Ca, just one had a bigger effect on pH?
When that sodium bicarb ran out, I ordered soda ash and my alk dosing went back down, but now it has leveled out at roughly 1 part alk to 1.3 parts Ca. I'm curious if this atypical as I thought generally the dosing should be equal parts, or do many people end tuning to something other than a 1:1 ratio?
The other curiosity is my Mg has been consumed very significantly as of late. In spite of doing 10% weekly water changes with Tropic Marin Pro salt, my Mg drifted down to nearly 1200ppm. I started using the BRS Mg supplement on a supplemental doser for a week at 100ml / day (on 95g system vol) to get it back up into the 1300's and since then I've had to dose daily ~20ml to maintain. I thought that Mg was more stable and I'm curious if this is unusual or if I should expect to keep dosing Mg ongoing?
As mentioned, my system is ~95g. I'm currently dosing 34ml soda ash + 45ml calcium chloride + 20ml magnesium. My daily pH range is 8.1-8.3. I have a lot of corals, although many are still rather small frags, but they have been growing pretty significantly over the past few months as things have really matured in my 1 year old system.
All this is just to ask if there is any cause for concern or it just is what it is and keep testing / adjusting to maintain regardless of where the dosing takes me?
Thanks!
