What I want for Christmas.....and my tank params

[Neogenesis]

What I want for Christmas, an all in one system that will take care of my tank params automatically.  It's no secret that I've been fighting low PH and ALK for a while now.  I've vented the skimmer to the outside...which helped a little, but not enough.  So I ordered up some dosing pumps, a BRS 2 part kit, and started playing with it trying to get things in line.  Since this is my first rodeo with dosing, I guess I'm looking for a little reassurance that I'm going about this right, and that I interpreted what I read correctly. 

Tank Specs

Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.024 - it's slipped a little and will be corrected with the next water change.
PH: 7.79
Alk: 7.168
Cal: 535
Mag: 1200


I've been dripping Alk daily, takes arouns 2 hours to drip in, and while I can get it to temporarily come up, I can't seem to get it to stabilize, and my PH always falls to around 7.5 to 7.6.  I started dosing a ounce, then two, and tonight I dosed 3 oz.  Am I going about this correctly or all wrong.  Once I got my Alk and Ph stabilized and I see my calcium fall, I would start dosing it in conjunction with the Alk and try to keep all levels stable.  I would also switch over to my dosing pumps at that time.

Thoughts...... ?

Scott

[Wall_Tank]

The best way to correct salinity is to use Salt water to top off the tank......doing it during a water change can be too sudden.

Are you still running your CACO3 reactor?   Do you plan to cut this off?

Otherwise, I agree, Just start dosing the Alk component

[Neogenesis]

I'm not running any reactors currently, unless you want to count carbon.  I will bring the salinity up slowly, I only have the capacity to do about a 40 gallon change at a time, and I don't mix it too high.  I'll definitely be careful with it.  What's interesting is that since I've been dosing Alk I can see new growth already.

Thanks for the reassurance.

[Ashlar]

If you know you're getting fresh air into the tank, why are you chasing ph? I can understand alk, but I don't know that I'd do anything more regarding ph (maybe get a new ph probe and re-calibrate it? hehe).

On my old tank, I went through a gallon of alk and ca in about 12 days. (dosing about 300ml per day- about 10 ounces of RHF 2 part.)

That was on a 200'ish gallon system.

[Wall_Tank]

+1 on the ph.    Don't pay too much attention to the absolute number.   But watch for sudden changes, or large swings to indicate other problems.

For the record Alk consumption does not always equal Calcium consumption.    So monitor Ca and Alk separately and adjust accordingly.

[Neogenesis]

Thx....I'm not only basing it off of PH....but it's a good judge and I can see my daily swings in my controller.  I'm seeing swings of less than a 1/2 a point.  I'll get it under control soon.....I hope.

[Wall_Tank]

1/2 a point in ph is a very large swing.   Or did you mean 0.05

Assuming your ph is dropping at night, I would run the alk dosing at night.

I run mine in 30 minute increments spread out through the night time hours.

[lazylivin]

Dose more ALk, 7.1 is to low, try targeting 9.0 - 9.50

[Neogenesis]

Well...it seems I'm making progress, albeit a little more aggressive than I was shooting for.  And thanks everyone for the input.  I can see a difference in my coral already, growth is exploding!!!

Currently my water params sit as the following

Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.025
PH: 7.77
Alk: 9.912
Cal: 423

I'm now starting to dose calcium in conjunction with the Alk and will figure out my ratio soon.  On a side note, my PH as flattened out a bit with a daily fluctuation of only .15 the last 2 days.  It looks like things are starting to fall into place.

Again....thanks everyone for the guidance.

[lazylivin]

Definitely looking much better. Now that you have Alk in range your calcium and mag should start to be consumed as well.

[Neogenesis]

I just thought I would update this thread, and I cannot praise automatic dosing enough.  My PH is much more stable, calcium is staying up, things are growing well.  I'm going to back off my Alk dosing a hair to be safe, but I'm very happy with what I'm seeing.

Specs:
Salinity: 1.026
PH 8.13
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Alk 10.64
Calcium 457
mag 1350

[Ashlar]

Yeah, that's creeping close to the high end, especially for SPS.

Good job on the stability though!!