Keeping stable numbers

[Jon]

Well my tank has reached the point to where weekly water changes no longer provide the correct amount of nutrients. I’ve started manually dosing calcium and alkalinity once a day. My alk has been around 7.2 - p7.4 and calcium around 400. My goal is to slowly bring them to 8.0 and 420. Every day I dose about 10 ml of each and test the water the next day to see where we stand.

So my question is this. What kind of swings in numbers would you consider stable? If my alk were to remain anywhere between 7.7-8.0 and my calcium in the range of 400-420ish. Is that fairly stable? Will that keep my coral happy and healthy for the long haul?

I’ve had some nice pieces die since I started the tank a year ago and I’m trying to dial it in as best I can.

Thanks

 

[kabal2]

personally, I believe that if all that your parameters swing, you are as stable as possible, most people parameters swing about a whole point in dkh and about 50 points in calcium a day, and on my system, you doing better than me, on dkh I swing about .5 and calc about 50 points.
Gabe

 

[erics210]

Once you start dosing larger quantities of soda ash and calcium chloride, you may want to consider an auto doser so you can does 4x a day, 10x a day to keep those numbers even more stable/consistent.
cant offer any more good info besides that, because I am where you are at...lol

 

[DangerDave]

The closer you can get to stable with swings the better. About every major tank issue I’ve had was a result of a parameter swing (most of which were my fault).

A dosing system will help resolve this. Good luck!!

 

[Jon]

The closer you can get to stable with swings the better. About every major tank issue I’ve had was a result of a parameter swing (most of which were my fault).

A dosing system will help resolve this. Good luck!!

I remember you told me that when I was at your place a couple months ago. I’ve been pretty good about keeping things within a few tenths of a point with my alk and my calcium I can keep it within 20 points or so. I know a doser will help but I’m not sure I have the space for that underneath. Gonna keep manually dosing small amounts once a day and also testing daily to see where I stand. Since my tank is mostly soft / lps coral they are not absorbing a heavy amount a day. Maybe 5-10 millimeters of each. Fingers crossed!!!

Thanks to everyone who responded.

 

[kabal2]

Jon, if you know your tank is using 10ml of anything, see if you can split it to maybe 5ml in the morning and 5ml at night, so the swing will be a little less, I personally dose all for reef from tropic marine and do really minor dosing for my alkalinity to try to keep things stable, the good thing about all for reef only use one dosing head, maybe that's something you can look into it