Looking for expert opinions/advice

[Ace]

Good Afternoon experts,

Went away on vacation the 15th through the 22nd and left the tank relatively untouched. I does vodka, alk and ca two part (equal doses daily) via a doser. What do the experts conclude based on these test results. I did do tests multiple times to ensure accuracy. What advice would you offer?

Test Results From May 11, 2016 To May 23, 2016

 

[redfishbluefish]

I'm not seeing anything.....image isn't showing up.

 

[Ace]

How about now?

 

[art13]

Mag shouldn't go up unless you dosed, I don't know the difference in calc between the two readings but it could possibly be either the test kit margin of error or the calc doser might be putting out more than you think. You could start by checking the output on it.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Turn your dosers down a touch!

You were away for a while and your calc and mag went up. You mentioned that you does alk and calc, but the graph shows calc and mag??? Query, do you have an ATO? And is it filled with RO/DI water? Also, how long have you been dosing?

Otherwise, as mentioned, I'd crank the dosers back a bit and see what happens.

 

[art13]

Alk I think is on the bottom, I can't tell if there is a difference, I was assuming it was constant though if he thought something was off with the calc, if the alk is going up though then yes, slow down the dosing.

 

[njtiger24 aquariums]

By what I can tell the Alk is at the bottom like @art13 said. This is one reason I use different graphs for each element I test for (so I can see the fine change in each). I agree with @redfishbluefish about checking your doser setting and making sure everything is working correctly.

 

[Ace]

Sorry all, my apps export wasn't working correctly. Here are the figures side by side...

May 11th, May 23rd
Nitrate: 10ppm, 40ppm
Po4: .16, .13
Ca: 410, 475
DKH: 9, 7.7
Mg: 1400, 1500 (think this was a testing error)
Salinity: 1.026, 1.025
PH: 8.1, 7.9

 

[art13]

ph will fluctuate a lot depending on the day and what time you test it, calcium almost seems like some type of testing error, possibly the same with the dkh, but if they are correct, and you think you are dosing alk and calc evenly, i would check your dosers for what they actually putting out. i know my one puts out 1.1, the other puts out 1.5. It could be the calc is putting out more than the alk is, but that is a large jump for a few weeks.

 

[Ace]

relatively large drop in DKH as well for a few weeks? or is that typical? I don't have any SPS...

 

[art13]

I'm not sure what you have for coral, system size, the dosers you're using, and well as how much you are dosing daily, that would all be useful as a starting point. After that we can go from there, i would check the readings as well as how much the dosing pump is actually putting out for alk and calc.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Now seeing you have no sps (and I'm assuming no clam as well), first off, why dose? Secondly, my guess is that you are seeing testing error.

 

[Ace]

thanks for all the advice. I was dosing to bring up my DKH as it was dropping over time and was low 7's. was hoping to develop more room to work. secondly, I want to get a grip on alk and ca dosing before I put in sps and kill it all. I agree, I have trouble testing. I use red sea kits and always seem to get mixed up on the colors etc.

my system:
120g, 30g sump
tunze 9410
jebao wavemakers, roughly 40x flow
2x ecotech radion xr15pro
brs dual reactor, carbon and gfo
fuge, miracle mud and cheato (which never grows)
jebao doser
mostly soft coral, shrooms palys and zoas
Moorish idol, purple tang, yellow tang, sailfin tang, 2 clowns, flame angel, few damsels

 

[art13]

You shouldn't really need to dose anything with those corals. Go with saliftert for testing. Right now for alk i use that and hanna at the same time, i know where their deviations fall and hanna shows consistency, saliftert shows the number a bit more accurately for me. I switched over to salifert for calcium and mag as well for the accuracy. I would stop dosing until you can double check numbers, i would also test your jebao doser for output, just time how long it takes to put out 10ml. An example would be, if it takes 5 minutes to dose 10ml, divide 10 by 5 and you get 2ml per minute. just divide 10 by whatever number it lands on, to the second as accurately as you can.

 

[Ace]

The jebao actually calibrates using that methodology. I did it like 10 times to ensure I had it just right. OK, im going to cut off the dosing, switch to salifert and a hanna dkh. let ya know how it goes. thanks all!