Salinity increasing too fast

[SquareFace]

I dose 2 part to my 80 gallon tank. I use Randy's recipe 2 (Baking Soda) and BRS calcium chloride. I use my Apex to dose my tank dividing the daily dose into 24 small doses. Calcium and bi-carbonate are dosed half an hour apart to avoid precipitation. My Calcium is constant at 420 ppm. Alkalinity is constantly between 8.1 and 9.1 dkh (8.4 most of the time). However my salinity needs to be lowered a couple times a week. This makes me think that I am dosing too much 2 part. But, when I try to dose less, both alkalinity and calcium drops. Now my Apex doses about 300 ml of Randy's recipe and about 180 ml of BRS calcium chloride mix according to BRS directions. How much do you dose daily?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[s_kelley]

Salinity should remain fairly stable when you dose everything. Is there a chance your using salt water for top off instead of rodi (fresh) water? I ask because others have done it mistakenly in the past

 

[SquareFace]

Salinity should remain fairly stable when you dose everything. Is there a chance your using salt water for top off instead of rodi (fresh) water? I ask because others have done it mistakenly in the past

I use the BRS 6 stage RODI system. The water is perfectly clean.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[jah-hoeva]

Are you running a ATO or manual top off? If manual that may account for your salinity swings. 300ml and 180ml are quite a bit for an 80 gallon tank. You must have quite a bit of coral.

 

[SquareFace]

Are you running a ATO or manual top off? If manual that may account for your salinity swings. 300ml and 180ml are quite a bit for an 80 gallon tank. You must have quite a bit of coral.

I run a auto top off.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[cilyjr]

Seems like I remember that 2 part can raise salt levels (something about the chloride) but I'm no chemist and I don't dose 2 part but I found this for you. Hope it's helpful

Randy Holmes farley. "The salintiy rise depends on how much you are dosing.

Dosing 4.4 dKH of alkalinity per day (and the equivalent calcium part) will raise salinity very roughly by about 0.2% per day (about 100% in a year).

1.026 to 1.030 in 3 weeks is about 0.7% per day (260% in a year), which seems higher to me than one would expect from a two part at any reasonable dose.

__________________
Randy Holmes-Farley

Current Tank Info: 120 mixed reef"


From this thread

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2529946

 

[eaze333]

300ml and 180ml both see like quite a bit for an 80gal...I do believe it is also best to dose in equal portions. My salinity rises also in 60 gal but with dosing about a third of the soda ash. So with 300mil daily..that's going to go up pretty good. I never dosed that much in fully stocked 120iI had...heavy sps, clam the size of a football.

 

[cilyjr]

When you get into dosing that much it's time to think about a calcium reactor in my opinion the initial outlay of equipment is expensive but the media is really cheap compared to dosing

 

[nemodan]

The volume dosed will depend on the solution concentration. Could be he is using it more diluted ?

 

[SquareFace]

Seems like I remember that 2 part can raise salt levels (something about the chloride) but I'm no chemist and I don't dose 2 part but I found this for you. Hope it's helpful

Randy Holmes farley. "The salintiy rise depends on how much you are dosing.

Dosing 4.4 dKH of alkalinity per day (and the equivalent calcium part) will raise salinity very roughly by about 0.2% per day (about 100% in a year).

1.026 to 1.030 in 3 weeks is about 0.7% per day (260% in a year), which seems higher to me than one would expect from a two part at any reasonable dose.

__________________
Randy Holmes-Farley

Current Tank Info: 120 mixed reef"


From this thread

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2529946

Thank you. This information is very helpful.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[SquareFace]

The volume dosed will depend on the solution concentration. Could be he is using it more diluted ?

I'm mixing according to the directions. Adding more would go above saturation point and sit on the bottom of the container.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[SquareFace]

Thank you. This information is very helpful.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Calcium chloride + sodium bicarbonate = calcium carbonate, water, carbon dioxide and sodium chloride. For each moleque of calcium carbonate absorbed by corals for calcification or precipitated there is two moleques of sodium chlorate (salt).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[IPWitan]

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/

The article discusses the amount of salinity increase using 2 part.

Can you please post pictures of your tank? I am very curious about what is consuming so much calcium. During the summer my tank was also consuming about 180ml of two part plus 300 mls of saturated kalk, per day, all regulated via dosing pumps. My research suggested this was far more than people with fully stocked SPS tanks - I had 15 1 to 3 inch frags. The corals were all new frags and had crazy growth. I had a thick layer of coralline algae on the back wall - so thick that it separated in big sheets. Snails (and their shells) grew rapidly as well. Zoanthids were very small and close to the rock.

The unfortunate part is that the tank ultimately failed. I realized too late that my heater was not keeping a constant temp (changes of 4 degrees a day), and my refractormeter was way off (read 1.026, but was actually 1.020). I also developed bubble algae in a big way. Whether it was one of these reasons or something else, but the coral stopped growing and thus did NOT consume the additives. As a result, the alk skyrocketed which further stressed the tank, even while testing every day. Once I fixed everything, it was too late for the SPS. On a side note, during this entire episode, my LPS, zoanthids have never looked better. Those types grew and multiplied rapidly. While they were suffering when the SPS was growing, they thrived once the system became out of whack.

Hopefully there is something in this story that helps pass some knowledge.

 

[eaze333]

Is your sand bed rock hard or have a hard crust on top in certain areas or all of it?

I had a similar issue after my 120 leaked out and moved what survived to a 60 gal. My 60 tank was magically consuming twice the dosing of the 120 in a tank with now practically nothing for SPS as they all died from the 120 leaking out. It ended up that my sand bed was hard as a rock and all the extra dosing was precipitating in the sand bed. My salinity went up very high very quick also at that time. I only dose now 80ml of each part and a have a fair amount of mixed corals and the very large clam.
My salinity still rises on the regular even with what I dose now if I don't stay on top of the water changes.

I still think you salinity issue is the 300 ml of alk solution which still seems super high for 80 gallons.

Also a quick reference from Randy Holmes-Farley for dosing equal portions of both http://http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php#15

"Once you have determined the proper dose, continue it until there is a substantial reason to adjust it (such as falling alkalinity as the corals increase in size). When adjusting the dose, raise or lower both of the recipe's parts together.

Resist the temptation to keep jiggering calcium and alkalinity independently. They will need occasional corrections, but that should not be the normal course of dosing unless there are substantial outside influences, such as water changes with a salt mix that does not match the tank's parameters or an error in making the mixes."

 

[Joe Rice]

Is your sand bed rock hard or have a hard crust on top in certain areas or all of it?

I had a similar issue <snip>... It ended up that my sand bed was hard as a rock and all the extra dosing was precipitating in the sand bed.

My system was also using an excessive amount of two-part and my sand bed is rock hard in many places. I reduced the concentration of the dosing solutions by 50% to see if that might help. I've had to increase the dosing period but only by about 50%, not 100% like one might expect which seems to confirm that a lot of the ions being dosed were precipitating out. I space alkalinity and calcium dosing 1 hour apart and that hasn't changed.

 

[SquareFace]

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/

The article discusses the amount of salinity increase using 2 part.

Can you please post pictures of your tank? I am very curious about what is consuming so much calcium. During the summer my tank was also consuming about 180ml of two part plus 300 mls of saturated kalk, per day, all regulated via dosing pumps. My research suggested this was far more than people with fully stocked SPS tanks - I had 15 1 to 3 inch frags. The corals were all new frags and had crazy growth. I had a thick layer of coralline algae on the back wall - so thick that it separated in big sheets. Snails (and their shells) grew rapidly as well. Zoanthids were very small and close to the rock.

The unfortunate part is that the tank ultimately failed. I realized too late that my heater was not keeping a constant temp (changes of 4 degrees a day), and my refractormeter was way off (read 1.026, but was actually 1.020). I also developed bubble algae in a big way. Whether it was one of these reasons or something else, but the coral stopped growing and thus did NOT consume the additives. As a result, the alk skyrocketed which further stressed the tank, even while testing every day. Once I fixed everything, it was too late for the SPS. On a side note, during this entire episode, my LPS, zoanthids have never looked better. Those types grew and multiplied rapidly. While they were suffering when the SPS was growing, they thrived once the system became out of whack.

Hopefully there is something in this story that helps pass some knowledge.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[SquareFace]

Is your sand bed rock hard or have a hard crust on top in certain areas or all of it?

I had a similar issue after my 120 leaked out and moved what survived to a 60 gal. My 60 tank was magically consuming twice the dosing of the 120 in a tank with now practically nothing for SPS as they all died from the 120 leaking out. It ended up that my sand bed was hard as a rock and all the extra dosing was precipitating in the sand bed. My salinity went up very high very quick also at that time. I only dose now 80ml of each part and a have a fair amount of mixed corals and the very large clam.
My salinity still rises on the regular even with what I dose now if I don't stay on top of the water changes.

I still think you salinity issue is the 300 ml of alk solution which still seems super high for 80 gallons.

Also a quick reference from Randy Holmes-Farley for dosing equal portions of both http://http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php#15

"Once you have determined the proper dose, continue it until there is a substantial reason to adjust it (such as falling alkalinity as the corals increase in size). When adjusting the dose, raise or lower both of the recipe's parts together.

Resist the temptation to keep jiggering calcium and alkalinity independently. They will need occasional corrections, but that should not be the normal course of dosing unless there are substantial outside influences, such as water changes with a salt mix that does not match the tank's parameters or an error in making the mixes."

Some parts of the sand bed is hard. Not a lot, only around the live rock.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[IPWitan]

Cool picture. Thanks. Oh, and no one has mentioned magnesium. If low mg, then precipitation is faster and can create instability, e.g. wide swings in consumption. Mg is consumed at a proportionate rate as the 2 part. My strategy with mg is to find the amount of mg that is needed per the amount of 2 part in the container, and put the mg solution into a small water bottle. Then as the 2 part container empties, I put a little bit of mg into the tank. When the container of 2 part is empty, so must be the water bottle. If you dose mg via a pump, there will be a lot of adjustments (math) if you are constantly changing the dosing amounts. Plus, I haven't read anything that suggests mg levels need to be constant - just over a certain threshold. To help make the influx more even, I usually put the mg solution in the top off bucket.

Thanks for everyone posting. I thought I was unique in having really high dosing consumption.

 

[SquareFace]

Cool picture. Thanks. Oh, and no one has mentioned magnesium. If low mg, then precipitation is faster and can create instability, e.g. wide swings in consumption. Mg is consumed at a proportionate rate as the 2 part. My strategy with mg is to find the amount of mg that is needed per the amount of 2 part in the container, and put the mg solution into a small water bottle. Then as the 2 part container empties, I put a little bit of mg into the tank. When the container of 2 part is empty, so must be the water bottle. If you dose mg via a pump, there will be a lot of adjustments (math) if you are constantly changing the dosing amounts. Plus, I haven't read anything that suggests mg levels need to be constant - just over a certain threshold. To help make the influx more even, I usually put the mg solution in the top off bucket.

Thanks for everyone posting. I thought I was unique in having really high dosing consumption.

I keep Magnesium at 1300 ppm. I dose it once a week.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[nemodan]

I don't remember when it was the last time I measured Mg. Could be at least 2-4 years ago. But I always do a 25% WC every weekend, so I asume that is replenishing the MG. I dose Bionic and have not seen an increase in salinity as of today.