Can someone give me some basic's on dosing 2 part

[epleeds]

I just discovered that my tank is at the point that I can not keep up with what the corals need just by water changes. I do not have the time to set up a kalk stirrer or a calcium reactor yet, so i did the easiest thing, bought some ESV 2 part.

 

By reading the bottle is says by my calculations, 20 ml of each part for my size tank. 75 gallon with 10 gallon sump. My alk is about 4 or so...so that is low and my calcium is about 420 which is okay.

 

I have to buy a mag test kit to see where that is but as of right now, i can not get back to the store till this weekend.

 

My main question is after I dose, how long do I wait till I retest. Do I wait a few hours or just wait till the morning and dose again. Once it reaches the optimal numbers how then do I calculate my "maintenance dose"

 

Any help would be appreciated. Please give it to me in terms that i can understand...

 

thanks

[scott711]

Generally, wait 24 hours and retest. You can determine your alk/calcium requirements by not dosing for 24 hours and see what your readings are. First you want to get the water parameters where you want, then wait 24 hours to determine your tank requirements. That is your maint. dosing.

[rbonick]

Try this site. http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

it has a calculator to help determine dosing amounts.

Once you have your levels adjusted to the correct levels, you need to determine average daily consumption for your tank.

Basically, you stop dosing and measure the change in levels over a couple days. Divide the change by the number of days between tests and that should give you an approximate

Consumption rate.

[epleeds]

thanks...that sounds easy enough

[Origami]

If you're trying to establish a starting point in a consumption measurement, you can retest as soon as the mixture is equally distributed throughout the system. Use your turnover rate as a gauge. If you have a sump, then use that turnover rate as it's probably lower than your in-tank turnover (flow) rate. Wait for around 5 turnovers and you should be OK to test. For example, if your sump turnover is 5x per hour (e.g., 500 gallons per hour in a 100 gallon system), waiting an hour should be sufficient to ensure that your additives are well distributed.

 

After you've got the starting point, you need a second measurement some time later. This can vary depending upon the tank. Mature systems with lots of corals can have high consumption rates that allow testing relatively soon (a day) after the addition. Newer tanks with a few frags of small size may require more time between the addition and the second measurement in order to measure a difference.

 

You've already got good advice on how to determine consumption: Wait some fixed amount of time after taking a measurement and retest without dosing. Determine the average daily consumption by calculating the drop divided by the number of days that you waited. In low-consumption systems, you may have to wait several days to get a reasonable drop to use to calculate your baseline.

 

As your system grows, consumption will change. So periodic retesting to adjust to this change is expected.