BRS 2-Part Dosing Formula Help

[ZildjianDevil]

Hey guys,

I need help with my dosing formula for my new system. i'm going to be dosing BRS 2-Part solution of Alk and Calcium. currently my tank is empty, but will be an SPS tank only.

what do you guys recommend of how many ml(s)/hour(s) a day for a fully stocked sps tank?

I know with an empty tank now with no corals i wouldn't do the dosing now, but in the future i would like to have an idea of how much to dose over how many hours a day.

as of right now i'll prob dose 1ml an hour just to get my coraline algae going and have some alk and calcium in the water column when i do start introducing sps corals.

Tank:
180Gallon DT with 75Gallon Sump?

Thank Everyone!
-Nick

[jimrawr]

You will probably end up at around 1-2ml per gallons each day once u get a significant amount of sps.. Good staring points is like .4ml per gallon per day

[iap]

Totally depends on how many pieces of coral and what size they are ... there is no magic number to just say you will dose. And why dose already? That wont kickstart coraline algea. You need to scrape some or have a piece of rock with it on it in the tank. Dosing your tank now with nothing consuming alk and cal is just a waste and gonna make your numbers sky high. Just let your tank cycle and add a piece of rock with coraline on it and once done with your cycle add sps frags slowly overtime. Even once you add some frags you really wont have to dose anything until they really start to grow and suck it up. A new tank full of frags you will be able to keep your parameters up with frequent waterchanges.... even dosing limewater will keep your parameters stable for a while with a tank full of frags. No need to go around dosing what's not needed.

And for what its worth on my 110g sps tank im dosing 114ml of alk and cal daily to keep my numbers at 9dkh and 450ppm. Tank is about 1.5 years old now full of corals grown from tiny nubs supposedly "frags" lol

[steelhead77]

On a 180 gallon tank, you might want to look at a calcium reactor instead of dosing. Once set up, a reactor is pretty much "set it and forget it". IME, dosing is much more prone to error.

But whatever you do, you are probably months away from needing to worry about it. Most SPS corals are difficult to keep and require a very stable system. If your system is empty now, you are months away from being there yet.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Here's my dosing recommendation for my DIY (which is what BRS sells a version of):

An Improved Do-it-Yourself Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Supplement System
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php



from it:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php#15

Dosing Instructions



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The dosing instructions are basically the same for each recipe, although any given aquarium will end up using about twice as much of recipe #2 as recipe #1 to add the same amount of calcium and alkalinity.

To initiate dosing, first adjust calcium and alkalinity to roughly their correct ranges. This may require a substantial dose of just the calcium part if calcium is low (e.g., below 380 ppm). I would suggest targeting calcium between 380 and 450 ppm, and alkalinity between 2.5 and 4 meq/L (7-11 dKH; 125-200 ppm calcium carbonate equivalents).

This calculator shows how much of what parts to add in order to boost one or both of the parameters by a certain amount:
Reef chemicals calculator
http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

Then, once things seem roughly correct, select a starting daily dose for routine dosing. Here are some suggested starting doses, but the exact values do not matter much. The suggested doses apply to both recipes.


Table 1. Suggested starting daily doses of this supplement in different aquaria.

Tank Description:.......... Suggested Starting Doses:
.......... .......... .......... .......... Recipe #1.......... Recipe #2
Fish-only with live rock ........ 0.1 mL/gallon......... 0.2 mL/gallon
New tank, few corals .......... 0.2 mL/gallon.......... 0.4 mL/gallon
Low demand .......... .......... 0.3 mL/gallon.......... 0.6 mL/gallon
Mixed tank.......... ............. 0.5 mL/gallon............1 mL/gallon
Heavy demand (SPS corals).....1 mL/gallon.......... 2 mL/gallon


After a few days of dosing, note whether alkalinity is low, high or on target. Only bother to test alkalinity, not calcium, during this period, because it is much more sensitive than calcium to over- or underdosing. Adjust the dose up or down as necessary to increase or decrease the alkalinity.

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.

Check alkalinity fairly frequently to make sure the dosing continues at a suitable rate. Check it maybe once a week to once a month (or less as you get more experienced with the system and the tank). Check calcium once a month to once every few months to make sure it continues on track.

Remember to add an appropriate amount of Part 3 each time you finish adding a gallon of Parts 1 and 2.

[spawn2]

Hi guys after reading this thread I am convinced that i am overdosing on both parts. I got my profilux in the beginning of jan 2011. & began using it. I started with the suggested of 1ml per gal. after a few days ca & alk were both low so I corrected & went to 2ml per, then to 3mlfor about a month 4ml per not long after. Finally it seemed to level out, & stayed that way for months, then about july of this year things began to fall of. Mg has been steady @ 13-1400 for the year as I have added mg every time I go through a jug of CA or ALK. Then in late july CA started to fall & I cannot get it back to steady levels. as of late I've been adding 240ml per day of ca into 55 gal. That's 4.3 ml per gal. I'm currently using RB salt. the last bucket I was using was RC. Coral growth is good but ther is some evidence of precip in the sandbed, none on the heater or the pumps? As I said growth is good, as well so are most colors, with the exception of purple, it is very pale. All of this dosing I believe has lead to another issue of upward creeping of my sal. I've finally gotten the salinity back to .026 from .028. which I'm happy about. The tank is Ulns as per readings on the hanna for Po4 & elos for nitrate both are zero.
So I guess what I'm wondering is if I should cut back the doses of both to the suggested levels of 2ml & start again trying to dial in my daily dosing?? & due to the tank being ulns if I want to maintain levels of CA 400-420 Alk 7-8 what would I start it with?? The 2ml per gal? Thx Sean
Here are a couple of pics of it.

[spawn2]

ttt

[spawn2]

Ttt