dosing with dosing pumps

[fungia]

i am setting up my litermeter to dose b-ionic. i have a 100 gallon and b-ionic says to dose 1ml every 4 gallons each day so i am dosing 25ml per day. my litermeter has a setting for number of liters per day. does this mean i set the daily dose to 0.025? my math sucks and i want to make sure i dont overdo it

 

[Anonymous]

It would be 0.025, but the LM3 is really not designed for such a fine increment. I would dilute the solution down in DI water. You'd have much better control this way. Make sure to calibrate the LM3 flow and double check how much it's actually pumping out.

Having said all that, why are you dosing B-Ionic with a dosing pump? There's no reason to drip it in slow like kalk. Are you using two separate pump units for the two different parts?

 

[fungia]

good idea about diluting. it means more scary math for me if i add another four gallons of water to my 1 gallon b-ionic to make it five gallons total, do i multiply the dose by four or five?

i have bought an add-on pumps for the litermeter. the reason i want to use it is because i dont always have time or i forget to add bionic daily. automatic dosing works best for me.

 

[fungia]

i read this article that gave me the idea: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/ ... 3/Fish.htm

but in the article, one thing doesnt make sense to me. the author says:
As I explained earlier, I intended to use the LiterMeter III to dose a two-part supplement, as well as replace evaporated water, on my 40 gallon reef aquarium. The total water volume in this system, including a 15 gallon sump, is approximately 50 gallons. This system loses 4 gallons of water each week to evaporation and requires 30 ml of each component of B-Ionic on a daily basis to maintain adequate levels of calcium and alkalinity. To accomplish my goal, I added a week’s worth of each component of B-Ionic to separate two-gallon vessels and filled the remainder with deionized water. This also dilutes the supplements and lessens the chance of precipitation or spikes in pH. I set the daily total for each pump to “one liter.”

how come he set the pump to one liter? that is a lot of bionic he is adding a day. or maybe he diluted it to the right amount and then added it to the two gallon vessels with extra stored somewhere else.

 

[Anonymous]

good idea about diluting. it means more scary math for me if i add another four gallons of water to my 1 gallon b-ionic to make it five gallons total, do i multiply the dose by four or five?

i have bought an add-on pumps for the litermeter. the reason i want to use it is because i dont always have time or i forget to add bionic daily. automatic dosing works best for me.

You would multiply the dose by 5. So if you added 4 parts DI water to 1 part B-Ionic, and you've calculated that your tank uses 25 mL of B-Ionic, you'll now need to dose 125 mL of the B-Ionic/DI water mixture. I suspect you'll be doing a much more dilute solution than that though...is this for topoff too, or are you doing that manually?

 

[Anonymous]

i read this article that gave me the idea: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/ ... 3/Fish.htm

but in the article, one thing doesnt make sense to me. the author says:
As I explained earlier, I intended to use the LiterMeter III to dose a two-part supplement, as well as replace evaporated water, on my 40 gallon reef aquarium. The total water volume in this system, including a 15 gallon sump, is approximately 50 gallons. This system loses 4 gallons of water each week to evaporation and requires 30 ml of each component of B-Ionic on a daily basis to maintain adequate levels of calcium and alkalinity. To accomplish my goal, I added a week’s worth of each component of B-Ionic to separate two-gallon vessels and filled the remainder with deionized water. This also dilutes the supplements and lessens the chance of precipitation or spikes in pH. I set the daily total for each pump to “one liter.”

how come he set the pump to one liter? that is a lot of bionic he is adding a day. or maybe he diluted it to the right amount and then added it to the two gallon vessels with extra stored somewhere else.

He set it to one liter of the diluted B-Ionic mixture. Each liter contained approximately 30 mL of a B-Ionic component and 970 mL of DI water.

Just some conversions to hopefully make this simpler...

1000 mL= 1L
1 gallon = approx 3.9L

 

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I have tried this in the past and found it tough to match the 2 pump's outputs at the same exact rate. If you consider the expense of B-Ionic and of a second pump, then simply dosing kalkwasser with a single pump becomes much more attractive. Kalkwasser is "pre-balanced", so to speak, and has the added benefit of raising your pH. You can also dilute it down if need be. The only downside to kalk that I can think of is that it is easy to overdose and spike your pH if you don't add it slowly--but you've got a dosing pump so that problem is solved.

Another downside to B-Ionic is that you're slowly skewing your water chemistry. The two components are calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate; the calcium and carbonate form coral skeletons, and the sodium and chloride remain in solution and slowly accumulate. It doesn't become an issue unless you're using a ton of B-Ionic and not doing water changes regularly, but it's something to consider.

 

[fungia]

it is for additive only. i have another top off.

wont the sodium and chloride make the water more salty? is that the only problem? i change my water every month.

 

[Anonymous]

wont the sodium and chloride make the water more salty?

Correct.

It will make your water a higher salinity, but without adding things like calcium, alkalinity, iodine, iron, magnesium, etc, etc. If you are concerned about these things, it's worth considering other options for calcium and alkalinity maintenance.