Anybody Dose RS Trace Colors (ABCD) w/o considering Ca consumption?

[NatsRams]

I’ve decided to go back to dosing kalkwasser to help maintain alk after seeing it drop from 8 to 6.5 while away for a week. As a result, I anticipate not needing to supplement Ca. Since I won’t be supplementing with the RS Ca, I won’t be able to follow the dosing instructions for the trace colors. I’d like to still dose the trace elements, but don’t know how I’d do it without an indication of Ca demand. Does anybody do so? If you do, how do you know how much to dose?

Maybe I’ll end up going with a different product.

 

[Spare time]

So technically you can still dose according to calcium. They want you to dose them 1ml per every 20ppm of calcium consumed. You can get a rough estimate from this by by not dosing kalk for a day or two (or just by figuring it out from the amount of kalk you are using). However, I don't believe that much if any of those elements are tied to calcium consumption, so you can freeball it. Unless you have a reason to assume heavy usage of the trace elements (I am lumping potassium in this even though its a major ion), I would dose very small amounts). Salifert makes a iodine/iodide/iodate and potassium test that you might fight helpful.

 

[Chrisv.]

I use the salifert potassium test mentioned above (which is fine) and the seachem iodide/iodine test (which I hate) and dose those two the four independently of calcium consumption. I'm essentially always zeroed out on iodide.

 

[NatsRams]

So technically you can still dose according to calcium. They want you to dose them 1ml per every 20ppm of calcium consumed. You can get a rough estimate from this by by not dosing kalk for a day or two (or just by figuring it out from the amount of kalk you are using). However, I don't believe that much if any of those elements are tied to calcium consumption, so you can freeball it. Unless you have a reason to assume heavy usage of the trace elements (I am lumping potassium in this even though its a major ion), I would dose very small amounts). Salifert makes a iodine/iodide/iodate and potassium test that you might fight helpful.

I’ve been monitoring Ca for a few months before restarting kalk dosing. The apparent demand is pretty low, low enough that I am sometimes not sure the declines are real or simply a function of my ability to discern the actual color change from purple to blue in the RS Ca test. I may get the Hanna Ca test presuming it’s more precise than the titration.

I’m dosing kalk (assuming it’s saturated - 4 tsp in 1 g Icecap stirrer) at 236 mL a day and am monitoring Ca and alk to see if that is enough or too much. I’ll adjust as needed. I should eventually be able to calculate demand.

 

[Spare time]

I’ve been monitoring Ca for a few months before restarting kalk dosing. The apparent demand is pretty low, low enough that I am sometimes not sure the declines are real or simply a function of my ability to discern the actual color change from purple to blue in the RS Ca test. I may get the Hanna Ca test presuming it’s more precise than the titration.

I’m dosing kalk (assuming it’s saturated - 4 tsp in 1 g Icecap stirrer) at 236 mL a day and am monitoring Ca and alk to see if that is enough or too much. I’ll adjust as needed. I should eventually be able to calculate demand.

If you get the hanna, keep in mind you need distilled water for the test at one step, NOT rodi. That's a super common mistake people make.

Still, I don't like basing trace demand off of calcium consumption. I think weekly or daily dosing in small amounts is probably fine, and you can try an icp to see if anything is significantly building up. I used to dose them once a week.


Btw if you haven't read them, I'd check out Randy Holmes Farley's write ups on different trace elements and major/minor ions.