Dialing in a 2-Part doser

[wrfreeman]

Is the relationship between calcium and alkalinity linear? I know there's a correlation between the two and if I increase one I have to increase the other. If I want to dose say 10 ppm a day calcium, how much alkalinity would I need to dose? Do you dose them at the same time or one then wait a bit then the other? I'm using BRS 2-part 1.1ml/min dosing pumps.

 

[Flameback Pair]

You need to test with test kits to determine how much to dose. The go to a reef calculator like the one on bulk reef supply website and it tells you how much to dose.

 

[mike007]

Doser is the way to go so you can keep stable parameters in your tank. You want to dose alk. at night when ph is at its lowest and then dose your calcium.

 

[islander84]

if your 2 part mix is equally balanced as referenced in Randys recipe, then yes your calcium and alkalinity consumption should be equal. depending on you depletion rate it would be hard to determine the amount needed unless you manually dosed the two for a week or so and keep a written log of amounts dosed and fluctuations in parameters.

 

[seargentslice]

Im using the brs dosers as well and dosing B-ionic 2 part. What worked for me was to get my parameters to the desired numbers you want to keep your system at. Then dont dose anything for 3 days and retest make sure you perform your testing at the same time. So you can see what your system is using and divide it to get your daily amount to dose. I dose my alk into the 1st stage of my sump wher my skimmer sits over a 12 hr period when the DT lights are off. Cal dosed into the last stage of my sump in equal parts 30min offset from my alk dose. I perform test every 3 days and make miner adjustments to dosing if need be just what worked for me hope this helps Happy Reefin !!

 

[d2mini]

You really should be dosing equal amounts.
Trust me, from my own personal experience, if you try correcting for one and dosing much more than you are dosing for the other, it's going to end up being a constant battle.

 

[d2mini]

oops, i can't edit yet. Sorry for the extra post.
But to add to the above... when i was using Kalk in my ATO, this is basically adding equal amounts of both and everything was very stable. There is no way to add just one when using Kalk.
Then once my ATO was fully saturated and still not keeping up I had to start using 2-part dosing as well.