Dose amount Randy's Recipe 1

[Niels V]

I started a new tank recently; it's a reefer 170 and it has been up for about three months. There are no corals in there at the moment, but coral algae are growing. Currently I am dosing 45ml of alkalinity, 45ml of calcium and 200ml of Limewater (1/2 tbsp dissolved in 2 liters of water) each day to keep my alkalinity stable. I dose Randy Holmes-Farley's Recipe #1. Currently alk is 8.0, Cal 450 Mag 1425 pH 8.18. The amount I dose seems a lot to me, but I a have no comparison. First time I dose soda ash, in the past I only used sodium bicarbonate. What do you think?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Assuming a reefer 170 is a 34 gallon system, then you are adding this much alkalinity:

1.8 dKH per day via the two part
less than 0.2 dKH via the limewater


Is 2 dKH per day too much? Depends. A soft coral tank can use that much, if it has growing coralline algae.

If you stop the limewater and let the ph drop a bit, and maybe even switch to sodium bicarbonate, you may find the demand drops if there is substantial precipitation.