Dosing newb Question...

[Aaron Shapiro]

Hey All,

My 32g Biocube has been up and cycled for a month or so. I've got a good mix of softies and LPS in there, plus a couple of fish and a CUC. Testing my parameters my alk is at 9.4dkh whereas my calc is at 325ppm (haven't done mag yet). I'm using a Hanna Alk tester and Red Sea titration calc tester. There's a chance I'm messing the titration up but I've done it a couple of times...

All that said! I am fixing to place an order with BRS, I've been using Red Sea Coral Pro salt with my water changes so I was going to pick up a big bucket of that and then I was thinking I might grab the BRS 2-part starter kit to bring that calc up.

The way I understand it is, I can test when the kit arrives and dose to bring the level up to where I want (420ppm-ish) based on the BRS Calculator. Then wait a day or two and test again to see my consumption.

All this to say, am I thinking about this correctly? I'm in the process of setting up a second, larger, tank so I want to try and understand this before I begin to think about the SPS realm...

Thanks in advance for all your help.

-Aaron

 

[Peach02]

That is correct and a quick note, the more frequently you dose the more stable your tank

 

[UCF Alum]

Sounds odd your cal is 325 when using coral pro salt especially since your alk is still high. Maybe have your LFS test for you? Not sure what would be consuming the calcium and not the alk. If it’s only a softy/LPS tank you should be able to get away with just weekly water changes to keep your number stable. I wouldn’t start dosing a 1 month old tank yet.

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

That is correct and a quick note, the more frequently you dose the more stable your tank

Would it make sense that Calc and Alk would be so different? I thought that was sorta the basis for the concept of Kalkwasser, the two stayed proportional?

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Sounds odd your cal is 325 when using coral pro salt especially since your alk is still high. Maybe have your LFS test for you? Not sure what would be consuming the calcium and not the alk. If it’s only a softy/LPS tank you should be able to get away with just weekly water changes to keep your number stable. I wouldn’t start dosing a 1 month old tank yet.

Hm maybe, my LFS' test results have been pretty dubious in the past. May try a different one... To be clear, I just switched to the Red Sea before that I was using Fritz blue box.

 

[UCF Alum]

Hm maybe, my LFS' test results have been pretty dubious in the past. May try a different one... To be clear, I just switched to the Red Sea before that I was using Fritz blue box.

try testing a batch of freshly made seawater to check yourself and your testing.

 

[Peach02]

Would it make sense that Calc and Alk would be so different? I thought that was sorta the basis for the concept of Kalkwasser, the two stayed proportional?

im not very experienced in the chemistry side of this so I can't help here sorry

 

[Aaron Shapiro]

Gotcha, that I can do for sure.