How much Alk / Ca does your tank use in a day??

ithk21620 · Mar 19, 2014

I recently switched from a Ca reactor to dosing system since I was having a horrible time chasing numbers with the Ca reactor. I have been charting my Alk and Ca usage for the last week and a half and my tank seems to go through a lot of ALK in a day. Just wondering what everyone else goes through.

Currently I am dropping about 10ppm of CA per day and about 1.5dkh per day in ALK. Mag is steady at ~1400. Do these numbers seem right?

Tank is 3 years old, mixed reef with 25% LPS and 75% SPS. 150 gallon total water volume. PO4 and Nitrate at 0 (I run Bio Pellets)

Thanks

redfishbluefish · Mar 19, 2014

I have a 90 gallon mixed reef and use 55 mls each of Randy's two part. With alk, that's just shy of 1 dKH.

jservedio · Mar 19, 2014

ithk21620 said:
I recently switched from a Ca reactor to dosing system since I was having a horrible time chasing numbers with the Ca reactor. I have been charting my Alk and Ca usage for the last week and a half and my tank seems to go through a lot of ALK in a day. Just wondering what everyone else goes through.

Currently I am dropping about 10ppm of CA per day and about 1.5dkh per day in ALK. Mag is steady at ~1400. Do these numbers seem right?

Tank is 3 years old, mixed reef with 25% LPS and 75% SPS. 150 gallon total water volume. PO4 and Nitrate at 0 (I run Bio Pellets)

Thanks

My 20g is using just about the exact same thing (just under 1.5dkh/day) and I am pretty close to you on my mix of LPS/SPS. I was shocked how fast the amount of 2-part I had to dose ramped up and how little water changes do. I don't even have any really big colonies - most everything is a "small" colony or "mini" colony with a few frags all under 2 years old and I still go through that. I can't even imagine what it is going to be like in another year or two as things are really taking off. I would imagine it will get to the point where missing a single day of dosing will be enough of a shock to cause STN - it is already getting close to that threshold.

Rockhead · Mar 19, 2014

Im dosing 135ml alk and 110ml Cal on my 150 sps tank

mcarroll · Mar 21, 2014

Can you guys post your usage in ppm and dKH (like the OP) for consistency?

The mL you are dosing can vary with your mix, what brand of products you use, etc, so aren't all that comparable. I know some folks here are very loosey-goosey with how they put together Randy's Recipe, for example.

ppm and dKH (or meq/L) will be universal though.

-Matt

P.S. My tank is going through about 10 ppm of Ca per day, and about .5 meq/L (~1.2 dKH) of alkalinity. I dose about 200mL per day of each part of Randy's Recipe 2.

ithk21620 · Mar 21, 2014

mcarroll said:
Can you guys post your usage in ppm and dKH (like the OP) for consistency?

The mL you are dosing can vary with your mix, what brand of products you use, etc, so aren't all that comparable. I know some folks here are very loosey-goosey with how they put together Randy's Recipe, for example.

ppm and dKH (or meq/L) will be universal though.

-Matt

P.S. My tank is going through about 10 ppm of Ca per day, and about .5 meq/L (~1.2 dKH) of alkalinity. I dose about 200mL per day of each part of Randy's Recipe 2.

Very True. I use BRS products so the amount dosed by someone using Randy's Recipe will not be the same.