Just wanted to get an opinion on what I'm supplementing to maintain cal and alk, I have a 125 with a 30 gal sump and am dosing a third a cup a day of sodium bicarbonate and dripping 3 sec of kalk2 mixed by adding 8 tsp per 5 gal of water...my alk has been about 8 and cal 430 for about to weeks now does that seem like to much for the system. Trying to get my alk between 9 and 10
Maintaining cal and alk
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Randy Holmes-Farley
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A third of a cup of dry sodium bicarbonate? Do you add it dry?
puffer420
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And there he is. Randy I just gotta say it's great that you give such great info on the hobby. I was just dosing the kalk2 and my numbers were up and down. I couldn't keep my alk above 6 ph was below 8 and ca about 400. Which kinda has me puzzled. Since I started adding the sodium my numbers are going in The right direction but it seems like I'm adding an awful lot of supplements when I know just adding the kalk should do the trick. I ran a 125 for 3 years only adding kalk and my numbers were all on the high end of acceptable numbers. I don't add it dry I mixed it following the instruction.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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You should treat kalk+2 as if it were normal kalk, since it isn't any better. It doesn't actually have even as much magnesium as the cheap bulk magnesium oxide I used for many years, it doesn't have enough to maintain magnesium levels EVEN if it got into the tank, and no significant amount of the magnesium in it gets to the tank anyway since it is insoluble in kalkwasser. I have a big problem with the marketing of this product. As to the strontium, I don't consider that a useful additive for most reef tanks.
A third of a cup of dry sodium bicarbonate (assuming you meant a third cup before dissolving it) is boosting alk in 125 gallons by 5 dKH every day. That seems like a lot to me, unless you have a lot of fast growing hard corals.
If you mean a third a cup of the solution, that's only 1 dkh per day and is not unusually large.
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beaslbob
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it's actually calcium chloride for calcium, baking soda (or baked baking soda) for carbonate (alk), magnesium chloride and Epsom salts for magnesium.
You do a one time dose to get calcium/alk/magnesium in line. Then mix up 1 gallon solutions of calcium, alk, magnesium. When alk drops down you add equal amounts of the calcium and alk solutions. When you use up a gallon of those you add 300ml of the magnesium. Takes longer to read and explain the actually doing it.:wink:
materials are extremely inexpensive so much so that I gave then away at local club meeting and frag swaps.
see: An Improved Do-it-Yourself Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Supplement System by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
(from stickie this forum)
my .02
