Randy's 2 part vs Aquaforest

[Xclusive Reef]

I am a long term user and fan of Randy recipe 1 which costs near to zero and maintains really stable Ca and Alk. I never do the Mg third part because my Mg never seems to deplete..? I do water changes about 10% weekly or a little less.

do you add anything else like amino acids, vitamins elements etc ?

 

[Mindi]

sure..i was only talking about alkalinity and calcium. I add Seachem Reefplus thats all apart from food

 

[powdertang05]

I was looking into this as well. In the past i used BRS two part, mag and kalk. I guess ill i'm missing is trace elements. What my salt provides should be enough correct?

 

[Xclusive Reef]

I was looking into this as well. In the past i used BRS two part, mag and kalk. I guess ill i'm missing is trace elements. What my salt provides should be enough correct?

yea but to a certain point. as your tank develops its going to need more and more. then you going to have to up introduce elements and probably do calc and alk separate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

To be honest, this didn't convince at least me. I know about what is going using the 2/3 part salts chemically wise.

Regarding the "ionic balance" i find it MUCH more important to dose in a way matching tanks parameters correctly, than sticking to a 100 % "ironically based dosing recipe". This is a huge difference.
We know that our tanks consume Ca / Alk /Mg very often NOT in a balanced ratio.
Should I know continue a dosing that does not correct this parameters?? This is also ionic dis-balance.
My recommendation is clearly to correct in a way (even if it is dis-balanced dosing), in order to keep the parameters where they should be in our tanks.like natural seawater.
E.g. Not with Ca levels >> 500 just for the sake of Alk not dropping into a much to low range

Also your article does not describe why expensive premixed solutions should be better than if you DIY it. Cooking with water .....

Sorry for any criticism AND knowing that my opinion is somehow against what some people including companies selling expensive pre mixed solutions try to keep us thinking

Martin

lol

I think that far, far too many people think they have imbalance demand when in reality they do not. It is not the case that "all tanks are different" in calcium to alk demand. In fact, they are close to the same. The recipe is clearly not perfect, in part because i made a minor error in formulating (which Jim pointed out) it, and partly because most folks measure by volume which for solids is inherently prone to substantial errors.

Aside from water changes with a mix that does not match the tank, the things that can lead to imbalanced demand are quite fw and minor and I have detailed them in an article linked below.

Why do you think that folks using just limewater or just CaCO3/Co2 reactors do not constantly complain about imbalanced demand? Because they watch long term and find it really isn't, aside from slow drifts.

When Do Calcium and Alkalinity Demand Not Exactly Balance? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-12/rhf/index.htm

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As to ionic balance, I really have no idea how important that actually is, so while B-ionic may be a better product than my DIY, I do not actually know how much anyone's reef tanks might suffer because of it.

I'm not convinced it is critical, or I wouldn't have published the recipe. In retrospect, since so many people use it (either fully DIY or from companies that devised their own two part based on it) to have a nice reef tank that one can clearly say that it can be used and have a great tank.

Could that same tank be "better" using a fully balance two part? Maybe.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I am a long term user and fan of Randy recipe 1 which costs near to zero and maintains really stable Ca and Alk. I never do the Mg third part because my Mg never seems to deplete..? I do water changes about 10% weekly or a little less.

Probably because you salt mix has so much to begin with and the depletion is so slow relative to the other two that you have a hard time seeing it with a hobby kit . At most, the magnesium depletion rate is about 1/10th of the calcium rate.

The magnesium portion added in the suggested ratio likely won't raise magnesium that much either. It will just keep it were the salt mix first put it (approximately), but if magnesium actually gets too high, not using it is OK.

How much alk in dKH are you adding each day?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was looking into this as well. In the past i used BRS two part, mag and kalk. I guess ill i'm missing is trace elements. What my salt provides should be enough correct?

That's hard to say. It isn't just trace elements that are missing (minor elements too), but experimenting with trace element additives is a fine idea.