Alk and calcium manual dosing

Jsm · May 23, 2022

Hello,
I'm quite new to this hobby and dosing so please bear with me if the answers to my questions are too obvious. I have a red sea 250, with mostly sps frags. I'm facing a drop in alk of around 1.5 dkh per week, and 30-40 ppm of calcium in same period (if my testing with hanna is correct). My alk is normally stable at 8 dkh and i would like to have my calcium at around 440 ppm. I have used around 35 ml red sea alk/kh liquid per week, mixing it into ATO (weekly evaporation is around 17 liters). My question is how to dose my red sea calcium liquid, according to my numbers i should compensate my weekly loss by around 35-45 ml. As i understand i should avoid dosing at the same time, but can i dose calcium directly into display or sump, like 2,5 ml morning and evening? Thanks for help,

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 23, 2022

Calcium dosing times and locations are not very important. Just add it in a way that it mixes in before getting to delicate organisms. The sump is fine and once a day is plenty at the dose you are needing.

Jsm · May 23, 2022

Great, thanks for quick answer!

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 23, 2022

You’re welcome.

Happy Reefing!

Mark Bradley · Jun 24, 2022

I use the Redsea doser for the KH and calcium - spreads the dosing slowly over the day. Check during the week for any change in amounts but generally very stable.

Simon_M · Jul 31, 2022

Using the Red Sea Doser is ideal for introducing Supplements. The Foundation A, B and C should really have been called C, B and A for the Magnesium, Alkaline and Calcium. Dosing Supplements would then have been as simple as ABC... and not in the order CBA.

The Red Sea Doser 4 (I have two of them) are not linked so the dosing of individual Supplements is staggered across Doser Heads only within individual Dosers. There is a setting for the Doser that delays the release of Supplements e.g. on the hour, ten minutes past, twenty past etc. The Manual for the Foundation Supplements (worth a read) does explain the order of dosing to avoid precipitation and also the interaction between the three Supplements. That's not unique to RS Products.

I haven't been successful at elevating the dKH to the levels required for some of the Red Sea Recipes. That is despite adding the KH Supplement over 24 hours using the Doser. Since all the Recipes are using Red Sea Salt that has elevated levels of Supplements I have switched to a lower dKH Recipe. This means not aiming for a dKH of 11.5 or 12 and instead setting a Target for dKH of 8. I'm introducing Red Sea Salt (Blue Bucket) in weekly water changes of about 10% from Red Sea Coral Pro. I'm now only using the Red Sea Mixed Reef Option 3 Recipe because I haven't reached a point where I know why I might want to deviate away from this. I'm not chasing numbers but just aiming to be going in about the right direction.

I also haven't been successful at lowering Magnesium that is now at about 1560 ppm. The Red Sea Coral Pro may have contributed to the high level through a combination of 10% weekly Water Changes and a limited take-up by Corals in a newish Tank (no SPS and few LPS Corals). If the Red Sea Salt provides a mix of Supplements that is about equal to my desired levels and Supplements replace them so that it is stable then I will consider the combination successful.