Dosing Alk and Cal In Equal parts?

TannerManno

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People say to always dose alk and cal in equal parts, and that it will balance itself out, but my tank uses far more Alk than Cal. Im just curious as to if its that important to dose equally. I dose 25ml of Alk a day and 5 ml of calcium. Parameters are staying stable, wondering if it will come back to bite me in the long run. Thanks for the help.
 

thatmanMIKEson

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Just basic 3 part (Randy's recipe), Acropower and a 3.5 gallon / day AWC. Still not really that happy, but corals are growing and look pretty good.

55.png
Looks good
 
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TannerManno

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Not giving advice but Randy's mix/brs 2 part is equal if your using it just trust the chemistry and dose as instructed dont think your situation is 1 off I don't know how it works but if you get on a regular dosing schedule it works and evens out, the information is all over the place on this site no need for new threads about it.....
So what do I do just just search all over to try to find another post talking about this topic? Does this site only allow for so many threads till it’s full and we can post any more? Just trying to figure out what the big deal about making a thread about a question I have.
 
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TannerManno

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Judging by those numbers, Im guessing you are using red sea foundation A and B?

Red sea is not intended to be dosed in equal parts but should be individually tested and dosed.

When people say "dose 2 parts" in equal parts, they are referring to the fixed ratio of how Alk and CA are consumed when making CaCO3 (coral bone). This is fixed at 2.8 DKH to 18 - 20 ppm CAL.

Some 2 parts are designed to match those concentration, like the ESV b ionic. Red Sea concentrations are not.

Red sea concentration raises 1DKh per 10ml Alk and 20ppm of Cal per 10 ml of calcium for a 25G volume. So, some simple math will show you that to match the ratio stated above, it would be 27ml of ALK to 9 to 10ml of CAL. So, as you can see, you are not too far off with yiur 25ml alk to 5ml CA.

Your tanks Alk consumption currently outpaces CA likely bc more alk is used to form MgCO3 - which forms to prevent abiotic precipitation from running high alk/ca. "Normal" MG consumption should be about 10PPM cal to 1 ppm MG. Im guessing your tank sucks up more MG than that? This phenomenon will slow down over time, im not sure why but I went thru the same situation. My theory is that MgCO3 has to come up to a certain levels to maintain CA and alk from abiotically precipitate, and right now it's still catching up to the level it needs to be. Once there, mgco3 will slow down, and so your Alk consumption will slow down too to match the level of CA consumption (probably around 15 to 17ml Alk to 5ml Cal)
Thank you. That really helps me out and makes sense. My mag got super high because I was using fritz salt and for some reason it was super high in mag so I switched salts and through water changes my mag has been slowly coming down. So I’m not 100% on how much mag my tank is consuming atm.
 
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thatmanMIKEson

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So what do I do just just search all over to try to find another post talking about this topic? Does this site only allow for so many threads till it’s full and we can post any more? Just trying to figure out what the big deal about making a thread about a question I have.
•Ummm yes
•no you can make as many as u want it just burries credible ones with rehashed information
•No big deal at all, that was not my main point.

My point this time
•is that the information is already out there for you to find, but if you'd rather people will do the work for you and drop the information in your lap have a good day
 
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TannerManno

TannerManno

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•Ummm yes
•no you can make as many as u want it just burries credible ones with rehashed information
•No big deal at all, that was not my main point.

My point this time
•is that the information is already out there for you to find, but if you'd rather people will do the work for you and drop the information in your lap have a good day
Yeah I’m kinda just trying to get to the point of getting the answer. Been going back and forth for awhile and seeing people do things different. And wanted to know the correct answer.
 
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