How much 2 part are you dosing?

Varmette

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Just wondering how much 2 part you are dosing in your tanks for calcium and alkalinity? If possible include your tank size and stocking levels. I have a 120 and controlling mine through and Apex and DOS setup.
 

Ron Reefman

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That's a crazy question to try an answer. Are you trying to figure out how much you should be dosing? If so, there is an easy way rather than asking your question.

Issues include:
tank size
amount of stony corals
type of Ca & alk you are using
dilution of Ca & alk
frequency of dose (I assume you want a daily total?)

I have two 4g aio tanks. One is full of stony corals the other has none. I dose Mag Flake and swimming pool soda ash per Randy Holmes-Farley's mixing instructions. And I dose once a day, everyday.

I dose 50ml of Ca and 25ml of alk to the coral tank and 40ml of Ca and 20ml of alk to the non-coral tank.
 
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Varmette

Varmette

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I had a 5 year old well established 60 cube that I recently upgraded to a 120. I used most of the rock from the 60 along with about the same amount of dry rock (which I cycled and kept under lights for about 5 months) and new sand. I have several LPS and softies along with some small SPS corals. I find that I am having to dose 150+ ml of alk and 60+ ml of calcium per day to hold levels with my Apex trident and DOS handling the monitoring and dosing. I am using DIY 2 part. I feel like these are high levels for a tank that is not all that full of coral. I have verified the numbers with test kits and hanna checkers and the Apex Trident is pretty close in test results. was just wondering if my dosing levels were excessive or not.

Thanks for the feedback
 

Lavey29

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My tank is a heavily stocked 65g DT with 15g sump. It is SPS dominant mixed reef. I dose 45ml of alk during the day and 45ml of calcium overnight.
 

apb03

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I run a 100G DT and 50G Sump and dose 40ml AFR + 5L of Kalk, SPS dominant. Tank has been running for a year now and is doing great.

Considering moving to 2-part and away from AFR at some point.
 

Cichlid Dad

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I would not rely on anyone else on how much they dose. Each tank is different. Here is a calculator. Brs two part is cheap and easy.
Edit: I didn't see your last post explaining why you asked. Sorry. This is still good info though
 
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jandin101

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80ml of all for reef and top off with kalk.. 350!gallons of water sps dominated tank.
I'm interested in your system: How concentrated is your kalk solution in the ATO? What kind of ATO do you have? I'm considering doing something like this too because I like the pH benefits of kalk but am worried about the lack of trace elements, so I would like to dose some AFR as well.

My system is relatively young, much smaller (75gal), and pretty low demand. At the moment, I'm dosing 120ml/day of kalk at the 2tsp/1gallon concentration with a doser and that's keeping my calcium, alkalinity, and pH really stable. I use a cheap ATO with a sensor and it tends to just dump water into the sump. It will kick on maybe 20 times a day and top off a little under a gallon a day. My biggest concern is that my ATO may be putting too much in at once and I may get random pH spikes.

I'm also considering if dosing an extremely diluted solution of AFR in the ATO would also work for what I want to do and maybe pose less of a risk of spiking pH like kalk would if something goes wrong.
 

Troylee

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I'm interested in your system: How concentrated is your kalk solution in the ATO? What kind of ATO do you have? I'm considering doing something like this too because I like the pH benefits of kalk but am worried about the lack of trace elements, so I would like to dose some AFR as well.

My system is relatively young, much smaller (75gal), and pretty low demand. At the moment, I'm dosing 120ml/day of kalk at the 2tsp/1gallon concentration with a doser and that's keeping my calcium, alkalinity, and pH really stable. I use a cheap ATO with a sensor and it tends to just dump water into the sump. It will kick on maybe 20 times a day and top off a little under a gallon a day. My biggest concern is that my ATO may be putting too much in at once and I may get random pH spikes.

I'm also considering if dosing an extremely diluted solution of AFR in the ATO would also work for what I want to do and maybe pose less of a risk of spiking pH like kalk would if something goes wrong.
I would use straight all for reef if it wasn’t gonna break the bank! lol. I love that product and swear by it after using it now for several months.. I use kalk to help ph, and offset the cost of the all for reef.. I dump 2 cups into a 20 gal resi and let it do its thang with my cheap aqua auto top off pump.. my tank evaps 2-5 gallons depending on the season obviously which right now being cold and dry I lose a lot more water than the summer months.
 

Cichlid Dad

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I would use straight all for reef if it wasn’t gonna break the bank! lol. I love that product and swear by it after using it now for several months.. I use kalk to help ph, and offset the cost of the all for reef.. I dump 2 cups into a 20 gal resi and let it do its thang with my cheap aqua auto top off pump.. my tank evaps 2-5 gallons depending on the season obviously which right now being cold and dry I lose a lot more water than the summer months.
Have you tried the powder?
 

Cichlid Dad

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That’s what I use.. I’m not paying a premium for ro water haha.. I’d guess I’d use 150-200 ml a day without any other supplements.
Ouch! I'm 14ml AFR. + Kalk+ 2 part.
 

prcardinal91

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120 ml cal and 130 ml alk BRS 2 part before I pulled a huge monitpora and some big torts. Now I am dosing 90 ml of both until I get everything balanced. 150 gallon sps dominant. Kalkwasser to top-off
 

Reeferbadness

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As some others said, it really can vary on the tank, corals, etc. I have 2 systems, 1 x 180g and 1 x 200g mixed reef tanks. I vary Alk and Calcium dosing based on testing results. In general, to keep Alk at 8.5 and Calcium at 440 i dose Alk a bit more than Calcium (ie Alk 40ml and Calcium 32 ) but again, this really depends on what i'm seeing with my parameters and adjust accordingly.
 

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