Ca levels low

[Chris A.]

My Ca level dropped to 320.What kind of Ca additeve/suplement do you recomend?

 

[RobboT]

What is your alkalinity?

Are you looking to raise just your Ca or your alkalinity too?

 

[Chris A.]

Just my Ca.My Alk is 10dkh wich i believe is good,Right?

 

[Piscevore]

Dowflake is cheap at Home Depot. Pour 2.5 cups of dowflake into a bucket with a 1 gallon line. Fill with water up to 1 gallon. Agitate. Bottle it up, for your 55 gallon tank, I would recommend about 20cc a day right now, since you have very little hard coral. Probably double or triple that once you've got a load.

 

[Piscevore]

For the Alk, you bake Baking Soda in the oven for around 1 hour at 300-350. Heat up water, dissolve this baked baking soda. Do the same thing, add the powder, then add the water, so you have a total volume of 1 gal. If some of the h20 boils off, you can always add more up to 1 gallon, so you know you have the same strength solution each time (assuming you used the same amount of powder, and it is uniform in composition)

 

[Piscevore]

You can thank mr randy homles farley for this fantastic remedy

 

[Moe_K]

Dowflake is the cheap method you want.

If you don't have some on hand and you really want to solve this problem right now, get some Kent Liquid Calcium or Seachem's Reef Complete.
Basically they're both Calcium Chloride.
That's pretty much what Dowflake is. You'd save a ton of money by going the Dowflake route.

 

[Mr. Slippery]

Can the dowflake be used in addition to other products? I currently dose bionic and my alk is fine but I have to add more of the part 2 for the CA. Could I use equal parts of bionic and also dose dowflake? it would be a lot cheaper.

 

[Moe_K]

Yeah, Randy wrote an article on home made 2 part solutions.
Dowflake was the big ingredient in the Ca part of the routine.
You can dose a Dowflake solution to get the Ca where you want, and maintain w/ B-Ionic.

 

[SherryQ]

Randy has alot of articles on calcium and alkalinity. I remember that you can use regualar baking soda (not baked) to raise the alkalinity. The baked baking soda I believe raises the PH while the unbaked does not.

Check out R.H-F. forum on reef central. Lot's of links to his articles.

Sherry

 

[Chris A.]

Thanks for the tips everyone.Off to buy Dowflake i go.

 

[Daragon]

B-Ionic

 

[Chris A.]

I would recommend about 20cc a day right now, since you have very little hard coral.

How much is 20cc

 

[Daragon]

Chris, I might have something that will measure out 20cc's for you.

 

[nunofs]

Chris, google is your friend: http://www.google.com/search?q=20cc+in+teaspoons

20 cc = 4.05768271 US teaspoons

Nuno

 

[Chris A.]

Thanks but i just found a conversion table

1cc = 1g = 1ml (approx)

 

[Chris A.]

Thanks Nuno.I did the same serch but for a conversion table.That`s where i got those #s.

 

[Chris A.]

Another dumb ? Is the 20cc to mantain my Ca or to raise it?

Recap my Ca was 320 last night.

 

[denvig]

Try this calculator

http://www.kademani.com/reefchem.htm

 

[Chris A.]

Thanks Dennis