New to dosing need some help

[Matt Kiely]

so i have always relied on waterchanges to replenish the calcium and alk i started a frag tank over the summer and now it is filled with tons of lps large colonies of hammers frogspawn duncans and lots of frags aswell anyways the demand for calcium and alk is way higher than i can keep up with just doing waterchanges so i just tested calcium and alk and calcium was 467 and alk was 5.2 i am dosing 2 part but you r supposed to do equal parts of both so my question is what should i do to get my alk in check so i can dose 2part correctly btw i was using hannah checkers for my alk and ca
Thanks for ur help

 

[gzr918]

alkalinity levels vary between reefer, but I've seen many recommendations aiming for around 10 KH for LPS. I run my mixed tanks at around 8 and have good growth in all. So depending on what you'd want, I'd slowly increase your alkalinity dosing. If you raise it too quickly you will shock your existing corals. So to bring it up from where it is now, it might take a couple weeks to raise it safely.
I would also test every day to be sure the alk is slowly increasing

 

[Matt Kiely]

Ok yeah i was gunna try baking soda to raise it in my top off water definitely slowly thank u for ur input it’s greatly appreciated

 

[Chris A.]

Try adding a dose and a quarter of alk and maintain calcium amount
If the calcium starts dropping and the alk doesn’t climb add a little more to each dose. Keep testing daily until you find your tanks happy point
You can add more of one or less independently until you can keep them stable at the numbers you desire

 

[gzr918]

Watch your pH if you're going to try baking soda. I would test the kH and pH of any solution you prepare just to be safe! Alkalinity buffer will also increase your pH but it will do so slowly if doses in increments

 

[Chlorinated]

Dont use buffers. Most have super high borate. They work to stabilize pH but will give you a false high alk reading because our test kits read borate as well as carbonate alk. Our corals utilize carbonate, not borate, and so you will notice reduced growth even though your alk will be at the appropriate levels.

Use baking soda or soda ash (baked baking soda). The former will increase your pH upon addition as opposed to lowering it. But don't chase pH. If your alk level is in range, youre pH should be just fine

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[Matt Kiely]

I calculated that in order to raise my alk to where i want it to b i need to add 7tsp of baking soda so over a 14 day period im going to add 1/4 tsp of baking soda in a gallon of topoff water every afternoon when i get out of work i think this will b slow enough for not a major swing with both alk and ph but still enough to keep bumping it up we will see how the next few days goes I appreciate all the help i will post back as this unfolds thanks again

 

[GraniteReefer]

Easiest way to reset calcium/alk to proper proportions is a 100% water change, then maintaining the levels at the desired amount or same as what your salt mixes at. My alk was at 5.6 and calcium at 369 also checked by Hanna checker and this is what I did to increase both to where I needed them, I know your differential is bigger but a 100% change will fix all problems. Old reefers will cringe at this reccomendation but thats because their approach is old, corals will be fine as long as temp and salinity is the same

 

[Den2636]

A little off but make sure your magnesium is at desirable levels before you dose anymore. Alk is kind of low, might have something to do with mag. When mag is info mid 1300 it will be easier to get alk up

 

[cilyjr]

but you r supposed to do equal parts of both

Why? I would dose according to demand.

Old reefers will cringe at this reccomendation but thats because their approach is old

Ha, really old reefers did this weekly (but that's because their approach was old)....

This is a hammer instead of a scalpel approach. Especially as we are talking about 1 parameter really. Though it's likely things will be ok a 100% water chance would require a place for fish. And I personally wouldn't want want alk to jump from 5.2 to 8 (or higher) in a matter of munutes I anecdotally believe this often triggers STN events. Also in my case this would require 250 gallons of salt water to be made up. That's impractical. So in theory everything will be ok, unless this is a small system with no fish I wouldn't do it.

Just slowly bump up alk and calcium will fall on it's own (though I would not worry about 467).