I dont think that I am very good at this dosing thing...

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jworth

jworth

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Sep 9, 2008
3,287
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Indianapolis
Just switched to Two Little Fishes C-Balance. I cant seem to get my alkalinity higher than 7 to 8. I would ideally like it to be 9 or 10. Calcium levels seem to be fine around 400-420. It was higher before I switched to C-balance (about 480). I am dosing 6 tsp of the Ca daily and just switched to 8 tsp Alk. The numbers that I just read were after a couple days of this dosing regimen. I was doing 6 and 6. I do 10 gallon water changes a week with RO/DI in this 125. Assuming my magnesium is appropriate, what should I do to get this tank where I want it? Really thinking about a calcium reactor so I dont have to fart with it.
 
also wanted to mention that my dosing never really seems to bring up Alk, yet Ca is fairly easy to raise. Using Instant Ocean right now and will be switching to Sea Chem Reef Salt in a few weeks. Heard much better reviews on the levels of their salt.
 
alk at 8 is fine as long as your ph is stable above 7.8 all the time. no need to raise it.

if mag was low calcium would be difficult to get over 400. but u can check it.

but if u want to raise alk for a personal preference, u can jump to 25 teaspoons max per day. this will raise alk 1.4 dkh. but to be safe i would try 12 teaspoons to start.
 
that would raise it that much but would it stay there? It seems like that would just make it fluctuate more and hard to maintain... am i wrong? I guess dKH 8 is ok, but it likes to hover around 7. It seems like even though I dose every day, the numbers never change whether I dose or not.
 
Do you dose alk and cal at the same time ?

I started to dose like that until I found out you should dose alk and cal at least 6 hours apart. I started doing that and now my levels are stable at 9.6 dKH and 410 Cal
 
Real question should be is your tank having issues? If not, there is not need to worry about all the added time dosing and testing.
 
here is what i would do. stop dosing for a few days and see how much alk or calcium drops. then u will know if u need to dose and how much.
 
mos90;5080134; said:
here is what i would do. stop dosing for a few days and see how much alk or calcium drops. then u will know if u need to dose and how much.
Click to expand...

good idea. I dosed this morning and I will test tonight and then not dose tomorrow and test.
 
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