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Starting 2 part and Kalk


Bpb

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Sorry I know this topic has been beat to death on every single forum on the web, I've been reading. What I gather at this point is slowly dosing kalkwasser as your ato is an excellent way to maintain ca and alk in a low to moderate demand tank. It's also ideal to boost your levels to desired amounts before beginning kalk dosing, which can be easily done through 2 part. I've just ordered a set of the pre-packaged 2 part recipe from bulk reef, the one that uses soda ash and calcium chloride. I'm shooting for 420 ca, 8 dkh, and 1400 mg.

Currently I am at 350 ca, 6 dkh, and 1250 mg. All on the low end. I've got a handful of sps frags, in a 55 with sump and fuge, and halimeda growing in the main display. I think that is probably a big factor in driving my calcium down so low. I'm trying to prune it more often. That's out of the way

I still am just not sure how to dose this stuff. I get how to mix it. I get how to use the calculator, and I've read the articles and watched the brs.com videos.

When boosting ca, alk, and mg, when does one dose and how much at a time. The consensus is "slowly." How slow is slowly? Does that mean pouring slowly from a bottle. does that mean adding half a cup a few times a day until i've dosed the recommended amount? or does that mean diluting the dosages in a gallon and dripping them all day? How slow is "slowly?"

And also, what order do I boost them in? Calcium, or alk first? Morning or night? Magnesium when? I've got two aqualifter pumps that can be used, just dont know how fast, when, and in what order to add this stuff.

I understand that rapidly increasing alk/ph can cause precipitation.

Once I am able to create my basline numbers I'll start slowly adding kalk to my topoff water.

Thanks for the advice! This is always the one place I am able to get clear and fast answers.

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What I would suggest is doing a 20% water change first to get your parameters higher up. Then test what your at then head over to BRS Reef calculator and plug in your numbers and it'll tell you what you need to dose. Do not increase alkalinity levels more than 0.5meq/lt or 1.4 dKH per day or Calcium more than 50 ppm per day. A slow drip over the course of an hour is fine. What I would do is fill your dosing container with RO/DI water and practice with that until your confident it's not going to just dump everything at once.

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That's pretty much exactly what I was asking for. How to physically dose it without pumps. I'll do another water change this weekend before I start dosing, and find out what I need to dose to keep with the daily minimums and just do that until my tests turn out where I need them.

My only question now is WHEN do I dose each? Can I just add all 3 at the same time or do I say dose mg until it is to desired level. Then alk, then calcium. Or do a bit of each every day to achieve daily minimum amounts of increase?

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I does Alk then wait 10 minutes then CA. You usually only have to dose MG every 2 weeks or more so I would dose that at a different time. If your not going to use your aqualifters then you can use the gravity fed bottle method. I think either way you need a way to control the drip. I use aquarium airline valves but some people use IV drips and others just tie knots in their tubing, and others have them on a dosing pumps.

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I also find that I dose ALK daily and CA every other day but what I would suggest since you haven't started dosing yet is to get a notepad and test right now. Then tomorrow test again. The difference is what you need to dose daily. This will give you an idea but I would do this again once you do your water change and get everything as close to baseline as you can.

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Thanks Brian! That's exactly what I needed to know. Seems like basic questions but after reading thread after thread I couldn't seem to find those specific answers. I'm going to just be adding kalk to my ato water for now after I get my baseline achieved through 2 part. I'll be starting very weak, like a teaspoon for 5 gallons, and testing daily until I dial it in just right. I expect this to take a couple weeks probably but better to go super slow with low amounts.

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I currently dose 4 tsp per gallon for a total of 20 tsp into a clear gallon jug that you can get from rudy's tea. Once everything is settled then I use an straw attached to the airline tubing and run a gravity fed into my ATO to only pull out the clear solution which takes 24 hours to settle and add 1 cup of vinegar then 4 gallons of RO/DI.

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It's really nothing fancy. I use the following items to make the gravity fed doser.

$7 Air Pump http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12264885&f=PAD%2FpsNotAvailInUS%2FNo

$7 25ft Silicone Airline Tubing http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3742977&f=PAD%2FpsNotAvailInUS%2FNo

$3 3-way gang valve http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752202&f=PAD%2FpsNotAvailInUS%2FNo

$8 Air control valve http://www.walmart.com/ip/19245229?adid=22222222227015039331&wmlspartner=wlpa&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=&wl3=15711694150&wl4=&wl5=pla&veh=sem&adid=22222222227015039331&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=&wl3=15711694150&wl4=&wl5=pla&veh=sem

Gator Aid bottle for Alk - Orange Trimmed bottle

Smart Water bottle for CA - White Trimmed bottle

It's better to use 2 different bottles so you don't have a build up from alk/ca reacting.

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Also, when you say you use "x-amount of tsp per gallon", do you mean teaspoon or tablespoon? I always knew tsp as teaspoon but saw some videos where they were using 1 or 2 TABLEspoons per gallon to mix up their kalk

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