DIY Dosing

DRC Archive Help and Advice
1

Thanks to Matt I’ve dove into the 2-part DIY recipes. I ordered a doser and am really looking forward to getting more consistent calcium and alkalinity readings in my tank. I’m going to start off with 1ml per gallon and track my tank’s parameters but my question deals with the initial dose.

I’m still continuing to run Kalkwasser in my ATO so I’m using recipe 2 here: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/

I’m using 1 1/4 cups of Peladow Calcium Chloride with 1 Gallon of water and 1 1/8 cups of uncooked baking soda with 1 Gallon of water.

My tank is currently at 390 Calcium and 9.5 Alkalinity.

Step 1 is to bring the Calcium up (I was thinking of taking it to 420). The calculator hyperlink that tells how much of Solution 2 A to add to my system is broken.

I know BRS has a calculator but I’m not sure if it’s referring to the same solution I made.

Any idea how much Calcium 2 solution I’d need to add to 275 gallons to take it from 390 to 420?

2

Actually, I think I found it here: http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

I believe the drop down I want is “Randy’s Recipe 2 Calcium Part”.

So about 56.9 oz.

3

two suggestions,
1: get rid of the kalk in the ATO, I use to run kalk in my ATO and PH would be OK but spikes would happened since getting rid of it it’s been much better and corals are happier too.
2: start with half mm per gal and work up from there.

4

Do you use Randy’s recipes?

5

I use BRS 2 part, and with that and about 25 SPS frags in a 120 I dose 54 mg of each.

6

I believe Randy’s 2nd recipe is less than half as concentrated as the BRS 2-part which is why he recommends 1ml per gallon to start for a mixed reef.

I added 2 cups of the 7 I need to take the calcium up to 420. The math seemed to work. I went from 390 to 400 today.

7

I have some new unopened brs stuff if your intrested

8

If you have the Magnesium components, I’d be interested. I’m set on calc, alk and kalkwasser for the forseeable future.

9

I think i do, i will check when get home later

10

Jason, Jason has one jug of the BRS magnesium chloride and one jug of the Soda ash!

11

[quote=“mortyn02, post:10, topic:9022”]
Jason, Jason has one jug of the BRS magnesium chloride and one jug of the Soda ash![/quote]

THANKS MATT!

12

I believe the recipe calls for Magnesium Chloride and Epsom Salts for the magnesium portion. I’ve got slightly elevated magnesium as is from reef crystals so I wasn’t messing with that part just yet.

13

[quote=“Hudzon, post:3, topic:9022”]
two suggestions,
1: get rid of the kalk in the ATO, I use to run kalk in my ATO and PH would be OK but spikes would happened since getting rid of it it’s been much better and corals are happier too.
2: start with half mm per gal and work up from there.[/quote]

Just a quick update. Having a little trouble getting the levels where I want them so I took your advice and pulled the kalkwasser. So far so good. Levels are slowly dropping and PH seems stable enough.