Do I need to dose for Alkilinity & Calcium?

[Kirklan]

Do I need to dose for alkilinity and calcium in my 12 gal nano or will my water changed take care of that (1 Gal/week). I plan on keeping soft corals and invertabrates. I have the B-Ionic 2-part buffering system and an Kent iodine supplement but was curious if I really need to add those or would my salt (Instant Ocean) from the water changes take care of it?

[tau626]

I say it depends on what you can test for. I was doing weekly water changes with IO salt and had hardly any corraline growth. I bought the salifert ca and KH test kits and found i had low levels of CA and KH. I dosed with sea chems Ca and the reef builder. Got my Ca levels up and my KH up, now I dose daily with b-ionic...now I got all sorts of corraline growth. Its been a month since I've started the seachem dosing, now I just do the daily b-ionic.

[Kirklan]

Do you just dose the recomended dosage (B-Ionic) or have you customized your dosage to meet your tanks consumption?

[surfy]

You will usually have to customize the dosage. I dose about 5ml alk and about 10-15ml ca to have the alk around 8-9dkh and ca 370-400 depending on my magnesium and phosphate levels.

I tried doseing equal parts but dosn't work for my tank. It usually ends up with higher alk and lower ca levels than I want.

It also depends on what you want to keep and the amount the stuff consumes each day.

My tank uses ruffly around 30ppm of ca each day. I dose to about 400 and 24 hours later it's around 370.

I have alot of sps,lps, and a couple clams in my 7g.

For softies and polyps you really don't have to worrie too much.

[zizmans]

Warner marine Calxmax is best dosing product IMO.

 

http://www.warnermarine.com/

[Physh1]

I doubt the water changes alone will keep your levels up. Only testing willt ell you for sure so you'll ideally need to do that. You'll also need to tune your dosing to the tank. The numbers given on all additives are baselines to work off of....rarely have I seen that work off the bat. Some adjustment is almost always needed. Like ti was mentioned earlier your tanks draw will change often witnnew corals, coral growth, coraline growth, etc so periodic adjustment will be needed.

 

Cameron

[tau626]

I've customized my dosing too. I dose around 5 ml of the ALk and about 3-4 ml of the ca....to keep a 9-10dkh and a ca of 380-400.

[MrKrispy]

I had to dose Ca a little heavy shortly after cycling. It was a great time to figure out the scheme with the Alk (using B-ionic also) before adding any livestock. I got to a sweet spot and only have to does Ca twice a week to my 10g. Some say you only have to do weekly water changes. Seeing that IO tends to mix low in Ca (<400) I find that hard to believe if they have corals in the tank. Test regularly, and good luck!

[Kirklan]

I was pretty sure that I would have to use B-Ionic and customize my dosage, but was wanting to run it by some more knowledgable people with nanos. I've started out doseing 2.5 ml of each part once a day (just setup Tuesday afternoon) for my live rock (lots of coraline) so that it doesn't bleach out. I'll get the test kit for Alk, Cal, Iodine (iodine for when I get my softies), and whatever else I need. Will it be alright for my coraline with my current dosage for a few days until I can get the test kits or should I raise it.