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Kalkwasser vs calcium reactor (1 Viewer)

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Ok what would you guys recommend to dose a week or day

You should dose based off of your demand. Here’s the hard part people don’t like to hear...this requires testing.:)

Test your AlK and wait a few days and test it again. LOG the results. If it’s not fluctuating then wait 2 more days and test again. You will continue this until you find out what the demand is. Demand meaning if you test at 8 dKH and test again in 3 days and it’s dropped by 2 dKH down to 6 dKH...then you know it’s consuming about 0.66 dKH per day.

There is a possibility that the demand is extremely low with a new tank, very minimally stocked tank, soft coral tank, etc. So in this case you will be able to maintain with simple water changes or very minimal dosing.

IMO every new tank/ new reefer should start off with Kalk. Then move to 2-part and when you understand the balance of these two then you can set up a calcium reactor later on.
 
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Well I'm going to get around 12 frags of different coral once the tank has cycled and is ready to add fish, clean up crew and coral. So I want to be ready and have the tank loaded with what the coral need to grow. And then dose to keep it that way. As far as wc is concerned how much should I take out and how often. I did a wc once a week on my 90 but I want to go less this time around. I'm also going to be using tropic marin and red sea test kits.
 

mitchell77546

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I doubt very seriously you will need to dose anything for sometime. I only do 10-15% water changes and none of my parameters move. I’m using red sea salt and it’s spot on as far as what the label says it will yield. I think you would need substantially large colonies to require dosing calcium. Just my experience thus far and what makes sense to me.


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Isn’t AF a 2-part dosing method based of the balling method? None of these 2-parts are actually 2-parts except for ESV.
Not real sure what the bailing method is but AF has 3 separate liquids you dose, not 2.

and I know I can grow anything in these tanks, almost never do water changes, and have no changes to my salinity.
 

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The only way for a 2 or 3 part dosing to not impact salinity at some point from the chloride component of CaCl is to use Calcium Acetate Ca(C2H3O2)2.

Kalkwasser doesn’t impact salinity because it’s CaOH. Ca gets used for Calcium and OH alkalinity.

@Stickboy97 how much of the calcium component of AF are you dosing daily into your smallest tank and what volume is it? You have peaked my interest!
 
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Stickboy97

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The smaller of the 2 is a biocube 32. The doser runs 4 times a day at 12 ml each time, so 48ml. I have SPS, zoas, nems, xenia, a torch, acans & nems in the tank. Its been running with this setup for several years. If you look back to the sps colony I lost due to the big hurricane (Lauru I think) that hit Louisiana you can see the growth I have. It was the size of a volleyball, in a little biocube. I run my ALK around 8.

My biocube also has the RapidLed Kit added, so the LEDs are very bright & powerful.
 
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I also would like some input on a good testing kit. I've been looking at the red sea stuff for doseing and testing. Are there better ones out there
 
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I also would like some input on a good testing kit. I've been looking at the red sea stuff for doseing and testing. Are there better ones out there

I personally used Red Sea for Calcium and Mag. Hanna for Alk. Nyos for NO3. I’d look into Hanna for the NO3 now and see if it’s a quality tester like their ALK tester.
 
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