does your tank consume equal parts of alk/calc?
 

greetings!

i am conducting this study for personal research purposes only. in my experience alkalinity is consumed faster than calcium in the tanks i have maintained. i'm curious if this is true for others, or if there is just an alk sink somewhere in these systems.

please vote in the poll and then, if you would be so kind, please post your results noting the system age, volume, salt used, type of alk/calc supplementation, and types of corals kept. also note how often you have to adjust one part or the other, if you do need to.

thanks for your help!
- ben

System is 2 years old, 140g. Lightly stocked with mostly SPS and a few LPS and other corals.
I used a Ca reactor to provide Ca and Alk. It seems that every few months I need to adjust the Ca up for whatever reason.

Right now my Ca is 350 and Alk is 11dKH. I have a feeling my Mg is not high enough though; I need to get a new test kit to check into that. I had it adjusted to 420/11 previously.

Tyler

thanks! perfect response.

72g bowfront, 100g total. 1.5 years old. Tropic Marin Salt. I top-off with kalk and keep an ALK of 9-9.5. I have to add calcium monthly, maybe 20-30ppm but I know it's because of water changes.

3 years, 25 gallon, Reef Crystals, litermeter doses ESV bionic & kalk top off 24/7, stony coral. need to bump kH ~ 1 or 2 time a month, when I notice it's down to 6.5 or so. I like it under 8, preferably 7-7.5.

I don't count adjustments needed from water changes, as it always requires some.

120gal---30gal fuge and 30 gal sump.
I dose calcium--kent turbo boost--granular- 1/2 tablespoon every three days.
Magnesium I dose once a week

alk---lately has not been stable because of pH(co2 problems in the house)
I find I can maintain it at 10.6 dkH and pH 8.2 for about 5 days and then the pH dips under 7.9 and the alk 8.2 or
at that point I use kent dKH--about six tablespoonfuls!! and the cycle repeats.
I am actually in the process of going to two part because of this

Ever since the fug light has been on 24/7 I been getting a huge amount of corraline in there---I think this is where the alk is going.

interesting results so far.

those of you who use more alk... do you use phosphate media? (gfo/phosban/rowaphos/etc)

120 gallons total, 2 years

each morning before the lights come on i dose
2 cap fuls of kent liquid calcium
3 1/2 cap fuls of kent dkh
(the bigger bottles with the bigger caps)

been at it like that for a long time and my tank is always on track.

not usually on the phosphate material. i used it for awhile a few months back to help with a cyno outbreak, and im not sure if it effected the alk or not.