How much two-part is too much

[MO Will]

Thanks for all the input

Here is an update

12/19/07 I turned my two part dosing down from 750 ml/day to 250 ml/day

Since then I have had a decrease in calcium/alk but not as bad as I thought

I also ordered some new test kits (API) and have some ELOS on the way as well

I did find out that my pH is a little higher than I thought

I recalibrated the pH probe and I see that my pH is now running 8.3 - 8.4 (I thought it was 8.1 - 8.2) I confirmed this using an API high pH test kit and with a second pH probe

I had struggled for a long time with low pH and I seemed to have made quite a bit of progress on this front by plumbing my skimmer air intake to the outdoors

On 12/29 my water parameters were:

Ca++ 340 API 330 Salifert
Alk 7-8 API 7.2 Lamotte
Mag 1400 Salifert
Nitrate 2.5 Salifert
Phos 0 DD Merck

I convert the Lamotte test kit results to dKh by multiplying by 0.056

Lately I do seem to be having more of a drop in calcium then in alkalinity

I don't really understand this as one would predict that alkalinity would be more likely to drop

So, recently I have I tended to end up in Zone 3 - not sure why

I estimate my toal tank volume minus rock at 150 gallons - this seems to be somewhat accurate as if I use the calculator to calculate calcium deficit and dose that amount over several days it seems to correct the problem

My sps still look good and seem to be growing but they definitely seem to like a calcium of 400 better then 330

The only thing that I have done differently is in the last week I refilled my 44 gallon brute limewater reservoir with ro/di but didn't add any more kalk. I figure that if I use less than saturated lime water then it may not raise the pH so much and this may decrease the risk of abiotic precipitation. Of course I really don't know at this point if the limewater is saturated or not because I am not really sure how much kalk was at the bottom of the brute reservoir

Finally I am seriously thinking of a calcium reactor although I want to solve this issue before I try to tackle a calcium reactor

Again thanks to all for reading the thread and providing input

Things seems to be moving in the right direction

I guess if I take the jdieck strategy I will correct the calcium deficit first to see what the alk loss is if the calcium is 400 rather then 330

[MO Will]

Just a few pictures of my tank - sorry I am not a photographer yet

Topdown:



FTS:

[Zedar]

Well for someone thats been swinging their calc/alk up and down, your tank sure dont look affected.

Nice

[MO Will]

Thanks Zedar

My calcium was 320 this PM

By the calculator I need 1.5 liters of Part 1 to boost calcium to 420

Will try to do that over the next 48 hours and then stop dosing Part 2 to assess alk demand

Will