Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNewGuy
Hello all,
I have had my 75g running for 4-5 months now, with great success so far! I have 2 true percs that seemed to change colors, and much to my delight ended at a nice black on top fading to orange on the bottom color. As well 1 blue/green chromis (bad experience and ended up losing a few others to a cycle in the Q-tank, ans well as powerheads  , and the new addition, a one spot foxface that is getting fatter by the day.
the corals are also doing good. 1 colony of emerald palys, a bunch of kenya trees, 1 group of zoas that ive had for a couple months and 2 newly added zoas.
my question is about the best method for maintaining alkalinity. The h2ocean salt im using mixes out to 480ppm calcium and 1400 mg, so with regular 10g per week water changes, i have never had to dose either. but alkalinity is a different story. thus far ive been using seachem reef fusion 2 to raise the kh when it drops below 7-8. from what ive read, the 2 part systems are supposed to be used together though. I have been toying with the idea of trying kalkwasser, but from what ive read that also raises calcium, for which im not in need of.
would it be ok to continue using just the alk dose of a 2 part dosing system, or is there a better way? |
Let me give you an example to help you understand the relationship between calcium and calcium carbonates (alkalinity) think of a goldfish bowl full of marbles. So for the sake of the illustartion let's say that the gold fish bowl can only hold 500 marbles and no more without spilling them over the top. Now let's say blue marbles represent calcium and white marbles represent calcium carbonates (or your alkalinity level). Now there are 480 blue marbles (you said your calcium was at 480) that only leaves room for 20 white marbles (representing your low alkalinity measurement), in order to raise your alkalinity some of the blue marbles have to be removed so that they can be replaced with white marbles. With a high calcium measurement of 480 my assumption is that you have measured freshly mixed SW, but if you run the water in the tank you will see that after about a week your calcium levels will start to drop, as it does so there is room to start bringing your alkalinity up....but not beforehand. Ideally you want your tank's calcium level to be around 400 so that there is "room" for you to run your alkalinity levels around 8-10 dKh.
So in maintaining your calcium/alakalinity you have to manage this teeter-totter relationship.
Hope this makes sense to you.