Maintaining Alkalinity

[DeneBanger]

Originally Posted by TheNewGuy

DeneBanger, I actually read the article you got that analogy from just yesterday. and e46er, i will be making use of the baking soda method as soon as this bottle of reef fusion runs out. i might continue dosing with the stuff i have until i run out before tracking down the ingredients, but they will be much more ecinomical. I wasnt sure if my calcium would ever begin to drop. It has been 4-5 months and the difference between what the new salt mixes to and the aquarium had been minimal. It has maintained calcium just doing water changes.

thanks for the help guys. I will no longer be expecting the KH to rise much higher, and will keep an eye on calcium to see when it starts dropping.

I wasn't quoting from an article...it is just the way that I have always understood the relationship between the two. If your calcium is maintaining 480 just from doing water changes, then what I would do is hold off on the water changes for a while until you get the calcium level down then slowly bring you alkalinity in....then pick up on your water changes again. (If you have a heavy bioload then watch your nitrates while you are doing this, if they get too far out do smaller water changes).

By doing this you will have established a target set of parameters that you can maintain.