I do not have a par meter. I have a lux meter but misplaced it. I know it will turn up one day.
I use a salifert alk test kit and cross check it with an api test kit.
I only dose kalk and occassionaly some baking soda and baked baking soda, so I'm not adding other than carbonate alk except for whatever comes in with the salt mix and the Coralife salt which I use and others like RC and IO do not contain disproportionate amounts of borate, etc. as somesalt mixes like Seachem salt do.
There is no practical way to sort out the alk elements in a sample. The Seachem test will give you total alk and carbonate alk though but I haven't used that in years.
I am not a chemist or microbiologist.
I have a Master of Science degree in Public Adminsitration with a concentration in health care and a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Political Science. After 3 years in Army Intelligence(1967 to 70) , I worked for over 30 in New York State government in various positions including as the Director of the NYS Developmental Disabilities Service Office for Western New York including The West Seneca Developmental Center.
I have spent the 8 yrs of my retirement studying and practicing the hard sciences as they relate to reefkeeping.It's nice to know you can still learn something even when you are older and I try to do that everyday.
