Does this Alk/Ca consumption rate sound right?

[apexkeeper]

Setup is a 65 gallon display - 30 gallon sump. The only corals I have are 2 small GSP colonies, 1 small pulsing xenia colony, 6 red mushrooms about the size of silver dollars, 1 hairy mushroom about 4" in diameter, half a dozen zoa frags, and one tiny frogspawn branch.

I use fully saturated ESV kalkwasser for my top off on a 24-7 drip system (aprox 1 - 1.5 gallons per day)

I still need to dose about 5ml of alkalinity and calcium (Randy's recipe #1) daily to maintain my levels.

Just seems like I'm using as much Alk/Ca as tanks stocked 50 times more than mine.

Alk - 10 dkh
Ca - 440
Ph - 8.3
Mg - 1450

Does that sound right to you guys?

 

[ahmed_iAM]

Perhaps Randy might be the most qualified to answer this but check the area where the Kalk enters the aquarium water. It might be precipitating when it mixes with your saltwater.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That 5 mL is only about 0.1 dKH per day in that tank.

The limewater is supplying 1.5-2 dKH per day.

Together those seem reasonable to me if you have coralline growth (which would be the driver in that tank, along with abiotic precipitation).

 

[apexkeeper]

I don't see any excessive buildup on my pumps/heaters and never experienced any cloudy water so I'm not thinking I have any major precipitation issues at this point. I did have a odd problem with my sandbed hardening up in spots and people suggested it could be a precipitation issue but that has since stopped and I think I found the problem with that. Without going into detail I was dripping freshly mixed milky kalk water to my tank 24-7. I changed my method so now only clear kalk water enters my tank. After fixing that issue the sand bed problem magically stopped.

I do have an explosion of coraline on my glass that started over the past couple months. Didn't realize coraline could suck up that much alk and ca!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

OK, that may be reasonable then and I'd just keep up with the needed supplements.