Having Ca issues. How much do you dose a day?

oldpaddy

New member
Hello hello, I am trying to dial in my doser. Specifically Ca. I bought a cheap Jaboe a couple of weeks ago and I just can't get Ca right. I'm slowly turning up the dosage every day. Today I turned it up to 72ml a day (3ml an hour) from 58ml yesterday and 48ml the day before that. Yesterday morning I was at approx 420 ca (API), and this morning I'm at 400ppm.
I keep changing the Ca dosage daily, so it's hard to keep track of what my daily dosage is. I would guess I'm going through 30-50ppm of Ca a day. Before the doser I'd add 60g of red sea ca 2-3 a week. I keep detailed records of everything I do.

How much do you have to dose daily?

I'm using dry red sea calcium (forget which letter). I mixed up 550g of Ca and one liter of water.
I'm using B-ionic for alk (24ml a day). Alk has been steady at 10dkh for over a week.

220gal tank, 55gal sump/refugium on a reverse schedule. It's been up for almost a year. Weekly 30gal wc.
0 no3 (gha though)
1470 Mg last week
400 ca
10 dkh (stable)
Mixed reef. Tons of frags and corals of all sorts and types. Growth is good.
LED lights.

Thanks guys!
 
One of the problems that you're facing is that our calcium test kits are fairly imprecise at that level. The 400 ppm and 420 ppm measurements might correspond to the same level or at least be from samples that are much close than 20 ppm apart. An error of ±10 ppm is very good, and might be optimistic. That's why we recommend using a two-part and testing calcium much less frequently than alkalinity. I'd probably mix up the equivalent of the B-Ionic calcium solution, and dose to match the alkalinity for a while. You could test calcium daily if you'd like, but I would adjust the dose after a week or so.
 
What are you using to test mag and alk also? Does API make a mag test kit ? Either way I agree with bertoni, when trying to dial in a automated way of dosing, wether it be dosing pumps or a Cal rx , having proven test kits that are not only accurate, but consistent as well is key. When dialing in a automatic replenishing mineral supply method it's important to test at the same time each day, there should be no w/c or other dosing going on during "the dial in" period. Therefore it's important to have your levels where you want them, first, then incorporate the doser/Calrx and tune.
(Remember with automated dosing with either a auto doser or a calcium reactor, you need to pick a brand of salt that is similar to the alk/cal/mg levels you wish to keep, esp if you are an avid waterchanger, this prevents swings and "creep up" of parameters)

I'm not going to trash talk, but I just want to say, be careful with those cheap jebao dosers, might be wise to use a smaller resivour for the alk component JIC it stays on for a mysterious reason.

Just my .02
 
Before the doser I'd add 60g of red sea ca 2-3 a week. I keep detailed records of everything I do.

How much do you have to dose daily?

let's take the average of your nanual dosing routine.

2.5 x 60g = 150g / week

dissolve 150g of your calcium supplement in 700ml of water (i'm assuming it will all dissolve) - i picked 700ml because the math is easy ;)

now set your doser to dose 100ml of this solution per day

that will set your automated dosing on the same schedule as your manual dosing.

you can play with the amount of liquid and concentration when/if you want to make it more or less saturated...


J.
 
let's take the average of your nanual dosing routine.

2.5 x 60g = 150g / week

dissolve 150g of your calcium supplement in 700ml of water (i'm assuming it will all dissolve) - i picked 700ml because the math is easy ;)

now set your doser to dose 100ml of this solution per day

that will set your automated dosing on the same schedule as your manual dosing.

you can play with the amount of liquid and concentration when/if you want to make it more or less saturated...


J.
I was just did a similar calculation and then I logged in here.
I like the way you think!

Thanks all, I know the doser is a piece of junk and I'm not doing myself any favors by using different brands of alk and Ca when I could just use bionic for both. I'm using up the supplies I had and when I run out I'll probably just go with bionic for both alk and Ca.
I'm using api for ca and alk testing, and salifert for mg.
My ca uptake seems high to me, but I guess it isn't. I do have a lot of corals and a ton of coralline algae growing on my overflows and in my sump walls. If only it would spread faster on some of the Marco rock I have. I've had the Marco rock dating back over two years and there's very little coralline algae on it.
 
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