Randy's 2 Part- dosing more ALK than Ca?

dudemeister

dudemeister

New member
I haven't seen any posts here in a while so thought I would throw this out there.

I switched from BRS 2 part to Randy's a few months ago. Everything is healthy and happy as far as I can see including my wallet. I use Peladow for the Ca and baking soda (baked) for the ALK. My Ca level seems to keep creeping up. My levels right now are Ca 500+, ALK 9.8 and Mg 1450. Its really weird but the Ca level has gone up over the last 2 months so I have been decreasing the dosing to the point where I am now dosing a lot more ALK than Ca which is odd right? I now dose 175ml of Ca, 225ml of ALK and 30ml of Mg per day. My system is around 150 gallons of mixed hard and soft.

Like I said everything seems fine but I thought it was weird enough to see if anyone had any thoughts. Thanks!
 
I can't speak to why you'd be needing less calcium now than before but I was also thinking about using Randy's two-part dosing system. I have been mulling it over a lot lately.

Let me ask you this: are you dosing the same amount of calcium and just increasing the baking soda or are you dosing the same amount of baking soda and less calcium?

I'm curious if your baking soda is absorbing water from the air and maybe needs to be baked again? Who knows...just a crazy question, really.

What's Peladow? That ice melt stuff? It's calcium chloride, right?

Man, I gotta think about this from a chemistry perspective. I wonder if it's got something to do with one precipitating in the tank more than the other?!? I know when one gets boosted high, the other can precipitate. I know when your calcium is super high, your compounds that make up the alkalinity component start to precipitate. I wonder if your calcium is so high that it's precipitating the alkalinity stuff (bicarbonates and whatnot). I'm not the absolute best chemist in the world so you'll have to forgive me. Hmmmmm...I don't know!

I'm glad you started a thread though! I was hoping someone would have some activity here!
 
Hey Mel. Yeah we gotta spark up this forum. The old ones disappear too... weird...

As for my situation I have just been reducing the Ca and leaving the ALK alone. When I started this I went on the seemingly correct assumption the Randy's was a similar concentration to BRS 2Part. It was close enough so I started there and tweaked. Like I said only in the past 2 months the Ca has gone way up. I think I started on this route 4 months ago.

Peladow is a particular brand of icemelt. Found it in Milford in the winter. Turns out Home Depot had other acceptable brands but that was in the winter. Its cheap but will be tough to find now.

As for the chemistry I am not sure. I certainly don't see any precip in the tank but who knows?

One last thing- they both tend to cake onto the end of the tubing feeding into the tank so put them into the highest flow area possible. I leave mine in the water because when out of the water they formed stalagmites (or is it stalagtites?) which didn't help getting the proper amounts in the water.

I will continue to test and observe and let you all know.
 
Ok wait, so you reduced the amount of calcium you're adding and keeping the amount of all stuff the same but in your tank the amount of calcium is going up whereas your alkalinity is staying the same? Is that correct?

Is your pH changing?

Interesting!
 
I'm assuming that the Randy's two part is more concentrated somehow if your CA consumption has remained the same.... I would stop dosing the CA and let it fall naturally.... See how much it falls over the period of a day, then average it out. Once you levels are back were you want them, then dose to achieve that level consistently....
 
I've seen plenty of people dose way more Alk than CA, it's not a surprise to me.... As long as everything is looking good and no signs of stress. Keep up the good work, you'll figure it out!
 
Mel- yes all is the same. Weird right? Unless I mixed up a more concentrated batch of Ca but I don't think I'm that dumb!

Mase and tony- tyvm. Will monitor
 
How's your pH doing through all of this? Any idea?

This reminds me of a funny story (since we're making posts to keep threads going!): I used to have one of those battery powered Pinpoint pH monitors (in addition to a pH monitor on my CaRx controller). I remember one night the power was out and I thought "great" and I kinda laid there for a minute. Then I listened really hard and heard *blub blub blub* like large water bubbles moving in the tank. I sprang out of bed and sure enough...my solenoid had failed on my calcium reactor and CO2 was slowly bubbling into my tank. I ran over to the Pinpoint monitor and watched my pH plummeting. I yelled few bad words and then I shut off the CO2. I ended up going to wal-mart in the middle of the night for a deep cycle battery/converter, three dual port air pumps, airline tubing, and six air stones. I turned that thing on and the pH started to come back up. Less than an hour later...the power came back on. hah hah. Say what you want about wal-mart...in the middle of the night sometimes they're the bees knees.

Although in my case, it ended up being unnecessary.
 
Last edited:
Ph has been good as far as I can tell. I have a pH probe on my apex and have not gotten any alarms. I will check it with a kit later to be sure.

Sorry to hear that story! At least you were there to save the day!
 
Masedaddy said:
That's nuts Mel, so the solinoid failed open? That seems weird most will fail shut
Click to expand...

Yeah, solenoid failed with the CO2 able to bubble through. I couldn't believe it either. I just distinctly remember hearing that blub blub blub sound and flipping out because I realized what it probably was. Luckily the bedroom was close enough to the fishtank to hear it.

To this day when the power goes out, I get up and check the fishtank immediately. That was like 12 years ago.
 
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