Dosing Randy's formula

[bob_8228]

Hi all,
I am ont the verge of trying out Randy's formula as the the other commercial ones are burning my pocket.
One question that i have is if we were to quickly raise the level of either one (calcium or alk), what's the safe dosage per day? Can we actually dose the required amount to raise the level, even if is quite a lot, say 100ml or even 500 ml?

 

[Mighty Quinn]

Hi all,
I am ont the verge of trying out Randy's formula as the the other commercial ones are burning my pocket.
One question that i have is if we were to quickly raise the level of either one (calcium or alk), what's the safe dosage per day? Can we actually dose the required amount to raise the level, even if is quite a lot, say 100ml or even 500 ml?

Hey Bob,

I have switched to Randy's two-part recipe and it seems to be working great.

With respect to your question, you can usually raise the level of the calcium in one shot without causing a big swing in the pH. On the otherhand, the alkalinity should be raised very slowly. I have found that adding more than 1ml of the alkalinity component per gallon of tank water is risky. If you need to up your alkalinity, I would recommend no more than 1.5 ml of the alkalinity component per gallon of tank water per day. In addition, I suggest that you add the alkalinity component in the morning before the lights go on, when your tank pH is at its lowest.

If you have a pH meter then you can monitor the pH and perhaps you can get away with adding the alkalinity component faster, but I would be very careful.

By the way, there is an excellent calcium/alkalinity calculator at this website:
http://www.kademani.com/reefchem.htm
When used in conjunction with Randy's article on correcting calcium and alkalinity imbalances (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm), this calculator is a great tool.

I hope this helps.
Q