Alkalinity and calcium dosing question

[bryanmc1988]

So I tested my water every day for 5 days stright and took the average consumption amount for the 5 days. Now from my testing with the salifert kit for calcium and the Hanna digital test kit, it shows that I need to dose 32ml of calcium and about 14.5ml of alk per day.

Am I wrong or is something not right here? I need more calcium than alkalinity? Is this normal and has anyone does more calcium then alk besides my test?

Calcium target range is 450ppm
Alkalinity target range is 9 - 10dKh
Magnesium tartget range is 1350 - 1400

It’s odd cause I heard that cal and alk needs to be does equal parts or I heard people does more alk then calcium. This is not my case at all and I wanted to see if anyone can shade some light on this.

[OhioStreetz]

So in most cases you should never dose more of one than the other. If your alk says you need 14 then I would start with about half that dose and match calcium dose, test everyday for the week if you notice the levels dropping then bump it up 5mls test for another week checking for drops until it’s stable. Once stable you can adjust the levels of alk and calcium to what you want by supplementally dosing extra of each a day but always the same amount of both. Don’t go chasing a number for alk or calcium you will never win stability is key. I’ve always focused on keeping the Alk stable and calcium will fall in line

[Philip271]

Interesting... I have been dosing about the same ratio with twice the amount of CA vs Alk for couple of years now. My tank is stable with alk at 8.5-9 dkh and calcium around 470.

I'm using BRS 2 part and mixing per direction on the jug... I just thought maybe people are dosing various concentrations of alk/ca so the volumes dosed doesn't matter much long as the system is stable.

Now hearing Jonas' perspective... I'm re-thinking things...

[bryanmc1988]

So doing equal parts of alk to calcium for a week and retest to see where things land. Interesting, I’ll give it a try and see how things turn out. Hopefully it doesn’t effect the tank to much.

With the current ml dosing listed above, this keeps my parameter in check and stable but your saying that alk and cal should be dosing equal amount. Correct me is I al wrong here?

I’m using the BRS two part doing 1 gallon mix.