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Tumbleweed13
10/04/2009, 10:13 PM
I am getting ready to start dosing my tank. It is 130 gal tank. My current readings are 400ppm for Calcium and 6dkh for Alk. Using Randy's recipe #2 and the dosing calculator it says I need to add 17.9 oz of Calcium and 18.8 oz of Alk. It then tells me I should only add 1/3 to 1/2 this amount for the first dosing and then check my levels the next day. I plan on dosing 8 oz of both to start with. I will be dosing manually, and the question I have is how much can I add at 1 time? I know I need to dose the calcium and alk separately, but how much and how long should I take to add the 8 oz.
ie. 1 oz every 5min?

atkinsg
10/04/2009, 11:45 PM
Is that the recipe that is 2 1/4 cups baking soda in 1 gal water and 2 cups CaCl2 in 1 gal of water? If it is, I would follow the instructions and do only about 1/3 of the 8 oz. I use that recipe and use 100 ml/day in my 125 gal tank. I pour them in slowly, maybe 20 sec to add, in a turbulent area of the sump.

Tumbleweed13
10/04/2009, 11:52 PM
Yes that is the recipe. But to raise my calc and Alk to the correct levels it says to add 17 and 19 oz, so to dose with their recommended 1/3 to 1/2 of that amount I planned on dosing 8 oz. I just am not sure how I should add the 8 oz. should I add that amount over the entire day or over 1 hour?

HighlandReefer
10/05/2009, 05:58 AM
It is usually recommended not to raise your alk. level by more than 2 dKH per day and not to raise your calcium level by more than 50 ppm per day. These amounts can be added in one dose or over the course of the day by dripping.

One reason to limit the amount you add per day is due to the contaminates in the supplements. For example, this is a list of contaminates found in calcium chloride commonly used in our hobby:

Calcium Chloride: Tolerance levels of contaminates:
http://www.omri.org/calcium_chloride_final.pdf

From this article:

"ASTM standards of purity for calcium chloride are <8.0% NaCl, <0.5% MgCl2, and <1% other impurities.

Food grade standards are for the anhydrous material: not less than 93% CaCl2; arsenic <3 ppm; fluoride <0.004%; heavy metals
<10 ppm; magnesium and alkali salts <5%; and acid insoluble matter <0.02% (Reid and Kust, 1992).

Dowflake™ calcium chloride dihydrate is at least 96% calcium chloride dihydrate. The major impurity is magnesium and alkali
salts <4%. Most of this is sodium chloride. Other impurities are: arsenic <3 ppm; fluoride <.004%; heavy metals <.002%;
calcium hydroxide <0.2%; and iron <0.003% (Dow, 2001).

Briners Choice™ (Dow) is 90% calcium chloride, 3 ppm arsenic, 0.004% fluoride, 0.002% heavy metals, 10 ppm lead, <5%
magnesium and alkali salts, 50 ppm iron, 0.2% lime, and 0.5% water insoluble impurity (Dow, 2001)."