2 part question for Randy's 2 part Recipe

[rdnyva]

I have been dosing Lime water at night and Randy's Part 2 (ALK) in the morning. The Lime is to keep stabilize the PH at night, and also raises my calcium, which is around 450. Part 2 was added to keep my ALK up. At first I added 6 ML per day to kee pthe alk around 9.5, than had to ad 8ML and now 10ML and my alk is only 7.6.

So here's my questions:
1. Does Part 2 lose it's potency over time? (Like limewater does) ( I keep the part 2 in a covered jar)

2. What causes ALK to drop?

Thanks for any input.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

No, the two part will never loose potency. :)

Alkalinity drops in the aquarium as the demand by organisms (to deposit calcium carbonate skeletons and such) and abiotic precipitation of calcium carbonate (on heaters, pumps, etc) outstrips the additions.

[rdnyva]

Thanks Randy. My tank is relatively new (6 months). I have 5 fish (small YT, Royal Gramma, 6 line, pair of small T Clowns). Just beginning to stock with corals (hammer, frogspawn, acropora, zoos, kenya tree, candy cane, monti cap), all are frags and not large. So if I understand you correctly, as I add corals I will need to monitor my ALK and increase Part 2 accordingly?

Thanks again

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, as corals and coralline algae grow larger or more numerous, demand may rise. :)

[rdnyva]

I'm starting to understand how this works and how everything affects everything else. Now I need more help. I added 10 ml part 2 this morning which raised my alk from 7.6 to 8.4. I went to the RC Chemistry Calculator and input the following data

water volume: 180 gallons
current alk: 8.4dkh
desired alk: 10dkh

It tells me I need to add 205.7 ml of Randy's recipe 1 alk part

Can this be correct? Sounds like an awful lot since 10 ml raised my alk .8 this morning.

Also how fast can I safely raise the alk.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The calculator is correct. I expect there was some testing error in the first noted rise. You can generally add alkalinity as fast as you need to, with the caveat that big additions of Recipe 1 will also boost pH significantly, so make sure the pH does not get too high.