ready to start dosing randy's, question about kalk

[devin mac]

So, I'm finally going to start giving my tank some of the attention it deserves and start dosing Randy's Recipe to maintain Ca and Alk levels. They are a bit on the low side right now, and I'm guessing that is part of why my corraline is brownish/whitish and i'm losing a decent amount of purple overall... Bad assumption?

Tank's pretty healthy overall, as fas as i can tell, with xenia and GSP growing at a decent rate (though from what I've seen, that doesn't take much as far as tank health...). But i want to make sure my Ca and Alk levels are maintained at a good place before i add any LPS which are going to have slightly higher demands on the system than the xenia and GSP do.. ;-)

Question is, once i dose my CA up to over 400, and get my alk more in the 3.5(?) range (current Ca is 330 and alk is only 2.5 meq/L), should i also mix up a batch of kalk and start dripping that? Or would that be overkill for a tank that at the moment just houses a few colonies of zoos, some gsp, and xenia (along with snails, crabs, and a bazillion pods)?

Thanks in advance!

[JayM]

Did you mix up the mag part of the recipe as well? The mag level is also very important in maintaining alk and CA levels.

If you dose with the 2-part, you should not NEED to drip kalk as well, and dosing kalk will lower your 2-part requirements. If you don't have a high CA drain on your tank, dose judiciously, you can really spike your levels.

[devin mac]

good advice. Yeah, I'm going to mix up the Mag part of the recipe at some point in the next week or so. I need to get a Mag test kit before i start doing anything specific to dose it.

That's what i thought about the kalk, but being more than a bit green to this hobby i figured it was worth asking.

-D