no CA reactor.. what's the best way?

Right now I am using Agramilk just testing and dosing accordingly. I am planning on an Aquacontroller JR so testing will get a little less annoying. Anyway, I have a remote resivior ATO installed. Can I dose through that? I haven't yet figured how much Agramilk will cost me to use.. what's the best way to keep CA + PH at a steady? Interested to know + -'s about dosing directly into top off water or other available solutions.

 

Agramilk is not the best. To keep calcium and ph in check you should also be testing ALK or dKH and Mag. Those both directly affect relationships with calcium and ph. Dosing you can do several things. If you do not have many hard corals Kent marine Tech-CB Part A and part B do a very good job. Once you get the levels evenly balanced you can use limewater, Limewater you could link up to your ATO. Easiest way would be Via Kalk reactor. But if you do not have very much calcium/alk uptake, kent's part a and part b will do the trick.

I mentioned you need to test MAG. Two good test kits would be salifert or ELOS. This is important to maintain the balanced relationship between calcium and ALK. To raise the mag Kent marine Tech M works well.

Also don't use the directions on the bottles. Test your tank, then plug your numbers into the handy "reef supplements" calculator and it will tell you how much you need to add of each product.

 

Aragamilk is more effective as a buffer than for calcium. An effective way to maintain calcium is to top off with kalk water and add a two part CA product. The kalk helps maintain the alkalinity and the two part product makes calcium available. This way you can have high calcium levels, good alkalinity, and high pH.

This is the tried and true method short of the CA reactor. Even with the CA reactor, a kalk reactor in tandem with it to maintain alkalinity is a big benefit

 

I use a jug for ato drip and add cal powder to jug for a drip. 5 gl every few days.

 

so would I put kalk in my top off water and dose with the 2 part CA product separately, or could I add this to the top off water also? Any good reading on how much kalk mix to add and how to add? I have a jar of kalk it gives directions to making the kalk solution but not sure on dosing I know how much I am losing a day so that's a start I guess..

 

You dose what you evaporate, test for alkalinity, make the mixture as strong or weak as you need to maintain the alkalinity level you want

2 part goes in separately

 

is there a way to dose the 2 part automatically? would I need to get 2 separate drip dosing systems?

 

Kalk includes calcium too. So if you use kalk you will not have to use 2 part to maintain calcium, thats what the kalk is for to maintain calcium and alk. You WILL have to use two part to get calcium and alk within your desired ratio and balanced. Once that is done you use kalk for all your calcium and alk needs.
If for some reason your tank gets out of balance again, you will then have to use 2 part again to bring your levels back to your desired parameters. This usually happens when you don't think about or test for MAG for a month or 2, your mag falls off then the "balanced relationship between cal and alk" becomes unstable and falls out of balance.
You could dose 2 part automatically with a dosing pump, 2 separate dosing pumps one for each.
If you go the kalk route its very difficult to figure out what your demands are initially. Once you figure out exactly how much you need to use nightly, you can use a jug with an IV tube attached and drip it throughout the night. This can also serve the purpose of topping off your water, as you will mix the kalk with RO/DI.
If you setup a Kalk reactor, you can set it up to only run at night, and only run 5 minutes per hour. This will help keep your ph up at night, instead of spiking it during the day by using Kalk to top off. By running it only 5 minutes per hour prevents a huge spike in ph the first time it comes on at night (you will have evaporated alot of water during the day, if you dose too much saturated Kalk at one time, it will spike the ph too high)

 

thanks James that was helpful. A question.. I have a float valve ATO with remote 16g container right now.. what are the downfalls of drip dosing through that 24/7 if I am able to figure out correct dosing levels?

 

"You are over doing it on the pH. Mine gets as low as 7.89 in the winter because of the house being closed up and a ventless fireplace running in the house putting excess CO2 in the air. I would not be adding buffer at 8.0 Open a window and it will go up by it self. I run ALL my top off water thru KALK 24/7, not just at night.
You pH will come up during your photosynthesis period and go down when the lights go off. This is why most run a refugium and run the lights on a reverse light cycle to help maintain pH a little." -Otty diff thread sorry forgot link.

a little bit of an answer to my last question.. PH will drop. I have a fuge so I am going to try dosing limewater with the ATO.