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Raising Calcium

I think I have reached my max Kalkwasser dose. At 3/4 tsp. per gallon my PH is approx. 8.45. Alk is 8-9 and calcium is 440. I plan on cutting back to 1/2 tsp per gallon so I dont raise my PH beyond where it is now. Question is, can I just add the calcium part of B ionic to keep my calcium in check?
 
Your alkalinity and calcium look perfect right now. Ph borderline high but not bad, assuming that is at the top of your daily swing.

The other option is just to add a little acid like vinegar to the top-off, which would probably make it perfect. Someone suggested something like that in your other thread as I recall.

If you are planning to cut back on the kalkwasser I would do that and retest before I decide how to change further supplementation. My guess is that you will need to dose with both Alk and Ca when you cut back on Kalk, not just Ca.

You definitely can dose slightly different amounts of the parts of 2-part but the chemists on the bigger forums strongly recommend not straying too far from balanced dosing since it is more likely an error in testing or understanding if you find yourself with large dosing differentials. Randy Holmes-Farley has discussed this many times and has a nice article or two on it.
 
You Param’s are pretty good.
Two parts has to be dosed together in equal quantities, you cant dose only the ca part, that will impact ph negatively and without alk the ca part won’t be consumed, from what I understand.
 
Vinegar is an effective form of carbon dosing like alcohol dosing or NOPOX, so it reduces nitrates and phosphates. This could be good or bad depending on where you are with nutrients.

Have you measured your pH at different times of day? Giving 1 number can be very misleading. My pH goes from about 8.15 to 8.30, with the max at about the end of the display lights being on in the evening and the min about the end of the dark period right before the lights come on in the morning. That is with my refugium counter-lighted (which should reduce the swing). This means my tank is about 50% more acidic in the early morning than in the early evening every day.

My point being that your pH value might be ok if it was measured just before your lights went off (max), but would be pretty worrisome if you measured it right before they came on in the morning (min).

If you don’t want/need to add acid then you will probably have to cut back on the kalk and add some balanced 2-part separately. I think that this is the typical experience, that unless you are using a calcium reactor (which lowers pH), kalk is unlikely to be a complete solution for Alk/Ca.
 
Thanks guys. My low ph is approx. 8.32 and high is 8.47 both numbers appear to be slowly rising. Phosphates are low and nitrates are under 10. I will try vinegar. I will leave the Kalk dose at 3/4tsp per gallon and start with 15ml of vinegar per gallon of Kalk.
 
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