Ok so I've added today:

5 Teaspoons of Reef Advantage Calcium
8 Capfuls of Magnesium
3 Teaspoons of Baking Soda

Im hoping this will raise my levels to:
Calcium - >420 <440 ppm
Magnesium - 1300 ppm
kH - <130
pH - 8.3

We'll see how I do. I'll test again tomorrow.

So after adding that dosage, my tank water is a little bit "milky".

Was that too big of a dose for a 200G system? I dosed 10 capfuls and 10 teaspoons of magnesium or calcium in its own dose. This is hardly bigger than those, but just 3 elements at once.

Good idea, bad idea? Im sure it'll clear but I just wasnt expecting that.

Are you leaving some time between dosing? If you dose at the same time they will precipitate in you tank.

What do you mean, I cant dose all three of mg ca and baking soda at once? If thats the case then this particular dosing, I did not do that as I put all 3 into a 1G pail of RODI, mixed it and dumped it in the tank.

When I was dosing manually I always tried to leave at least a half hour between ca and alk doses. I don't dose magnesium every day but when I do I add it in the morning then my ca and alk at night. I also find it easier to premix a gallon worth of each solution so you don't have to bother with mixing each time. Check this link out for how to make homemade 2 part. I you let your calcium mix in before you dose your baking soda that should help with your milky water problem.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

So after my latest dose here are my results:

Mg: 1200 PPM
Ca: Between 400-420
kH:100 PPM (5.6dkH

So Im gonna dose some more I guess. Still a bit low from where I wanna be which is:

Mg: 1350
Ca: 415-435
kH: 9-10 dkH

How would you dose?
 

Hey guys,

ok so my magnesium seems to be ok-ish and so Im going to focus on my Alk and Calcium readings especially since my calcium product does does some magnesium and so Im going to try to get them to change as follows:

Calcium from 400 PPM to 435 PPM
Alk from 5.6 dkH to 10 dkH

So I punched in my products (Seachem Reef Advantage Calcium dry and regular baking soda) into the calculator and it suggests dosing as follows:

13.3 teaspoons of calcium
21.2 teaspoons of baking soda

Now it says not to dose all at once, especially the baking soda, because it will effect my pH.

So I just wanna know how you guys would dose this amount into your tank? Im thinking of dosing it over 4 days, baking soda first of course, so just quarter the amounts and test half way through to double check its effecting things as I anticipated.

What do you think?

Still using thread as a log
 

Ok so I added:

5 teaspoons of Baking Soda and let mix for an hour in the tank

then

3 teaspoons of Seachem Calcium

Ok after my 2nd of 4 doses of the following:

3 teaspoons (6 total now) of Caclium
5 teaspoons (10 total now) of Baking Soda

here are my readings:

Magnesium: 1250
Calcium: Between 380-400
Alkalinity: Between 120-130

So that's about what I was expecting. I'll add two more doses of the above over 2 days and retest.

Ok so now my levels after my completion of dosing (or so I thought) are:

Ca: <420
Mg: 1250
Kh: <140
pH remains stable from other readings between 8.1 and 8.3 though I still want a new test kit for this since its hard to read the colour it produces.

So I am going to dose the following again to raise kH and Ca:

5 teaspoons Baking Soda
3 teaspoons Calcium