Alright, been pretty busy lately and away all weekend, but I have been dosing 2 caps of brightwell A and B every day while adding large amounts of the magnesium supplements.

So Thursday night, Friday night and Sunday night I dosed the brightwell A and B and mag. My params tonight were

ALK - 7.3
Cal - 340
Mag - 1260

So slowly seeing the numbers go up! Although calcium hasn't moved at all.

Hoping to make it to j&l sometime this week to pickup the dosing stuff Greg recommended.

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Calcium is tougher to raise than Alkalinity. When my calcium dropped to around 380 I had to add a lot of calcium over several weeks to bring it back up to 410.

You're doing OK. Keep at it and once you raise your Mag another 100 points your Ca will be easier to work with

"When dialed in." that is the hard part..

Ya Dude, here's the math for CaRx I'm running one.

Reliable Reactor cost me $600ish (Geo)
Reliable Regulator $400ish (Carbon Doser)
CO2 Tank $100ish
Ph controller $300ish++up(I use my Apex Jr)

This setup with all the bells and whistles that I thrown out in there and still a struggle to make the Alk stable as the effluent keeps on clogging. I need to shell another $350ish to buy a reliable peristaltic pump to have a constant effluent.

Advising that kind of setup for a newbie doesn't justify the need for it while you can have the same results by using a $100 doser. besides his 75 tank is fairly new and not worth running a CaRx.

I'm not saying this is the only way, but if you don't wanna be fidgetting your CaRx setup every so often to tune your effluent to get a stable Alk then shell out that amount of money and get this setup.

Sorry I dont intend to create a debate here on dosers vs CaRx and I know Llorgon is already been taken good care of by GregZ, but i thought it would be helpful for newbies to know the cost of running a reliable CaRx.

Oh by the way I still need to dose Mag as it drops every so often to balance my parameters.

my 2 cents

Ya I agree, I have a large tank so I think it works better in that case
I only ever tweek the effluent every month or so and add tech M.
It’s been reliable for me so I’ll just stick with it, if it ain’t broke ...

Ok, bit of a update.


Thanks to Gregs help my water parameters are getting back on track. I tested my new saltwater and my params for it were:
Alk - 9
cal - 390
mag - 1050


As of last night my tank water params were:
Alk - 9.3
cal - 380
mag - 1350


Still need to get the calcium up, but at least the magnesium is where it should be now.

Definitely on the right track and Gregzz has an awesome tank so your getting sound advice :biggrin:

Looks like 1 of your tests was off a tad. A 10g water change wouldn't make the Alk higher than it was before the change ...
I use IO regular and it's been about 10.2 to 10.5 @ 1.026 in the last 3-4 buckets.
Did you test the DT before the WC?

As we spoke about today, go ahead and bring your Ca up tonight.

Oh stop, you're makin' me blush :redface: