[reeferaddict]

Good products for raising Alk are Kent's Superbuffer DKH in liquid or powder form... Seachem's Reef Builder, or if you have low pH Marine Buffer...

To Raise Calcium use Kent Turbo Calcium or Seachem's Reef Advantage calcium...

My experience just this past week has been this as I have actually had to make a serious additive adjustment to keep things up...

Turbo Calcium or equivalent calcium chloride is what you want to use to raise levels... Reef Advantage sounded like the product to me, but I found it difficult to raise levels using this product... I used half of a 1kg jar and was getting nowhere... when I switched to Calcium Chloride my levels responded...

The powdered form of Superbuffer dKH was also the most effective at raising Alk levels over the other products.

I would recommend dosing one, then the other at say 12 hour intervals over a period of days until target levels are acheived. I had to go from 7 dKH to 10 dKH, and did this over 3 days... Calcium was a bit more challenging as I had to get from 340 to 400... this actually took me 5 days finally coming after I switched to Calcium chloride... all the while I was dosing Kalk as my makeup water... 2 gallons a day! I wouldn't try and raise Alk by more than 1 dKH a day.... and Calcium 10 - 20 ppm per day, but that's just me.

FYI my levels fell from my target levels within 3 days of hooking up a Phosban reactor... if I ever doubted even small amounts of Phosphate inhibited calcification and coral growth, I am 100% convinced now! I had taken my Ca Reactor out of the system, as consumption did not warrant it, and I was concerned about leeching Phosphates and subsequent algal blooms because of the C02... but it's back online... Kalk alone will not keep up with these greedy corals.