[Krazy]

Is anyone out there using Kent Marine's Tech CB Parts A&B ??

How are you dosing it?

How often do you need to dose and how often are you testing afterwords???

Asking because I have two new bottles of this and after doing a water test today I got the readings of

CA: 300ppm
dKH: 10
pH: 8.0

Would like to get my CA up to 400-460ppm over the course of the next week or so...

Any advice using the product mentioned above? (I dont normally dose so I'm clueless of how to do it other then the directions)

Any advice from someone who already doses may help (JV?)

[jvharding]

I am using it and was dosing once a week but level was staying at the 300 with ALK at 2.5 range then I switched the dose to every other day till I reached my level currently 480 PPM ALK 4.0 I have stopped dosing. I normally dose once a week, but my tank is just getting started so my load is low. Testing every other day and a dose as needed till I reached my level which maybe slightly high now. I think my problem was the ALK Level yours seems to be right there. I was using kent DKH as well.

[rlcline76]

I am going to probably have you guys rolling your eyes because I was just asking you for advice on pH, Alk & Ca. I bought the Kent's Marine Tech A&B to treat my crap once I could get both my Ca and KH low enough. I don't think I will have to use them. I used some Seachem powdered calcium product (quite conservatively since I have small tanks) and did not mess with the alk. Everything is doing fine, even the pH is better.

Sorry I am not JV.

[pogodzib]

I used to dose that, now I use kalk for all my top off water and use the Randy Holmes-Farley DIY two part solution. For dosing the Tech solution, just follow the instructions as stated on the bottle, but make sure that you either dose the parts into separate areas of the tank or provide a few minutes between dosing the two parts so it can mix with the tank water and not each other. Mixing the two parts together in the same area will cause it to precipitate out of solution.

[Krazy]

Thanks for the replies, I dosed 20ml of each part yesterday, I will test later today and see if I need add more...

Having 4 clams, I think that is the source of my CA going down

I'll get the hang of this dosing thing sooner or later

I have superbuffer dKH and Kalwasser as well, I figured the Tech CB would be easier to dose until I get used to this kinda thing (never dosed a thing before)

[pogodzib]

Clams can really suck up a lot of Calcium.

Depending on what you do for topoff water, kalk can be the easiest thing to dose. It is a balanced solution, so it adds to your calcium and alk levels equally so you don't need to worry about getting your parameters out of balance. If you have a automatic topoff device or float valve and a bucket, you can just fill the bucket with kalk water and it would gradually get added into your tank all day long, so you wouldn't need to do the whole drip thing. All you'd have to do is figure out how strong of a kalk mixture you need to keep your levels stable. If you start getting too many hard corals, then kalk alone isn't enough to keep up. Using two part solutions is good for getting your levels back into range.

[Krazy]

How can I determine a strength on the solution of kalk to mix up ?

I have a 5 gallon pail with fresh ro/di for top off, have an ATO unit as well, I use a MJ-600, I go through 5-7 gallons a week for top-off .

Keep using the tech cb until my parameters are good then the kalwasser?

sounds good to me, just gotta figure out how to determine the rest..

Appericate the replies


Edit:

Calcium was 300 again today and the dKH was 10 still. is that normal? does it take a day or two to catch up?

Anyways I dosed 20ML of each again...

[mtfabel]

Im not sure about the product your using but I have used a 2 part additives in the past. If you keep adding both you will not change any of your parameters . If you want your calcium to come up then you should add only the calcium part of the additives. Once they are both where you want them then you can dose both accordinly.

P.S. Your DkH looks good anywhere between 8 and 12 is pretty good. 9-11 is the sweet spot.

[azar]

hay, krazy I don't use any two part , but I use fiji gold...It work really well for me, just add it to your RO water first so it doesn't "fog" your tank, or at night...keeps my water at 450....just a thought

[pogodzib]

Adding both equally would cause both levels to rise equally and stay balanced, if your levels were balanced to start. I didn't realize before that your alk is already where you want it to be so you should only be dosing your calcium part. You should notice the levels change as soon as the water is thoroughly mixed (a couple hours later). I believe that if you follow the directions on the bottle, it says that the recommended dosage would only increase the calcium by 4 ppm and I'm not sure about the alk. At that rate, your test kits may not be precise enough to pick up on the change until after a few doses.

Regarding the strength of the kalk solution, there are two ways you can get a kalk mixture. The first is to get a kalk mixture from the fish store and the second (much cheaper) is to use Ms. Wages pickling lime (found in the canning section at grocery stores). I use Ms. Wages in my tanks. For a strength to start off with, either follow the directions on the kalk mixture or use 1 teaspoon per gallon with the pickling lime. If you try adding too much into the solution, it will just settle out without causing any problems. As a matter in fact, no matter how little kalk you add into your mixture, some will settle out. This is normal. If after dosing kalk for a couple weeks or so, you notice that your calcium and alk levels are rising too high, then start cutting back on the mixture. I think that I read somewhere that a kalk mixture at full strength only contains about 30ppm of calcium, so if you add 5 gallons/week to a 100 gallon tank, your only raise your calcium by 1.5ppm/week.

Here is a good article about adjusting your calcium and alk.

Chemistry and the Aquarium

[Krazy]

I did 20ml of just the calcium today..

We'll see what it reads again tommorow

[Krazy]

Have been dosing 20ml of part a daily..

Tested today and I'm finally up to 360ppm of calcium, my dKH dropped down to 9

I dosed 20ml of each part today..

Gettin there