Q's... Phosphates, Alkalinity, Calcium, Carbon!!!

[Iconz]

Alright gang, I need to pick your brains for a bit on these things. I've been doing some reading on these four elements of a Reef tank, and would like to know what you all think regarding each one and what do you all do?...

Should I dose (lime/kalk)? Should I keep a permanent filtration in place (phosphan, carbon?) And what methods do you all / should I use?

Keep in mind, I'll be running a 20g high with an identical sized sump that will have about 7 gals of fuge space in it. I plan on keeping some serious macro in there. I also have some aragronite sand that I'll be using in both the display (2-3") and fuge (4ish").

I also have an aquaclear 70 that I had originally planned on using for a hotb fuge (before i decided to go with a sump/fuge)... If I can use that for carbon/phosphate controll, and need to, lemme know!

Thanks again!
-JD

[dakar]

I'll take a stab at these for ya... Carbon, I like to run it passivlely (just a bad tossed into a higher flow area of the sump/refuge), but you can run it actively, if you keep up with routine maintenance and changing it can help keep your water crystal clear.

Limewater/Kalk = if your are keeping stony corals this may be a must... just keep an eye on your cal/alk/ph levels and adjust your mixture accordingly...
To balance the alkalinity with higher calcium levels baking soda does the trick.

I like to run two drips for my 25 tall, one with 1/2 tsp pickling lime added to 1.5 gal water and the other with 1/2 tsp of baking soda in 1.5 gal water. Letting each run about 1 drop every 2-3 seconds or so, keeps my Alk at 10dKH, Calcium at 450ppm, and pH at 8.3. Our well water has a very low pH after the RO/DI unit (7.0 after and 7.6 before, though the water water is 8.1, strange at best), but after adding our salt mix it only comes up to 7.8 so a bit of supplementing with the pickling lime straightens things up.