Calcium dosing...

[sn4265]

I'm curious as to recommendations on dosing a Ca supplement such as Kent Liquid Calcium. The directions say to add up to 5ml (~.2 oz right) per 50 gal per day. Currently my Ca is really low at about 310, and I want to boost it to 400 at least. One calculator I found says this is going to take me about 1 16oz bottle of Kent Liquid Ca. If I'm doing the math right and the conversion is correct, it's going to take over a month to bring up Ca by doing about .5 oz per day for my water volume of rought 140 gal? That sounds like an awefully slow increase.

I am runing Kalk in my ATO so I should be good once I get the Ca up.

 

[Dr. Reef]

i have never used kent liquid cal. i always use calcium chloride from BRS in powder form and that can be added in at 50ppm per day.

 

[downbeach]

A couple of questions:
What kind of salt mix are you using?
What are you measuring your salinity with?
How often do you do WC's? How much?

Here is a calculator that may help:

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

[sn4265]

I'm using AquaVitro Salinity.
I'm measuring salinity with a refractometer.
Normally I'm doing about 28 gallons every 3 weeks on average. I know that I need to get a bit more consistent and frequent on that. I'm working on improving my water change process to make that less of a PITA. I'm going to be shooting for 20 gal every other week in the near term and hopefully sometime next year have a continuous water change system up and going to exchange about the same volume.

That is the calculator that I used to determine that I need about 1 bottle of the Kent Liquid Calcium.

 

[downbeach]

OK, I was asking because I noticed that both your Ca and Mg are on the low side, and in many cases, it may have been because of a faulty or uncalibrated salinity measuring device, causing a low mix of Ca and Mg, in the make up water. As was mentioned, I've always used Calcium Chloride in a solution to bump my Ca when needed.

 

[bertoni]

If the refractometer has been calibrated with a saltwater solution (not distilled or RO/DI water), it's likely accurate enough. I'd dose up to 50 ppm per day of calcium. The Liquid Calcium should be fine.