It has been a several months now that I have converted my existing fowlr tank to have corals and had some questions about calcium. I have slowly acquired corals over the past months, and now have quite a few from soft to sps. All are seemingly thriving with noticeable growth with nuisance algae kept to a minimum. Tank is a 55 gal drilled overflow with about 150 lbs live rock, 20 gal water changes weekly with natural sea water. I am not one to test incessantly for spikes in conditions. My tank is stable and every time ive had the lfs test, everything is in prime levels. My question is geared toward visible signs that the tank needs to be dosed with calcium and if there are any or if it strictly a test and check to see if it falls below the nominal levels.
Converted from FOWLR to Reef, signs to dose calcium
- Thread starter nuttyd
- Start date
Test these: set your mg at 1350, higher is ok; set your alk to 8.3; set your calcium to 420. Test daily. If you see the alk and calcium fall, it would be a good thing to dose kalk into the topoff. Do not dose it if it is not being used. If it is, you should know it within a couple of weeks. if you have stony and it is not eating, you need to know what is preventing it. The usual answer is 'light', sometimes proximity to a softie.
My sig line has pretty good parameters for growing euphyllias (hammer, torch, frog)---if you don't have many yet, or large ones, you may not have a demand exceeding the supply. Kind of watch that level: once you do have a big enough demand for kalk to work, then you can get a free ride for weeks, because that kind of flows in with the evaporation, but until then, if you want growth, you have to keep that level up by hand so the means are there.
Hard to tell, because corals just kind of either shut down and don't grow or start to fade. You notice it first because certain corals like the euphyllias grow like mad. A hammer that just sits and never grows is actually in some sort of distress...either not enough light or not enough calcium or an alkalinity that won't let the calcium go into solution as it needs to. Fortunately the alk test is incredibly simple to do---in Salifert, water in a vial, four drops of one liquid and the other injected in from a syringe, stop when the fluid turns glaring pink. I can do that one in less than a minute. If ALK is ok, everything's ok, once you get the tank in the balance I have in my sig line. Minute alk drops, you know magnesium has dropped, and if alk drops calcium will follow. SO the next thing you do is test magnesium and get it boosted to around 1350-1400, to give yourself room, then raise the alk to 8.3---THEN add calcium until you've got 420. Once that's set up, if you have enough coral to use it, you can just toss Mrs Wages Pickling Lime (about 6.00 for two pounds) into your topoff water, be sure your topoff pump can take the grit (Eheims can: MJ's can't) and just kick back and relax, testing either alk or mg once a week. Long as they stay up and the kalk keeps coming---you're golden. I can leave my reef on that system for a month and come back and find the corals are all fat and happy.
Ok. So i finally got the reef basic test kits in. Tested earlier at lunch. Mg is at 1360, Kh is at 7.8, Ca is at 430. The Kh is low so what should i do to remedy that. Have the Kent two part calcium / calk mixes. Equal doses of that until the Kh is back to 8.3 or so?
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Reef Frog
New member
Actually 7.8 dKH isn't a bad level at all. Other parameters are good too. Keep in mind the values will change as your residents grow. Testing occasionally is really the only way to know what you need for sure. By the time you see something wrong with your eyes in a long time deficient tank, It's much harder to get things back on track.
If you do want to raise Alk a little you can dose w little more of the ALK part of the 2 part kit, use baking soda. It's effective and very cheap.
If you do want to raise Alk a little you can dose w little more of the ALK part of the 2 part kit, use baking soda. It's effective and very cheap.
Mark9
New member
Not true.
If you only need to raise calcium, use part A.
If you only need to raise kh, use part B.
You can dose equal parts A & B on a daily basis (not at the same time) once you know your daily consumption rate.
But you can always still use either one to make corrections in either at any time.
How's the baking soda working out for you?
And don't forget your mag, if it's out of whack, you'll need to correct it before doing ca & kh.
I am beginning to notice that on the days when i do not dose, the alk is dropping to 7.3 or so. Still at a loss for why my alk cant be raised. Kind of figured out a dose regiment to keep stable parameters, but still set at 410 ca and 7.8 kh. On a good note, the STN on my birdsnest has stopped and is now regrowing.
