Dosage for Ca Dispenser

[tonyespinoza]

Roger -

What would you recommend for dosage on a 29g (prob 22g actual) SPS tank? I've got a few frags (birds nest, stylophora, millepora, that all show decent poly extension).

Salinity: 1.024 (Refractometer)
Temp: 78.2 - 78.7 (Lighthouse)
pH: 7.94 - 8.32 (Pinpoint)
Alk: 7.7 - 7.9 (La Motte)
Ca: 412 (La Motte)
Mg: 1300 (Red Sea)
ORP: 314 - 355 (Pinpoint)
NH4, NO2, NO3 all undetectable

I'm currently using C-Balance, but am wondering what I'm doing wrong. I have to dose Kent Liquid Ca to keep levels up (if I up the C-Balance my Alk goes higher than the SPS like). I'm also dosing Strontium in balance with the Liquid Ca and separately, am keeping Mg at around 1300 (it does drop significantly in a week).

My concept with the Ca Dispenser is to use it in concert with the dosing help precip phosphate. But I'm concerned that I'm not dosing correctly -- even wondering if high levels of kalk could be interfering with the other dosing.

Thoughts?

-tE

 

[rvitko]

You have to be careful with using all these supplements as they affect your ionic balance and can skew your water chemistry to the point that achieving any balance is near impossible and major water changes are required to get things back in line. They also seem to react with each other and one drops the other. I would advocate a more minimalist approach to additives. If it were my tank I would discontinue dosing strontium or dose at a very reduced rate- half as much, half as often. I would also consider the same for magnesium. Magnesium is definitely important but I have had my own experiences recently with this problem and cannot advocate magnesium as a cure all the way some do. My own home aquarium recently got way out of whack from a year+ of no water changes and use of numerous supplements. One of the main issues was green hair algaes. I was told by a friend of an article on RC suggesting that Magnesium would cure this. I started using Magnesium supplements and it did sort of work, my green hair algae was replaced by red hair algae which is much prettier but still not quite what I was looking for. In the end I started changing 25% of the water a week and more diligently monitoring phosphates and using phosphate remover and that is what is starting to work. I was having the same problems you describe but my tank is just LPS and softies and they look very healthy, other than some algae intrusion they were always growing and doing fine. Now, I just use Kent Superbuffer dKH, Kalkwasser and Seachem Reef Calcium. I also use a new trace element from hW Trace Tip 1 and 2. It is a neat supplement, one part is all the cations and the other is all the anions and you dose them once a week 10 minutes apart. Basically it has iodine, strontium, magnesium and boron and other trace elements and they are seperated and the formulas devised in such a way that they don't react and cancel each other out. I keep my KH between 10-12, use my Calcium Dispenser to dose kalk (4 tsps for my 7 gallon reservoir) and I use Reef Calcium as needed, since it is Calcium Gluconate it doesn't interrupt the balance of the other ions, the draw back is it can feed slime algaes. I have given up testing Magnesium and micromanaging my reef chemistry, I test calcium, KH and PO4 and that is it. I strive for a Calcium around 380-400, a KH between 10-12 and PO4 below .25mg/l. From my perspective all the testing takes a lot of the fun out of it and if you keep your eye on the macro parameters and they are in line the rest should fall in line reasonably well.

 

[tonyespinoza]

hey roger -

what your saying makes sense. i have crazy red turf algae in my tank and am convinced it has something to do with the dosing i've been doing. i started trying Mg because i was having trouble maintaining Ca levels. i've been cautious with the Strontium for sure.

i have a litermeter with water changer, so once my large mixing tank arrives, i'll set it up to do continuous water changes (150 fractions a day, probably 100% per week since the tank is only 22 gal). this will radically change my approach to maintaining the chemistry. i'll roll back to trying to use just a 2-part if i can get away with it. other than that, liquid calcium may be required. i won't do strontium and mg any more since the water change should keep those at decent levels. (BTW, the lighthouse box monitors ORP, pH, Temp so those require no effort on my part.)

btw, i do run GFO and carbon and have never had any phosphates above the first level (optimal) on the Deltec test kit.

anyway -- if i want to continue to use this Ca Dispenser -- should i be dosing the kalk into the reservoir (7 gal) or the "reactor"/Dispenser!? do you recommend the 4 tsp (per week?) based on the 7 gal reservoir -- doesn't matter the size of the tank in this case?

and by the way - when my Alk got up to 11, my SPS suddenly stopped showing polyp extension -- dropping it down to 7.5 over the next week immediately opened them back up.

-tE

 

[rvitko]

In nature the KH is generally about 8 degrees. I use 12 because it is about as high as you can go within reason and in closed systems it helps stabilize the pH, I have not usually observed any problems with polyp extension from a higher KH.

I would use 4 teaspoons as a general rule, this is about 1/2 tsp per gallon which is pretty such the limit of the solubility of Calcium Hydroxide at room temp.

 

[tonyespinoza]

Hi Roger -

Yes, I think many SPS are more sensitive to Alk and prefer 7-8. At least this is my experience and what others here in my area have seen. I'm told that most LPS and softies seem prefer the higher range.

So the big clarification I need is whether to put the 4 tsp into the ca dispenser or the larger bucket. The images in the documentation show the kalk powder going into the reactor but it would be way more convenient to just put it in the bucket... let me know!

And thanks as always for your advice.

-tE

 

[rvitko]

It has to go in the reactor, in the bucket it is weakened by exposure to air and it damages the pump.

 

[tonyespinoza]

Got it -- thank you.

So 4 tsps in the reactor weekly regardless of size of aquarium (since the amount of evaporation will correlate the dosing).

-tE

 

[rvitko]

4tsps everytime you refill the 7gallon reservoir, in my case that is once a week.

 

[sjediets]

Tagging along here with a question.

I have the osmolator and wondering if I should get the calc dispenser to add on. I'm curious though as to how it controls the concentration of calc going into your system.

I thought I read somewhere that you fill up the dispensor with calc and the topoff water just runs through it.

Now I don't think I know how the thing works at all.

 

[rvitko]

Kalkwasser is not a very strong supplement of Calcium, very little is soluble in water and the concentration is limited by this solubility. The benefit of kalkwasser is more due to its ability to precipitate phosphate and bind CO2 but as a calcium supplement I believe it has limited value in anything but the lightest demand systems. It works just as you describe, the purpose of the reactor is two fold, it protects the solution of kalkwasser from exposure to air where it rapidly binds CO2 and forms insoluble Calcium Carbonate and, it protects the osmolator pump from exposure to the caustic kalkwasser soltuion.

 

[sjediets]

What prevents the undisolved calc from flowing into your tank along with the saturated topoff water?

 

[rvitko]

It is about 12" tall and the flow through is slow, injected tangentally and there is also a baffle plate. Any undissolved powder will just settle down it isn't forced through at a high enough rate to dose powder. You can make it do this if you add too much but with the recommended 2-6 tsps it just isn't an issue.