trying for coralline growth

[Mr. Ugly]

The calcium you are adding is probably in the form of calcium chloride or calcium gluconate.

When people say your reef needs calcium for stonies(and coralline), what's implied is that you need alk(carbonate) in balance with the calcium as well.

If you add only the calcium, your water parameters can get unbalanced.

Additionally, calciium is in excess relative to alk in your water. Meaning that if all the alk were able to combine with the calcium to form skeleton, there would still be calcium left over.

So alk is the more critical parameter. You will see more changes in growth with changes in alk than with changes in calcium.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

http://www.kentmarine.com/saltwater/calcium/liquid-calcium.htm

Ingredients:
Deionized water, calcium chloride

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Re: trying for coralline growth

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9864146#post9864146 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rhythmicfire
I have a fowlr tank, however I am going to try and aim for some coralline algae growth simply because it looks great and I'd rather have that in my tank rather than nuisance algae.

Actually, the simplest thing you could do would be to use Reef Crystals salt for your fowlr. It's got decent amounts of the stuff you need for coralline, and if you do regular water changes, you won't need to test or dose or anything.

Throw in some coralline scrapings and blast some powerheads wherever you want coralline growth, and you should be good to go.

 

[otterpop510]

for more reading on how to properly dose calcium/alkinity so that its ionically balanced i think there's some good articles stickied in the 'reef chemisty' rc forum that should give you more than enough information regarding encouraging coral/coralline growth..