Calcium question

[Saltwater_Reefing]

Hello I have been running a tank since october and I have 2 snowflake clowns and 1 yellow watchman gobby in a 13.5 fluval evo. I have 12 snails and 1 sandshiffting star fish. I bought 2 zoanthid corals, 2 mushrooms and 1 Ricordea mushroom. when I first started my saltwater tank I wasn't told I needed calcium or anything except to make sure my amonia was low. Well I here recently started to go to a new store and got some mushroom corals back in december at first they were fully opened and look really happy. Then I had a cyanobacteria outbreak and they closed up and then opened back up and then I got the 2 zonanthid corals and the 1 ricordea mushroom. Now it's closed up and hasn't opened since. I went to the newest fish store and told them about it and got a api reef kit and some calification by aquavitro. I don't know how much to dose and what to do to make my corals happy again. I don't have any hard purple alge or anything on the walls of my tank.

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[bushdoc]

Your corals are not consuming calcium, they do not have calcium skeleton.You probably would be fine with just regular water changes and no dosing.
You need to test your: Nitrates, phosphates, Salinity or specific gravity, Ca, Alkalinity and pH. I suspect that your corals might be "unhappy" due to Nitrate/phosphate/salinity issue rather than Ca/ Alk.

 

[Saltwater_Reefing]

If I dose the calcification would I get the purple algue that is supposed to be good in my tank?

 

[bushdoc]

If I dose the calcification would I get the purple algue that is supposed to be good in my tank?

They usually appear at minimum after 3-4 months from tank setup, but often even later. I would not dose Calcium without checking levels. Recommended level is 380-450ppm

 

[Saltwater_Reefing]

I really like the Torch corals what would I have to do to keep them and I have the basic light from the fluval evo 13.5 gallon.

 

[bushdoc]

I really like the Torch corals what would I have to do to keep them and I have the basic light from the fluval evo 13.5 gallon.

I am not familiar with a light spectrum and intensity (PAR) of your setup, but people seem to grow LPS corals and even SPS with it. Torch is so called LPS coral which needs balanced and stable Calcium/ Alkalinity levels and other parameters and I would concentrate on mastering those first.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Sadly, Aquavitro calcification is not really a good way to supplement calcium or alkalintiy since it supplies both in some ratio unknown to users, and maybe tank dependent. It's a very odd product with zero rationale for development. It tried to discuss this with Seachem many years ago, but they apparently are unable to understand the chemistry involved in their mixed product.

First step in worrying about calcium and alkalinity is to measure both of them.

 

[DanyL]

I would like to add that with a tank this size you might as well just use weekly water changes as a means to replenish missing elements, Calcium and Alkalinity included.
It is only when regular water changes aren't enough to keep up with the consumption during the week that you'd want to start manually maintaining Alk, Cal (and Mag).