Do I need to raise akalinity and calcium?

five.five-six · Nov 5, 2017

Tested yesterday and because there was a white film for a few days in the return section of my sump where I add kalkwasser I was not surprised at all. Calcium had fallen to 400 and Alk had dropped to 8.9 (had been running over 10) DKH. Mg had dropped to 1260

It’s a new tank mostly with 1-2” frags and I take this as a good sign, if consumption has gone up, things are growing

My general philosophy on reef keeping is to let it be, I see far more crashes caused by corrective actions that are too sudden or overcorrections than crashes from neglect.

My assumption is that my drop in Ca and alk is mostly due to percipitation from low mg, do I need to add ca and alk supplements or just let the kalkwasser do it’s job?

Diesel · Nov 5, 2017

Nope, you said it yourself let it be.
Why cause your ALK, CAL are perfect.
You said it was a new tank, how new?
And what are those 1" to 2" frags?

five.five-six · Nov 5, 2017

Added saltwater 8 weeks ago.

Mostly acroporas and other SPS. A few bigger colonies.

Diesel · Nov 5, 2017

Your tank is to new for SPS.
You start slow to mature your tank as there will be a lot of uncontrollable swings, as you noticed your ALK and CAL.
SPS don't like that at all.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 5, 2017

I agree that the values are fine. I'd just keep monitoring, but recognize that limewater (kalkwasser) likely won't keep up for long as SPS frags grow.

five.five-six · Nov 5, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
I agree that the values are fine. I'd just keep monitoring, but recognize that limewater (kalkwasser) likely won't keep up for long as SPS frags grow.

Oh, I am well aware of that. I have a c1502 waiting in the wings for that eventuality. I just didn’t want to complicate things any sooner than necessary.

On that subject, I have been out of the hobby a while. What do you think of the media with suplimental magnesium in the calcium reactor?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 5, 2017

Like dolomite? That's a fine way to go to maintain (not raise) magnesium levels, but manual dosing might be easier than jiggering the amount in the reactor, if needed, since that's a slow feedback process.

Some folks have recently found some media must have something unusual on its surface as it raised their pH a lot for a few days.

five.five-six · Nov 5, 2017

I hadn’t looked into it much as I didn’t expect to need the calcium reactor for a several more months. I’m running 250 watt radiums with fans instead of a chiller so I can add quite a bit of saturated limewater.

The fact that my tank needs supplements this early is very encouraging. It means there’s consumption which means there’s growth.

BRS has a product they reccomend a 90/10% ratio of. Obviously, I would still test regularly and make adjustments by hand but it’s best if maintenance is done consistently and gradually.

Besides, I don’t like the possible ionic imbalances that can come with many of the supplements.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 5, 2017

five.five-six said:
I hadn’t looked into it much as I didn’t expect to need the calcium reactor for a several more months. I’m running 250 watt radiums with fans instead of a chiller so I can add quite a bit of saturated limewater.

The fact that my tank needs supplements this early is very encouraging. It means there’s consumption which means there’s growth.

BRS has a product they reccomend a 90/10% ratio of. Obviously, I would still test regularly and make adjustments by hand but it’s best if maintenance is done consistently and gradually.

Besides, I don’t like the possible ionic imbalances that can come with many of the supplements.

The primary problem with estimating the magnesium rich media is if it overestimates the magnesium consumption, calcium will fall if you use the reactor to maintain alkalinity, or alk will rise if you use it to maintain calcium.

But many folks use this method.

five.five-six · Nov 5, 2017

Good info, perhaps I'll add some on the conservative side and just reduce the amount and frequency of epsoms salt adjustments. I probably have a few more months before I need the reactor but those frags are growing fast.. nothing is an inch any more. Nothing grows and colors coral like metal halide

Thanks again Randy. You, kengaroo (who's sadly MIA) and Roger (tunze) have been bedrocks of support for the hobby for a long time.