Waterchange vs Supplements

[Grosea13]

I have a 20g reef setup I've had for a couple months now. I've been slowly adding soft corals and they have been doing well. I really like Hammers and frogspawn. It seems they need to have stable calcium. I don't care to add a dosing system or any other equipment to the 20g as it is beside my bed. So my question is do I need to supplement calcium if I do a 5 gallon waterchange per week? That may be a laughable question but I can't find much about this. TIA

 

[blasterman]

Yes, this will work just fine.

LPS don't deplete calcium very fast and they aren't fussy about high calcium levels.

A 25% waterchange per week is overkill to keep calcium plenty stable enough for this coral load.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, if the only goal is maintaining levels of ions, supplements are cheaper than water changes.

But water changes may desirable for other reasons, certainly.

 

[Grosea13]

FWIW, if the only goal is maintaining levels of ions, supplements are cheaper than water changes.

But water changes may desirable for other reasons, certainly.

Its a 20g so I do water changes vs skimmer/refugium etc

 

[Timfish]

I'm a big proponent of water changes as there's not only a lot of stuff going on we can't test for there's likely stuff research hasn't identified yet. (My personal prefference is ~5% to ~10% weekly but not more than 30% monthly.) Depending on how much growth you're getting and how much dissolution is happening in your system from biofilms and endoliths (stuff growing in rocks, sand and coral skeletons) it may be simpler to dose and do fewer water changes. But whatever you do you do need to be checking alkalinity, calcium and magnesium pretty regularly and maintaining them. This is especially critical if your system is in it's first year and still maturing.

 

[Everything Aquatics]

Its a 20g so I do water changes vs skimmer/refugium etc

i do same thing with my 20, but my sps are using alk very fast so is started kalkwassser

 

[krash7172]

If your tank is only a couple of months old, I would not add the Hammers or Frogspawn yet. It's great that your softies are doing well but I'd wait to add more of those as well until you get a handle on water parameters and your tank ages a bit. For now, I'd do regular WC's and start checking alk at least weekly. My tank is mostly soft corals with a few LPS and SPS. I try to check alk twice a week and 25% WCs every 3 weeks. I check calcium when I do WCs to make sure it's keeping up.

 

[Grosea13]

If your tank is only a couple of months old, I would not add the Hammers or Frogspawn yet. It's great that your softies are doing well but I'd wait to add more of those as well until you get a handle on water parameters and your tank ages a bit. For now, I'd do regular WC's and start checking alk at least weekly. My tank is mostly soft corals with a few LPS and SPS. I try to check alk twice a week and 25% WCs every 3 weeks. I check calcium when I do WCs to make sure it's keeping up.

I went ahead and got the red sea supplements. Gonna see how that goes

 

[wonroc]

small tanks are easy. vac the sand. change a few gallons a week. no supplements needed. once cycled add whatever fits with good lights

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

small tanks are easy. vac the sand. change a few gallons a week. no supplements needed. once cycled add whatever fits with good lights

I don't agree that water changes can do what supplements do, unless you change 100% daily.

Might a tank seem fine without supplements? Sure.

Might that same tank be better with them? You cannot know unless you try (or you have measured everything that one might supplement and it is fine, which is unlikely).