another salt thread
- Thread starter fbm
- Start date
nemo's mom
Member
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking. I don't add any supplements to my tank...just do bi-weekly water changes. No death of any kind and all my corals and fish are doing well...The only thing I occasinally add is a bit of liquid calcium
reefreak29
Active Member
i add no supplements , 10 percent water change weakly with tm pro salt
bsd230
Member
I would at least add a calcium supplement. In general you will not have the calcium required for good coral growth in your water. It really benefits corals and coraline algae to have a calcium supplement. I use Calcium Complete by Seachem which has calcium and a few other trace elements, works great. You can buy a 2 litre bottle of it for about 25.00 plus shipping from *********** which will last you a long, long time. I have a 105 and the smaller bottle (1/4 the size) lasts me about 3 months. Ideally you want to keep your calcium between 400-450, if you haven't been dosing with calcium I would be willing to bet its around 350 which will not promote the fastest coral and coraline growth. You can use Reef salt which adds a lot of these elements but its not as good as reef complete. reef complete and just regular salt mix is cheaper and better.
reefreak29
Active Member
Originally Posted by bsd230
I would at least add a calcium supplement. In general you will not have the calcium required for good coral growth in your water. It really benefits corals and coraline algae to have a calcium supplement. I use Calcium Complete by Seachem which has calcium and a few other trace elements, works great. You can buy a 2 litre bottle of it for about 25.00 plus shipping from *********** which will last you a long, long time. I have a 105 and the smaller bottle (1/4 the size) lasts me about 3 months. Ideally you want to keep your calcium between 400-450, if you haven't been dosing with calcium I would be willing to bet its around 350 which will not promote the fastest coral and coraline growth. You can use Reef salt which adds a lot of these elements but its not as good as reef complete. reef complete and just regular salt mix is cheaper and better.
i dont need to add anything with the salt i use my calc is always 400
I would at least add a calcium supplement. In general you will not have the calcium required for good coral growth in your water. It really benefits corals and coraline algae to have a calcium supplement. I use Calcium Complete by Seachem which has calcium and a few other trace elements, works great. You can buy a 2 litre bottle of it for about 25.00 plus shipping from *********** which will last you a long, long time. I have a 105 and the smaller bottle (1/4 the size) lasts me about 3 months. Ideally you want to keep your calcium between 400-450, if you haven't been dosing with calcium I would be willing to bet its around 350 which will not promote the fastest coral and coraline growth. You can use Reef salt which adds a lot of these elements but its not as good as reef complete. reef complete and just regular salt mix is cheaper and better.
i dont need to add anything with the salt i use my calc is always 400
reefreak29
Active Member
Originally Posted by Bang Guy
If you have nothing growing in your tank then you won't have to add Calcium or Bicarbonate.
If you have a thriving reef tank then additives are necessary unless you do water changes every day.
u usaully say very usefull stuff , but i just cant agree with that , my levels are within range throughout the whole week till i do a water change without supplaments, my color, polyp extension and growth is finaminal in my sps's
now if your talking about calc levels at 450 and go down to 400 within one week ok, but it does not go down to 300 in a weeks time
If you have nothing growing in your tank then you won't have to add Calcium or Bicarbonate.
If you have a thriving reef tank then additives are necessary unless you do water changes every day.
u usaully say very usefull stuff , but i just cant agree with that , my levels are within range throughout the whole week till i do a water change without supplaments, my color, polyp extension and growth is finaminal in my sps's
now if your talking about calc levels at 450 and go down to 400 within one week ok, but it does not go down to 300 in a weeks time
bang guy
Moderator
What is your Alkalinity doing when the Calcium goes from 450 - 400? Generally Alk drops the same or slightly more than Calcium. With your example that's 50ppm or 1 Meq/l. If you started with 3.5Meq/l it would drop to 2.5 Meq/l.
I attempted to do the math to determine what Calcium and Alk levels would be required for a 10% water change to bring levels back up. If I made a mistake in the math please feel free to correct me.
In order for a 10% water change to raise ALK back to 3.5 Meq/L from 2.5Meq/L and Calcium back to 450ppm from 400ppm the new water would have to have an Alkalinity of about 12.5 Meq/L and a Calcium level around 900ppm.
The math doesn't support weekly 10% water changes being enough to maintain Calcium and Alkalinity. If a salt mix attempted levels that high with new salt water it would just end up with a bucket coated with useless Calcium carbonate crystals.
I attempted to do the math to determine what Calcium and Alk levels would be required for a 10% water change to bring levels back up. If I made a mistake in the math please feel free to correct me.
In order for a 10% water change to raise ALK back to 3.5 Meq/L from 2.5Meq/L and Calcium back to 450ppm from 400ppm the new water would have to have an Alkalinity of about 12.5 Meq/L and a Calcium level around 900ppm.
The math doesn't support weekly 10% water changes being enough to maintain Calcium and Alkalinity. If a salt mix attempted levels that high with new salt water it would just end up with a bucket coated with useless Calcium carbonate crystals.
swabearf16
Member
Dogstar and 120Reefer, do you really do water changes every few months? Everthing I've read so far indicates a 20% water change should be done bi-weekly. I'm not set up yet so I'm still learning. There's a lot to this hobby that the average Joe Bag o' Doughnuts doesn't realize.
reefreak29
Active Member
its always worked for me guess im just lucky every weak, those were just hypothetical numbers , mine doesnt change much at all
bang guy
Moderator
Water changes will definately work if the consumption rate is low. That was my point.
I'd just recommend you make the judgement based on your Carbonate (ALK) consumption rate, not your Calcium consumption.
For a 10% weekly water change to work well the Carbonate consumption rate needs to be fairly low otherwise Alkalinity will steadily decline until it starts to limit coral growth.
If it works for you that's great.
I'd just recommend you make the judgement based on your Carbonate (ALK) consumption rate, not your Calcium consumption.
For a 10% weekly water change to work well the Carbonate consumption rate needs to be fairly low otherwise Alkalinity will steadily decline until it starts to limit coral growth.
If it works for you that's great.
dogstar
Active Member
Originally Posted by SWABearF16
Dogstar and 120Reefer, do you really do water changes every few months?
yep....I have a large fuge for algea scrubbing = nutriant reduction and plankton production and aragonite DSP to eliminate nitrates and lots of Live Rock and aragonite sand bed in the main tank and heavy skimming. My own RO/DI filters for topoffs...I run no mechanical or fiber filters and no carbon...
The natural marine substates helps to buffer water levels and '' I dont overfeed '' but I do have a well stocked tank...not many stonies or crustations.
All my levels stay pretty good and I test most everything about once a month and as I said, rarely dose but once and a while I will.
Dogstar and 120Reefer, do you really do water changes every few months?
yep....I have a large fuge for algea scrubbing = nutriant reduction and plankton production and aragonite DSP to eliminate nitrates and lots of Live Rock and aragonite sand bed in the main tank and heavy skimming. My own RO/DI filters for topoffs...I run no mechanical or fiber filters and no carbon...
The natural marine substates helps to buffer water levels and '' I dont overfeed '' but I do have a well stocked tank...not many stonies or crustations.
All my levels stay pretty good and I test most everything about once a month and as I said, rarely dose but once and a while I will.