Iodide, Calcium, Alkalinity, Strontium

[aarmatting]

I talked to my place where I get all my fish and reef. He told that I need all Calcium, Iodide, Strontium, and Alkalinity. He also told me that the Calcium, Strontium and Alkalinity needed to be added twice a week and to be safe Iodide once a week. I am a beginner and would like all of your oppinions. I have a 29gal tank as well with a Skilter 250?? I think... but i also put a seperate air pump with a wood stone at the bottom of the skilter to help pro. skim... I also have a powerhead 402 and a 250 Aquaclear....
Another question... I put calcium in my tank and now it is cloudy. Any sug???:scared:
I have a reef tank... I have a lot of mushrooms, 2 anemones, Xenias, Polyps, 30 pounds of LR, Carrib sand, Red Sea salt, crabs, snails, starfish, Lawnmower Blenny, Dark Clown, Twin-spotted Butterfly, Sand-sifter Goby, Coral Beauty Angel, a Brain, Fire Scallop, Peppermint Shrimp, Coral Life 96 watt light. I don't want to kill anything... of course i want progress... and thank you for welcoming me!!

 

[mattm]

he is probably trying to sell it to you too.. don't flush your money down the toilet in the dosing game... it seriously can only hurt your tank...
best thing to do is to ONLY dose 1 thing.. ONLY after you have first tested your calcium levels. [to make sure it is sitting close to natural sea water]
B- Ionic. [Calcium and ALk. 1 part buffer system]
[or some other CA system if you feel compelled. 80% of reefers that don't have CA reactors swear by b-ionic]
ONLY dose iodine if you have been cutting corals..
The reason you don't need to dose all this stuff is becuase of the water changes you shoudl be doing every few weeks. these replace the trace elements liek stron. overdosing can really hurt stuff. too much iodine call kill alot of stuff. too much CA will make your sand clump. etc.

 

[mattm]

hold on a sec. i just looked at the fish in your tank- how old is your tank, [how long have the fish been in there] the 2 " of fish per gallon does not work.. especailly since soem fish need in excess of 100 gallons of water jsut to survive....
that is an awful lot of fish that require a lot of room- the sand sifter goby and lawnmower blenny alone would be enough to almost totally drain the system of 30 pounds of rock.. and angels in general don't live long in heatlhy nano tanks- even if they are the only one...
trying to help you out- i know what it is like to have fish die all of a sudden wiht no clue why- did it stupidly as a teenager on my freshwater tank it is a sad feeling....
good luck- hopefully we will get youg oing so you have a long term stable tank that you are proud of

 

[thomas712]

Originally posted by AarMatting
I talked to my place where I get all my fish and reef. He told that I need all Calcium, Iodide, Strontium, and Alkalinity. He also told me that the Calcium, Strontium and Alkalinity needed to be added twice a week and to be safe Iodide once a week.
You need to figure out just what your system is using with regards to alkalinity and calcium.
My suggestion here would be to test your alk and cal for several days straight to find out how much it is using each day.
Then you can add like a two part additive like B-ionic, to replace and maintain the proper levels.
Iodide, no worries your regularly schedualed water change can replace what you need.
Strontium, I really would not worry about that either as you can get what you need from the water change as well, but my answer here also depends on just how heavy a coral load you have or just what it is your trying to acheive as well. If you are going for coralline aleae on the rocks then you may want to be able to test for the Strontium as well.
No matter what you add you should be able to test for it. So if you add Alk, Cal, Iodine, or anything then you should have a test kit to make sure that you do not overdose.
So for now just worry about Alkalinity and Calcium.
Thomas

 

[aarmatting]

THanks for the updates.... I had a Freshwater tank, which is now my saltwater tank... It was perfect...not a single fish died in 3 yrs.... I know salt is a different story... a completely different story.. I also have 2 types of Mushrooms, Red Mushrooms, i think, and green tiped mushrooms..... the green tipped mushrooms are doing fine but my Red mushrooms are lacking what they looked like when i first bought them.... i have had both for about 2 wks... Another bad thing is that i have Ich in my tank... I had to move most of my fish to a QT tank and serve up a good dose of Copper... my Twin-Spot Butterfly is very very thin and i fear that she might die... any suggestions on how to treat a reef tank???? I need to get this problem solved ASAP... Other than water changes what can i do that won't harm my Inverts.:help: I don't care if its a slow process or a quick one... i just need my tank healthy again!!!!
One last thing... how often should i partial change?? It's a 29Gal with a 250 Skilter, 250 Aquaclear, 402 Powerhead and 3 Inches of Carrib. sand....??????:help: