What are the basic chemical additives?

[evaredee]

Other than buffering for Ph, and adding Iodine and calcium...What are the main chemicals necessary for a healthy reef. I recently heard that you get everything you need from water changes but I don't buy that. Give me 4 most important chemicals that corals can't survive without.

 

[j21kickster]

Actually it is true- water changes do wonders- if you have FO tank you dont need supplements- just change water- if you have a reef tank Calcium and Alkalinity are your major players- the rest of them can be added via 2X Month waterchanges

 

[evaredee]

so strontium, molyb####? and magnesium aren't important?

 

[j21kickster]

they are- but not as important as the makers of the chemicals want you to think- most salt mixes carry a fair portion of trace elements and unless you tank is packed with corals- they wont be depleted in a day

 

[bang guy]

Originally posted by Evaredee
so strontium, molyb####? and magnesium aren't important?
Yes they are but a water change will replenish the levels from the salt mix.
Just a check - are you testing your Ca and ALK levels before adding Buffer & Calcium?

 

[nm reef]

There are countless ways to establish/maintain a marine aquarium...and questions like this will get assorted replys.
I suppliment calcium and alkalinity on a regular basis with stable levels around 450-480 ppm for calcium and 3.0-3.5 meg/L for alkalinity. Maybe once every two weeks I also suppliment magnesium and it has recently started staying right around 1500-1800ppm...I test all three at least once a week. All other trace elements are needed for a healthy system...but I replenish them via 5-10 gal water changes about once a month.
As a rule I avoid adding any suppliment that I can not accurately test for.

nmreef@cox.net

 

[azonic]

I dose calcium and alk on a regular basis. My buffer raises pH to 8.3 as it raises alk so im covered there.
The only other things I use and they are used very sparingly are Iodine and an additive called Coral Accel by Kent. The iodine I use because I do a lot of mushroom fragging and I find the iodine speeds up the healing process. The coral accel is used for the same reason. I find it to help the growth of the new frags.
Currently I do my propagating in my display. That will change shortly when my 23 gallon long prop tank arrives. Then it will only be calcium and alk in the display. Others strictly for frags.