Dosing Reef Tank Chemical Suggestions

[cj10488]

I had some questions about dosing a reef tank and what should I need to dose with..

1) I was testing My CA levels and noticed that they are at 410 and I know I am going to need to start dosing CA soon.. What would be good to dose with.. I was planning on going with SeaChem Or Salifert.. and want to add as little Chemicals to my tank as possible but want to make sure everything I perfect...

was thinking about
Seachem's Reef Complete
Or
Salifert's Coral Grower
Or
Salifert's All in One Organic Calcium

Or other suggestions please...

I am currently testing for ammonia, nitrite, alk, nitrate, ph with Seachems test kits and Ca and Po4 with saliferts test kits.. Please advise as I Believe I am going to have to be adding sometime.

I currently have 1 purple plate coral, bubble coral, leather toadstool, Elegance, a few misc mushrooms, 2 true percs, 1 false perc, Mandrin, yellow-tail damsel, 50+hermits, 5+ astreas, 10+nassurus snails, 4 sally lightfoots, bunches of Brittle stars and serpants, a pair of red Pistols I believe, a peppermint shrimp if he hasnt been eaten.. I plan on adding a brain or 2 within the next week or so..

TIA,
James

 

[Reefaddict]

IMO the best additives for a tank are simply ESV's B-Ionic two part Alk and CA. It leaves the tank with a nice ionic balance and restores all major, minor and trace elements to the water, eliminating the need for all the extra dosing!
HTH


-The New 105

 

[Biggen]

I agree with Reefaddict. You need to make sure anything you dose on a regular basis is ionically balanced (i.e. kalkwasser). The chemicals you listed above only contain calcium chloride. This will raise only the CA level and not the ALK level.

BTW, you can use two part solutions like that, but kalkwasser is a cheaper solution. Also, kalkwasser will not raise the salinity over time like the two part solutions will do.

 

[fishfreek]

I was testing My CA levels and noticed that they are at 410 and I know I am going to need to start dosing CA soon..

Well to be honest im not sure why you think you need to dose for calcuim at this point. IMO anything above 350ppm is above NSW.

If you want to dose then I second the suggestion for kalk (aka limewater). If you want to go real cheap then look in your grocery store for Mrs Wages Pickling Lime. This is basicly the same stuff as the aquarium kalk you get in the LFS but is about 1 cheaper per lb.

I dose 1tsp per gal of RO water and then drip 1 gal to 1 1/2 gal daily.

 

[cj10488]

I wasnt planning on dosing right at the moment but i know that its going to be comming up soon.. I believe that I will just pick up ESV's B-Ionic two part Alk and CA and go with that.. I probably wont start dosing for another few weeks but want to make sure everything is on hand.. My levels went from 480+ down to 410 within the last week Ever since I stopped using Coralife Seasalts.. Anyways thanks again guys...


James

 

[cj10488]

BTW Reefaddict Kudos to you


James