Calcium Usage

[Bergy]

you cant see or adjust your own reputation buttons, (applaud/smite)

and yes, i see your avatar now... thank you


and jake... you should see how long it takes to get down to 400 on CALC, and then do a water change and see how far it brings you up...

If you can keep your CALC an ALK levels within the range you want and maintain it with Water changes, your pocket book will appreciate it...

It should be a matter of how often you do water change and how big of a water change.

If the frequency is too much or the quantity of salt water is too much, THEN you shold consider dosing/supplimentation

btw:  ... you all need to turn on your avatars again...
I think they are still in my library so you dont have to upload them, just go to your profiles

Hi bill,
I can see my avatar.....can't you?

Can't see my Applaud/Smite thingy though ???

[RandyFolds]

and jake... you should see how long it takes to get down to 400 on CALC, and then do a water change and see how far it brings you up...

If you can keep your CALC an ALK levels within the range you want and maintain it with Water changes, your pocket book will appreciate it...

I beg to differ. Salt is WAY more expensive than calcium supplements. Kalkwasser, undeniably the best calcium additive out there, is as cheap as dirt.

We have been over this a bunch of times, but 400ppm - yes, parts per million - is not a lot of weight. It is under a gram of calcium per gallon, and when you consider how many grams of skeleton species like acropora and pocillopora and montipora can put on in a short while, it becomes obvious that the water change is not going to keep up.

Say your calcium in your 46g drops to 300ppm. You need to change 100% of the water to ever get it back up to 450ppm, saturation level. If you changed 50%, than you would end up at ~375ppm. You need supplements.

It is like a bucket with a hole in it...you cannot win, no matter how much Bill insists. Every time you do a water change, you aren't adding enough calcium, and it will just keep going downhill.

[Bergy]

and jake... you should see how long it takes to get down to 400 on CALC, and then do a water change and see how far it brings you up...

If you can keep your CALC an ALK levels within the range you want and maintain it with Water changes, your pocket book will appreciate it...

I beg to differ. Salt is WAY more expensive than calcium supplements. Kalkwasser, undeniably the best calcium additive out there, is as cheap as dirt.

We have been over this a bunch of times, but 400ppm - yes, parts per million - is not a lot of weight. It is under a gram of calcium per gallon, and when you consider how many grams of skeleton species like acropora and pocillopora and montipora can put on in a short while, it becomes obvious that the water change is not going to keep up.

Say your calcium in your 46g drops to 300ppm. You need to change 100% of the water to ever get it back up to 450ppm, saturation level. If you changed 50%, than you would end up at ~375ppm. You need supplements.

It is like a bucket with a hole in it...you cannot win, no matter how much Bill insists. Every time you do a water change, you aren't adding enough calcium, and it will just keep going downhill.if the only benwfit or goal is to raise calc then yea but the water change  will do every thing else too.

[Bergy]

and no i would rec bringing calc up from such a low  level by way of waterchange

[psykokid]

Well, todays Ca and Alk results are 450 ish mg/L and 13 dKh.

I say 450 ish on the Ca because it only reads in 20 mg/L increments and it started to change with the 12th drop and fully changed at the 13th drop. So im going to call that one a half and leave it at that. My alk is high because i buffered my top off water with the amount that i should use for the whole tank, not for the volume of top off water i used. Hope i didnt tinkle anything off too much. No Ca supplement was added today.  I'm going to add just plain unbuffered RO water the next few days for top off to see how things are consumed. pH is around 8. I need to get a pH probe and monitor because i hate reading the colour change poo poo. pH tends to be very vauge anyhow on most test kits i've seen.  Whats the salifert liquid resolve out to? Most of the colour chart ones i have seen are at best 2 to 5 steps either way.

[RandyFolds]

The salifert tests are accurate to 10ppm I believe. You calculate based on the amount of liquid left in a 1ml syringe vs. counting drops/ color change BS.

[cruzincaril]

i have a qq here..since i hear so much about magnesium levels affecting calc has anyone checked theres? if my alk is ok then why isnt my calc.  am i the only one with this calc issue?

[RandyFolds]

Bill - tanks that are fed by NSW drips show that as the corals grow (and coral growth is exponential), the seawater feed has to be increased as the corals grow to compensate for the increased calcification, even to the point that kalk-dosers and kalk-reactors are used in conjunction with the NSW feed. That is with free saltwater. A heavily stocked closed system would break the bank in terms of salt mix. if you tried to keep up.

I test my Magnesium levels if I suffer chronically low calcium in a tank and fail to bring it up with calcium chloride supplements. If you perform any sort of regular water changes, you more than likely don't have an issue with it. You can go so far as to add Epsom Salt, Magnesium Sulphate, even above natural concentrations without harming anything.

Do you supplement calcium? Do you supplement buffer? They are the two components of calicification, calcium-Ca++, and carbonate/bicarbonate, HCO3, H2CO3. Each skeletal "unit" that is laid down by invertebrates requires one of each.

An excess of carbonate buffer is easy to achieve, and as it is consumed, the excess will be liberated into the water column through the solvent action of seawater and carbonic acid from respiration and atmospheric CO2. That is not the case for calcium. An excess of calcium is impossible, as it will dissolve to saturation state (~450ppm) and then form insoluble compounds (mainly calcium carbonate) that will precipitate from the water column and cannot re-enter the solution. This also crashes out your alkalinity due to the 1:1 ratio mentioned above.

[cruzincaril]

yikes

[psykokid]

yeah, i have the salifert Mg test so i'm familiar with how they work. I wonder how far out the LaMotte Ca and pH tests resolve out? I wonder if its worth the extra chedda. Ich weiß nicht..

[RandyFolds]

You could double the volume of test water with the same amount of reagent...not sure if that would fly on the color chart tests, but it works for the Salifert stuff, with twice the resolution.

[psykokid]

yeah, i used to do that when for the KH when i first started testing. Not sure it would work with the read this colour type of stuff..

Looking at the LaMotte stuff it looks like its up there on par with Salifert as most of the tests are triation method. Quick Link : http://www.lamotte.com/aquarium_fish_farming/product_line/individual_test_kits.html

Plus the fact that you can buy just a reagent refill vs having to buy the whole test kit over again is a big plus..

[Bergy]

Bill - tanks that are fed by NSW drips show that as the corals grow (and coral growth is exponential), the seawater feed has to be increased as the corals grow to compensate for the increased calcification, even to the point that kalk-dosers and kalk-reactors are used in conjunction with the NSW feed. That is with free saltwater. A heavily stocked closed system would break the bank in terms of salt mix. if you tried to keep up.

Yes, i agree... there is a certain point that it is either too expensive or too laborious... finding that point is what i am trying to find out.

I test my Magnesium levels if I suffer chronically low calcium in a tank and fail to bring it up with calcium chloride supplements. If you perform any sort of regular water changes, you more than likely don't have an issue with it. You can go so far as to add Epsom Salt, Magnesium Sulphate, even above natural concentrations without harming anything.

The tank/critters dont need magnesium.. Magnesium has nothing to do with coral growth or critters... DIRECTLY

MAgnesium is used in the process of how Calcium and ALKalinity are held in the water...

If there is a depletion of Magnesion, then either the CALCIUM or ALK will be off... which is why is suggest starting off with ALK test, and if it is ok, then chances are that everything else is too..

If you were to do a CALC test and find out that it is off, when your ALK is on, then MAG is off...

This doesnt happen often...in fact, there is a popular dosing regimene referred to as TWO PART dosing, (CALC and ALK)  but what you would find out if you read and understood, there is actually THREE PARTS  ... MAgnesium being the third part.

the two parts are dosed, and over the course of dosing 1 gallon each of the solutions, THEN you would dose about a cup of the magnesium solution

so, it is a very small part of the two part dosing series

if you havent read the articles on two part dosing, i strongly urge everyone to do so.. even if you dont understand it.. at least when it comes time for you to consider it, at least you will have some info to trigger some memory about it and the follow up research will make more sense


www.bulkreefsupply.com has some great articles as does  www.reefkeepingmagazine.com   look up reef chemsitry


also, look up the reef chemistry calculator, and play around with it.. it is very cool cause it is very specific about the type of dosing method you are interested in. so you actually indicate which product, brand name, or generic, and it will calculate out the amount of chemicals to use...

I will look up the links an dpost them here and on the LINKS page...

Do you supplement calcium? Do you supplement buffer? They are the two components of calicification, calcium-Ca++, and carbonate/bicarbonate, HCO3, H2CO3. Each skeletal "unit" that is laid down by invertebrates requires one of each.

An excess of carbonate buffer is easy to achieve, and as it is consumed, the excess will be liberated into the water column through the solvent action of seawater and carbonic acid from respiration and atmospheric CO2. That is not the case for calcium. An excess of calcium is impossible, as it will dissolve to saturation state (~450ppm) and then form insoluble compounds (mainly calcium carbonate) that will precipitate from the water column and cannot re-enter the solution. This also crashes out your alkalinity due to the 1:1 ratio mentioned above.
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[RandyFolds]

The tank/critters dont need magnesium.. Magnesium has nothing to do with coral growth or critters... DIRECTLY

...

If you were to do a CALC test and find out that it is off, when your ALK is on, then MAG is off...

Every single cell in your tank, be it bacteria, fungus, amoeba, invert, mammalian - you get the point - utilizes magnesium. All DNA and RNA replication, i.e. growth, is dependent upon it. Every single molecule of ATP (use for energy reactions in photosynthesis and digestion) incorporates magnesium, as does chlorophyll. In addition, it is incorporated into sponges, soft corals, and echinoderms as the mineral Calcite. Coralline algae deposits magnesium in its skeleton in proportion to its concentration in the water. It does get depleted, and surprisingly fast. It is one of the main reasons to do water changes...much moreso than calcium.

Calcium being off with the Alkalinity on doesn't allow you to infer anything about the magnesium levels, and even suggests that they are correct since magnesium is responsible for holding almost half the carbonate concentration in NSW. It also mineralizes calcium carbonate, which crystalizes with a snowball effect, depleting both calcium and alkalinity. by adhering to the outer surface and preventing further precipitation and allows us to keep up with high levels we strive for.

[RandyFolds]

I don't want you to feel like I am on a rampage against you or anything, Bill. I just have strong views about calcium and the need to dose it in heavily stocked stony tanks.