weekly additives

[mattseattle]

ok since my tank cycled a week or so ago i've had a few snails, couple hermit crabs, a sally lightfoot and a cleaner shrimp.

what weekly additives should i be putting in? right now i'm using the kent buffer once a week and liquid calcium about once a week or after i've checked the calcium levels and they've dropped some. My schedule is to do water changes every 2 weeks. I just did my first water change this weekend.

My future plans once I get the new metal halide lighting are to add a clam and probably a few corals then just let it be for a while.

so any thoughts regarding schedules and additives would be great.

thanks!

 

[reedman]

I would suggest reading up on Kalkwasser. The stuff is great because it replenishes you're evaporated water (you'll appreciate this after the MH are installed), precipitates phosphates, and acts as a buffer for your PH in the evening/morning (if you dose it then). It's relatively simple to dose and is by far the cheapest...I mean most economical...solution to maintaining calcium and alkalinity levels. This holds true until you dable in a heavily stocked SPS tank. If your CA requirements are not that great kalkwasser is a great solution.

Your other choices include the two part stuff (part A & B for Ca and Alk), a calcium reactor and some kind of alkalinity addative, a kalk reactor (fancy way of automating kalkwasser dosing). I'm sure I am missing some and others will fill them in.

Good luck and keep asking the questions. Knowledge is way more than half the battle

-Reed

 

[mattseattle]

yeah i have some kent kalk but i haven't been dosing yet. i've been using liquid calcium right now to keep that in balance and using kent superbuffer for the alk/ph stuff. once i get the new lighting then I'm sure I'll switch due to i'll need to add water more often.

what about iodine and strontium and magnesium suppliments? i know my cleaner shrimp needs iodine. i have kent essential elements but not sure if that is enough iodine. i assume hermit crabs, snails, and my sally lightfoot would need suppliments of some sort as well as stuff for 'good' algae growth.

 

[reedman]

If you are doing regular water changes, alot of the trace elements are reintroduced that way. If you have some specific inverts that need high iodine or strontium levels you will have to dose. I have never dosed anything other than kalk and some buffers to get parameters back in line. All trace elements have come from water changes. I know of others that dose iodine and I think strontium though and they have beautiful tanks.

 

[mojoreef]

Matt the smartest thing you can do is not add anything until you know you need it. Start doing some testing on various elements (alk/cal and so on) with out doing any adding. This will tell you what kind of demands your tank is making on your water chemistry. From thier you can start a schedule with some of the things Reed has told you about.


Mike

 

[mattseattle]

well that sounds like the easiest way

ok so i need to test for calc, alk, ph and what else should i be testing for? right now i don't have a test kit for iodine, magnesium, strontium. i have been testing for calc, alk, ph on a pretty regular basis. my calcium today was around 370 or so, alk is running about 3.2 and ph is about 8.2/8.3. i did add a little bit of liquid calcium trying to get the calcium up to 400 - 420.

thanks for all the information.

 

[mojoreef]

For right now alk and cal are good enough. WHat u have to do is to find what your tank needs over any given time frame.
So do this.
Stop all dosing.
Now do a alk and cal test. get the results and right them down. Wait for 3 days and do what ever your normal water change schedule is. Now retest alk and cal. What ever the difference is, is what your tank is taking out of your water. Now you can add the required ammount to bring it up to the level you want. So then you could say every 3 days my tank needs this much alk and this much cal, and thus you could also say it needs this much everyday.

now your on your way.

have fun

Mike

 

[mattseattle]

easy enough.....

thanks for the advice.

 

[reedman]

I knew one of the brilliant minds would chime in :twisted:

 

[Montanarocknreefer]

Yeah the Mike is a pretty smart fella!

 

[mojoreef]

No Johnny its not a smart thing its just I jave already made most of the mistakes for your guys, lol

 

[tamarindthai]

i did followed his advised also ,,wow how much money i aready saved,from buying those additives that i don't really needed

 

[outprowllin]

well i used to use kalk a long time ago. over the last year or so ive been following the calcium alk adjustment methods everyone was talking about....it worked ok but every week im adding calcium , adding alk adjustment chemicals. to high, to low , just right....pH always low 7.9 -80 day and night......well about two weeks ago i threw it all out the window and started dripping kalk again...1 drop every 3 seconds or so....ph is now 8.2 calcuim locked in around 430 and alk is about 12.3 dkh ..been steady like this since last tuesday...it took a little while to bring up but this is the best readings ive had in 6 months ...dont know why i ever stopped it in the first place...guess i had to ride the wave of new stuff coming by when all the old stuff was just in the steady current.......it's gonna be hard not buying all those additives every other week from now on.........but i will probably just use the money for new pieces of coral or put it towards that new tank.......jaime