Calcium and Alk

[Mr_Cool]

I'm sorry if this seems redundant, or if I can find the answer somewhere myself. I read a bunch, but I think I got myself all confused.

I think I want to try some easy SPS corals. But, I know I need to get my Alk and Ca in check first. Both are low. I thought I read somewhere that you really need to get the Alk right first. But, then again, I also thought I read that raising the Ca will also bring up the Alk as long as Ph is acceptable.

Could someone set me straight here? I'm thinking of starting to dripping kalkwasser. Is this the best/easiest/cheapest way to go about it?

(I talked to Gary about this about a year ago, but you know how that goes. :D)

[JimD]

My first concern before attempting sps would be flow and lighting. What exactly are your Alk And Ca levels and what is your lighting? What else do you have in the tank?

[ansonluna]

You only need to be concerned with alk/cal when you have a load of corals in your tank. You can maintain sps with frequent water changes. Light and flow are more important initially.

[Mr_Cool]

Flow:
I have a Mag 9.5 as my return pump and two other powerheads in there. It's a 75 gallon pentagonal corner unit. (Think of a 32" x 32" cube that is 24" deep. But, cut off one of the corners to make a right triangle so that the legs of the right triangle are each 23".) Point is, theres only about 760 square inches of water on the surface. One of the powerheads is a penguin or something. It's pretty old, but is good to move enough water to avoid the dead spots. The other is a MJ1200. I think there is pretty good flow in there, but I could alway get a mod for the MJ to increase the flow.

Lighting:
I just got a 250W DE MH pendant up and running within the past month. It has a CoralVue Reeflux 12,000K bulb, so I think the lighting should not be a problem.

Parameters: (Last time I checked them was 2 weeks ago)
Ph 8.2
Alk 3.5 dKH
Nitrates 5
Nitrites 0
Amonia 0
Temp. is usually 79-80.
I don't test for Calcium 'cause I don't have a real need to right now.

Let me know if I'm missing anything.

[matt]

You only need to be concerned with alk/cal when you have a load of corals in your tank. You can maintain sps with frequent water changes. Light and flow are more important initially.

I don't think this is exactly true; any tank with strong lighting and some coralline algae will extract calcium and alkalinity from the water. Replacing all the evaporated water with KW will maintain calcium and alkalinity on a tank with a modest calcium demand, but water changes alone on a sizable tank will not, unless you're changing an absurd amount of water.

Replacing calcium and alkalinity is easy; you need 2 test kits, some baking soda for alkalinity and any form of calcium chloride for calcium; Dowflake, Prestone driveway heat, All-clear pool calcium hardner, or Kent turbo calcium will work fine. A good introduction to this topic is this article:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2003/chem.htm

I definitely agree that light and flow are critical to keeping SPS corals, and it sounds ike you could use more flow. But your alkalinity at 3.5 dkh is really low. Since you have an alkalinity test kit, you can just use baking soda dissolved in some R.O. water to fix that. Here's a calculator to help you figure out how much to use:
http://home.comcast.net/%7Ejdieck1/chem_calc3.html

[cpreefguy]

I like B-Ionic, its like steroids for SPS :)

[caferacermike]

B Ionic.

[GaryP]

I did say that of the two, maintaining alkalinity should be a higher priority. Also, mainitining alkalinity is a little more difficult because it gets used up by other things besides calcification (coral growth). Corals will tolerate low calcium more then they will low alkalinity. An alkalinity of 3.5 dkh is pretty low. Natural sea water is around 7.5-8.0. Whether you are going to run SPS or not, I would suggest you need to get your alkalinity up. At that level you may be having pH fluctuations that you aren't catching with your test kit, such as at night.

[Mr_Cool]

I have some chaeto in my sump with a light running on it 24/7. I thought the chaeto would be good to take out some nutrients, and the light would be good to help it grow AND keep the Ph constant. I'll try testing my Ph this weekend in the middle of the night when the tank lights are out to see if there are indeed fluctuations. My Ph has always been right around 8.2, though.

What's the best way to maintain Alk, then? Really, I'm not too worried about the Ca anymore. Can I drip baking soda to increase the Alk?

[Mr_Cool]

I have some chaeto in my sump with a light running on it 24/7. I thought the chaeto would be good to take out some nutrients, and the light would be good to help it grow AND keep the Ph constant. I'll try testing my Ph this weekend in the middle of the night when the tank lights are out to see if there are indeed fluctuations. My Ph has always been right around 8.2, though.

What's the best way to maintain Alk, then? Really, I'm not too worried about the Ca anymore. Can I drip baking soda to increase the Alk?

[matt]

You don't need to drip the baking soda, just dissolve some in R.O. water and pour it into a high flow area in your sump. Check out the article I posted the link to; that should answer your questions. The calculator I posted the link for will tell you how much baking soda to use.

If you have a low ph, you can bake the baking soda, which turns it into sodium carbonate, which will raise your ph when added. You could buy sodium carbonate; it's called "washing soda" if you can find it. Simply baking the baking soda as described in that article will accomplish exactly the same thing.

[hobogato]

Alk 3.5 dKH


are you sure this is dKH and not meq/L?

3.5 meq/L would be equivalent to 9.8 DKH

[Mr_Cool]

WOW! Thanks Ace. I checked my test kit, and it is in meq/L. I guess I got a little confused there.

I'm in pretty good shape then, huh?

(This could have been pretty ugly, huh?! :w00t)

[Mr_Cool]

WOW! Thanks Ace. I checked my test kit, and it is in meq/L. I guess I got a little confused there.

I'm in pretty good shape then, huh?

(This could have been pretty ugly, huh?! :w00t)

[Mr_Cool]

Why do these keep posting twice?!? :wacko