Please help, need advice.

[Angel Higuera]

Im new to reefing but not to saltwater. I need to know what type of additives, buffers etc. you guys use for your coral reefs. Im about to set my 20H up so I need to know what to start with. I just wanna buy the nessesities. I know how to adjust and maintain PH, SG. But I dont know anything about supplimintation or kalkwasser. Please give me what info you have on dosing too. Theres so many additives, I dont know what to buy.

 

Thanks.

[Angel Higuera]

bump*

[BKtomodachi]

Sorry nobody has answered... All I do is test for calcium once a week... and up or down my input levels accordingly. I try to keep calcium at about 500 and let the kalkwasser do the rest.

 

Heres what it looks like for me, on a daily basis:

 

-drip in about 1/2 liter of kalk/distilled water mix, make the rest of topoff in pure distilled water.

 

Add one drop of each part of AB Ionic calcium supplement. Any other two-part system will work well though.

 

You need to know this to drip kalk:

 

When you mix it, some stuff will float, and some will sink, and neither will want to dissolve in. You need to make sure you dont add either of those to the tank. I siphon off the middle water and use in in my DIY dripping bottle.

 

HTH

[Tigahboy]

There are a lot of different ways of going about this. Best ways usually require more money and work.

 

I just use a very very basic dosing schedule and it adds (or at least it's supposed to) everything I need for my reef. Everything grew a lot faster and coralline growth was crazy after starting this routine, which is shown here:

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...2590#post392590

 

Just 3 different bottles; twice a week. 1 capful per 20g. And buy a calcium and carbonate alkalinity test kits to make sure they stay at good levels while you are dosing.

[Angel Higuera]

Thanks. Im gonna check those additives you mentioned Tigah at Marine depot. So many choices...really overwhelming. I wonder what everyone else uses. This might make a good thread.

[EtOH_is_good]

i top off with kalk and dose daily with a 2 part alk/calc. nothing too complex yet. my strong recommendation is not to worry about dosing when starting the tank. magic solutions to start a tank don't exist. patience, water changes, and planing will keep your tank looking good. also measure what you dose. most of the times water changes will replace anything that is lost to growth. may not need to dose calc if you don't have fast growing sps corals.