alk and calcium just leveled out?

[aussiejohnny]

firstly a thank you to everyone here for all the advise ..my tank has been going well ..i have been monitoring and dosing as needed all corals doing good .. but ..i havent had to dose dkh for almost 3 weeks as it was too high almost at 12 and ive been watching it decrease slowly to around 10.2 where it just stopped that was a week ago ..calcium was a constant of 6 mls of reef fusion cal/trace to maintain around 440 ..then i noticed it to just stopped going up or down ...ended up increasing to around 480 with no further dosing and just stayed there ..been 4 days no dose at all .... havent added anything for 4 weeks but am planning to add couple new corals in coming weeks ..should i wait ?? or am i just looking for issues that dont exist ..all other levels are within range ..and tank looks great ..

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

corals consume elements like calcium and alkalinity as they grow. The faster they grow the faster they consume elements. If the corals are not consuming elements, it means they are not growing.

When you put a coral into your tank, it doesn't start growing immediately, it takes several weeks or even months for corals to acclimate to your tank, and then they will start growing. Most folks won't need to dose anything in the first year or so, water changes will replenish the elements faster than the coral can consume. We only start to dose when corals are consuming elements faster than we can replenish with water changes.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You have no need to dose either alk or calcium.

If alk is not decreasing substantially, stop dosing calcium as it cannot be consumed independently of alk consumption, and trying to dose based on calcium is a poor plan as it moves too slowly and bounces around due to random test variation.

 

[get-salty]

Hello from Texas!

+1 for not needed dosing.
The reefing hobby can be very exciting and rewarding hobby. With all of the automations and keeping water chemistry...
Newly setups do not need to dose anything as they fluctuates throw out the first year.

What should be done is to monitor.. monitoring and testing. With monitoring and testings then comes dosing (if needed) to balance out your water parameters.

short and simple.
Good luck and Happy Reefing !