Cats Paw help

eirvin15 · Jul 5, 2025

bluemon said:
Water change every 3 weeks should sustain calcium for one small frag, if it’s the only stony.

What salt are you using?

Idk, i buy it from the same LFS.

billyocean · Jul 5, 2025

eirvin15 said:
Idk, i buy it from the same LFS.

These are good things to know. Water Chemistry is thr most important part of your tank imo.

56longroof · Jul 5, 2025

billyocean said:
These are good things to know. Water Chemistry is thr most important part of your tank imo.

I second this. If you plan on keeping a reef tank for any length of time you need to start taking full control over it. Make your own salt,get a good test kit,and research, research,research. LFS are only there to sell you things and make money. There are some exceptions but they didn't start a business to cater to you. Only your wallet.

bobnicaragua · Jul 5, 2025

You don’t need to test 30 things to keep SPS. Keep up with your water changes (easy in a nano) and test alkalinity and phosphate. Run carbon, strong flow, 200+ par. Dose kalkwasser, 2 part, or all for reef based on you alkalinity. Be consistent.

twentyleagues · Jul 5, 2025

Calcium and magnesium are tests that can be easily messed up and give inaccurate results. I mean really any test can be if you are not careful. I used API tests in the past because that was a brand that was readily available. There is not much in reality that is wrong with them. The colors can be difficult to tell the difference, and they are not super accurate because you are adding drops from a dropper bottle and it gives you a range within the parameters, but they were good enough to get me in the ballpark with around 1100g of sw in my house back then. Salifert was another brand and still is it has pretty good accuracy as long as you do. I like Hannahs because it shows you a number on the screen as long as you did the test right they are very accurate. For Hannahs I like alk, phosphate(lr) and nitrate, I dont like their calcium one you have to use ultra pure water in the testing, RO/DI wont cut it because there may be calcium left over in the water. I am not trying to buy lab grade water from them or anyone else. Red sea has a pretty good test kit that seems to match my Hannahs when I cross test kinda like the Salifert tests.

Corals and coralline algae use elements in a pretty specific ratio I believe for every 2dkh of alk used 20ppm of calcium and 2ppm of magnesium are used (dont quote me on the numbers they are from memory and that not the greatest). Coralline uses a bit more mag. So for your calcium to be in the 200 range with a 9dkh something is up. Either the test is inaccurate or the salt mix isnt correct. I would mix a fresh batch of salt and test it, see what your base line elements are at. I would think if using a good salt weekly water changes of 10-20% would be fine for a long time unless you start getting explosive growth of corals or coralline algae. If that is your only coral this would be a perfectly fine way to go. What are you using to test salinity?

eirvin15 · Jul 5, 2025

twentyleagues said:
Calcium and magnesium are tests that can be easily messed up and give inaccurate results. I mean really any test can be if you are not careful. I used API tests in the past because that was a brand that was readily available. There is not much in reality that is wrong with them. The colors can be difficult to tell the difference, and they are not super accurate because you are adding drops from a dropper bottle and it gives you a range within the parameters, but they were good enough to get me in the ballpark with around 1100g of sw in my house back then. Salifert was another brand and still is it has pretty good accuracy as long as you do. I like Hannahs because it shows you a number on the screen as long as you did the test right they are very accurate. For Hannahs I like alk, phosphate(lr) and nitrate, I dont like their calcium one you have to use ultra pure water in the testing, RO/DI wont cut it because there may be calcium left over in the water. I am not trying to buy lab grade water from them or anyone else. Red sea has a pretty good test kit that seems to match my Hannahs when I cross test kinda like the Salifert tests.

Corals and coralline algae use elements in a pretty specific ratio I believe for every 2dkh of alk used 20ppm of calcium and 2ppm of magnesium are used (dont quote me on the numbers they are from memory and that not the greatest). Coralline uses a bit more mag. So for your calcium to be in the 200 range with a 9dkh something is up. Either the test is inaccurate or the salt mix isnt correct. I would mix a fresh batch of salt and test it, see what your base line elements are at. I would think if using a good salt weekly water changes of 10-20% would be fine for a long time unless you start getting explosive growth of corals or coralline algae. If that is your only coral this would be a perfectly fine way to go. What are you using to test salinity?

i’m using a refractometer