Does Halameda Algae growth suck up too much CA and Carbonate???

fragman2 · Jan 9, 2016

I have some compartment tanks connected to my 210 sps tank and I've had a hard time maintaininig CA levels. I have a Deltec CA reactor, a Kalk stirer and dosing system in place. A regular refugium with normal grape calerpa is attached to the system. The system has a heavy coral and clam bio load. About 6 months ago some Halameda calcarius algae started growing in a 12 x 12 compartment. It has completely taken that compartment over and I have harvested it just a few times. It grows back fast. Dying "leaves" litter the bottom 3/4 of an inch of that compartment. My question is does this stuff suck up too much Calcium and Carbonate out of my water?

Opinions and/or facts are appreciated :)

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 9, 2016

Too much is just a matter of opinion. It does take up some.

Are you having trouble maintaining alkalinity too?

What happens if you lower the pH or increase the water flow rate in your reactor?

fragman2 · Jan 9, 2016

Alkalinity has been easier to maintain. I'm using 720ml of each of Part 1 and Part 2 solutions, (your recipe) dosed every day in addition to running the CA reactor. The reactor alone just didn't cut it. In the reactor I do my best to maintain a PH of 6.5 . The flow rate seems to change on it's own over time as the input valve gets clogged. When I see the PH go up near 7, I clear the valve and re-adjust it. (perhaps weekly) Today's reading were 79 degrees, salinity of 35 PPT, CA = 350 and Alk of 10.4 dkh. The CA levels were low at 280 three weeks ago and 330 last week. I've been manually adding additional small amounts of Seachem's Reef advantage Calcium and Walt Smith's Fiji Gold Coral and live rock Calcium.

I have had the doser for just 6 months and part of it I'm sure is just "getting it dialed in".

Picture from a couple of days ago: (the tank is 30 inches tall) Do the 3 big clams such up lots of Calcium? Not gonna get rid of them anytime soon :-)

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 9, 2016

Nice tank!

I think you need to add additional LARGE amounts of calcium to make this one time correction. Say, 25 ppm per day.

Once at your target, you might need to tweak up the calcium part of the two part to a somewhat higher dose than the 720 mL per day to keep it there.