I need help finding things that will naturally produce things in my reef tank. (like calcium)

[the mantis lover]

so I'm trying to make a fully self-sustaining 10-gallon nano reef that all I have to do is add water. I know this might be impossible but, is there anything that can naturally produce what I need in my tank like calcium? I would really appreciate your help with this. (and before I add corals of course I would see if my parameters were good.)

 

[Dennis Cartier]

That depends, the water you are adding, do you mean top off water or water change water? If the latter, you could operate it like a jar reef and do timed periodic water changes to replenish the elements. If the former, not really.

Another option you may want to explore is using a single dosing product like All-For-Reef. It contains all elements to provide calcium, alkalinity, magnesium and trace elements. This works well for small tanks, but becomes cost prohibitive for large ones. They do have a cheaper powder version available now though.

Dennis

 

[the mantis lover]

That depends, the water you are adding, do you mean top off water or water change water? If the latter, you could operate it like a jar reef and do timed periodic water changes to replenish the elements. If the former, not really.

Another option you may want to explore is using a single dosing product like All-For-Reef. It contains all elements to provide calcium, alkalinity, magnesium and trace elements. This works well for small tanks, but becomes cost prohibitive for large ones. They do have a cheaper powder version available now though.

Dennis

thank you. i was thinking top of water

 

[Crashnt24]

Your cheapest, least amount of maintenance option would be to perform regular water changes on a system that small.

You could run true crushed coral through a media bag in your filter and it will help to keep those levels up, but it will also take up valuable filter space for things like mechanical and chemical filtration.

The other thing would be to have crushed coral and argonite sand as a substrate. Same thing as the media bag minus the filter flow thru.

As ph drops, the calcium carbonate contained in coral skeletons release into the water balancing out the ph and elevating alk, calcium and magnesium levels.

Depending on what corals you stock and their growth rate, the natural methods can't keep up. That's where water changes and dosing come into play.

Good luck!

 

[the mantis lover]

Your cheapest, least amount of maintenance option would be to perform regular water changes on a system that small.

You could run true crushed coral through a media bag in your filter and it will help to keep those levels up, but it will also take up valuable filter space for things like mechanical and chemical filtration.

The other thing would be to have crushed coral and argonite sand as a substrate. Same thing as the media bag minus the filter flow thru.

As ph drops, the calcium carbonate contained in coral skeletons release into the water balancing out the ph and elevating alk, calcium and magnesium levels.

Depending on what corals you stock and their growth rate, the natural methods can't keep up. That's where water changes and dosing come into play.

Good luck!

thank you so much! this is very helpful!