Trying to balance the big 3

[Ippyroy]

My tank has had fish for 2 months and corals, few favias and zoas, for three weeks. My Alk was around 7 and I have gotten up to 9 slowly. My calcium jumps up to over 500 and steadily drops after each dose of BRS soda ash. Now that my Alk is where I want it I will be working on maintaining it and begin to work on my calcium levels. I test my Alk everyday at about 9pm. Should I test my calcium at the same time or would it be better to do it in the am?

 

[Spare time]

The time of day in which you test doesn't matter, but rather that you test at a given time frequently. I can test at 2 or 6 or 9 but what is more important is to stick to one of those numbers so I can figure out a rhythm of what my tank is at during that time of day, and dose to keep it there. I test calcium every 2 weeks or so, alk 1 or 2 times a week since I have a decent schedule going.

 

[Ippyroy]

It is my understanding that you dose at different times right? I am only testing this much right now so I can try to get a heartbeat on my tank. If alk should be dosed at night and calcium during the day, shouldn't that be when i test? i will be using an Apex DOS BTW.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My tank has had fish for 2 months and corals, few favias and zoas, for three weeks. My Alk was around 7 and I have gotten up to 9 slowly. My calcium jumps up to over 500 and steadily drops after each dose of BRS soda ash. Now that my Alk is where I want it I will be working on maintaining it and begin to work on my calcium levels. I test my Alk everyday at about 9pm. Should I test my calcium at the same time or would it be better to do it in the am?

Adding sodium carbonate has no immediate effect on calcium. Unless you are adding something else, the jump in calcium is test error.

 

[Ippyroy]

Adding sodium carbonate has no immediate effect on calcium. Unless you are adding something else, the jump in calcium is test error.

I figured it out this morning. Do not rinse the cuvette out in tank water like you do for all other testing tool when using a Hanna Calcium checker. .1 ML is very small and I was definitely using more. Ooops. Glad I didn't do anything to fix the high calcium levels which were actually perfect in the 420s.

 

[UCF Alum]

Unless you are planning to get stony corals, it is my personal opinion that the corals you stated above that you do have do not require you to test calcium and alkalinity everyday. In fact, before I made the switch to SPS a few years back, I don’t think I ever really tested the big three with softy’s and LPS.
Your current corals are much more forgiving than a SPS tank.

 

[Ippyroy]

Unless you are planning to get stony corals, it is my personal opinion that the corals you stated above that you do have do not require you to test calcium and alkalinity everyday. In fact, before I made the switch to SPS a few years back, I don’t think I ever really tested the big three with softy’s and LPS.
Your current corals are much more forgiving than a SPS tank.

I am just trying to learn to balance the numbers before I get to SPS corals. I do have a birds nest which is thriving. My original salt mix was only a Dkh of 7. I have a new one coming in on Tuesday which has a Dkh of closer to 9. My calcium numbers were off due to testing error. Everything should hopefully be balanced within the next week or two much easier and I will go to testing weekly and/or bi weekly. I am just trying to develop good habits right now. i can't wait to stop doing weekly water changes, but that is a future goal. I only have about 2 hours a week to spend on my new tank. I work around 80 hours a week developing these good habits now is imperative for me because I will easily stop doing them.

 

[Daniel92481]

Water changes are a good thing. Keep them going!

 

[GainesvilleReef]

Here is a trick to save you some time. First, all the calcium tests are prone to user error. It is very easy to be off by 20-40 ppm even if you are well-practiced. Alkalinity is a lot easier to test consistently. Alkalinity and calcium are normally consumed in a fixed relationship. If you always use balanced additives like kalk and 2-part you can manage alkalinity and calcium simply by monitoring alkalinity and adjusting the doses equally. I measure alkalinity weakly and calcium and magnesium every 3-6 months. I typically only have to adjust calcium and magnesium only 20-40 ppm when I test for them.

If you want to know Ca and Mg levels more frequently then invest in automation like the Triton. But you can get away with a lot less testing. I also think the tank will be inherently more stable if you are not constantly trying to adjust it. We all want instant and perfect control but we sometimes need to step back and let nature do its thing.

 

[Crustaceon]

The easiest thing you can do to stabilize the big three is start at low numbers like 7dkh, 400 cal, 1340 mg and gradually increase your dosing from there in very small increments. Higher alk isn’t necessarily better. There are other factors that play into it that can produce faster growth, but IMO balancing things like nutrients adds some difficulty that can be hard to maintain. High alk + low no3/po4 = burned corals. High alk + high no3/po4 = frequent testing & dosing n03/po4 to maintain those levels. You can generally keep nitrates under 10ppm and phosphates under .1 with 7dkh and keep pretty much everything including acropora and not have to dose nitrates, but maybe phosphates periodically depending on what you feed the tank and how much.