checking calcium

[art_of_war]

How many of you guys take the time to check your calcium level? How often do you all actually do so? I guess I'm asking b/c the test is too tedious and dreadful to have to do every week.

[Samper]

I generally test every 2 weeks. With my reactors I'm able to maintain Ca and Alk pretty easy but once in a while I see small shifts so I hate to go longer than that without doing so.

[zhenya]

Not tedious at all, I do it every two weeks. If I don;t, and rely on the water changes alone, it can take me to the point of no return... Inconsistencies of the synthetic salt mixes are the biggest problem for me, otherwise I wouldn't have to spend all this cash on the test kits.

[art_of_war]

Not tedious at all, I do it every two weeks. If I don;t, and rely on the water changes alone, it can take me to the point of no return... Inconsistencies of the synthetic salt mixes are the biggest problem for me, otherwise I wouldn't have to spend all this cash on the test kits.

zen,

You don't think it's tedious? Maybe it's just my test kit then.

[Samper]

I haven't timed it but I think I could test Ca with my Salifert kit in under two minutes. The longest time consuming part is making sure everything is dissolved and mixed properly. I know that my Ca is going to be over 400 ppm so I don't go drop by drop to that point I just squirt it in and mix it really well. From there I'll start drop by drop until I see blue and take my readings.

I used to go drop by drop but comparing the two methods the result is the same. A hardcore chemist might argue this isn't the proper way to go about it but it works for me.

[zhenya]

zen,

You don't think it's tedious? Maybe it's just my test kit then.

I really don't. I think it's more tedious to bring your levels back than the five minutes it takes to run the test. But then again it;s just me.

[Poseidon]

From experience.... If you let the Ca and Alk get out of whack, you will WISH AND WISH you had taken the time to do the test!

My ATO went bad, and I was just adding RO water for a week or 10 days, instead of saturated Kalk, and on top of that my Ca levels had been falling because the Kalk reactor couldn't keep up to begin with.... Anyway I was dosing and dosing and dosing to get things back right. Then I moved and performed what amounted to a 99% water change! ;) That won't happen again!

[art_of_war]

From experience.... If you let the Ca and Alk get out of whack, you will WISH AND WISH you had taken the time to do the test!

My ATO went bad, and I was just adding RO water for a week or 10 days, instead of saturated Kalk, and on top of that my Ca levels had been falling because the Kalk reactor couldn't keep up to begin with.... Anyway I was dosing and dosing and dosing to get things back right. Then I moved and performed what amounted to a 99% water change! ;) That won't happen again!

Actually, right now I've developed a pretty good habbit of performing 10% water changes per week. I'm using a pretty good salt mix and haven't gotten to the point of over-populating my tank with too many hard corals. Still mostly zoas, clams and LPS's; but very few SPS frags. I know eventually, I'll have to get a Calcium reactor. I'm just a little leary about dosing my tank with even a drop of calcium or strontium supplement.

It's hard to want to change when everything is working. I'm sure you know what I mean.

[vaporize]

Actually I would recommend something different.

Yes, I hate testing and I rarely do unless I see issues with my corals, they do show you that something is out of whack.

Once you get the levels you wanted, I would recommend either one of these things to get it to constantly stable.

However the two thing I would recommend is to use a good two/three part supplement.
- B-ionic, you just dose the same dosage each time (seperately, else will precipitatie)

OR

Use a calcium reactor. I used to check water very 1 - 2 weeks and have corals dying left and right due to parameters out of whack. Tried Holme's DIY 3 part additive but maybe I am not following religous enough, it always go of balance fast. But ever since I setup the calcium reactor, I only test it every 2-3 months. Make sure you have magnesium supplement though because normal agaronite does not supplement that usage fast enough.

Being said, all these depends on how heavy your calcium load is.