Coralline growth.

[Samper]

Was checking everything out today as usual and started noticing that I have small patches of coralline growing on various places in my tank. The live rock that I got was really nice with green, maroon and pink. Now, about the size of a BB or something I have spots of the maroon and pink growing in places that are getting decent light. A milestone....My specific gravity has been staying at 1.025 I've been maintaining calcium levels as close to 400 ppm as I can judge.....seachem kit isnt very impressing. I used a 2 litre bottle and an iv drip system maintain calcium levels. My 20 gallon doesnt lose but about 1 litre of water per day and it seems that it only takes about 1/16th of a teaspoon of kent marine turbo-calcium to maintain the 400ppm. In the morning I mix the calcium in the a 1 litre of water together. Before I go to bed around 10pm in I hang the bottle and set my drip rate. When I wake up around 5am it is just finished dripping. Sound like everythings going how it should be to you guys?

[Ninong]

The turbo calcium is not a balanced additive. It's just calcium. What are you doing to maintain alkalinity?

[Samper]

Mrs Wages.

[kevinpo]

What is your alkalinity reading?

Kevin

[Ninong]

Mrs Wages.

OK, that's fine.

It's a good idea to use Turbo-Calc or similar calcium chloride additives to get your calcium levels where you want them. I like to keep mine between 425 - 475 ppm. Once your calcium is in your desired range you can discontinue the separate calcium additive and just use the Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime (calcium hydroxide) to maintain both calcium and alkalinity within your target ranges. If you add too much calcium, you will depress alkalinity.

[Samper]

I'm dosing about 3/4 teaspoon of the wages in a litre of water. To be honest I have no idea what my alk level is. My friend that was helping me do this using his test kit told me he was gonna quit helping me if I was gonna take advice from you guys. Something about his advice is sound, yours is mostly experimental...anyway I've done my research and I'm better off without him helping. He set me up for failure or big problems down the road. I don't think that my levels are out of wack or anything but I guess it's possible. Everything looks good. After I get paid on the first I'm gonna buy a nice all around test kit and a small ro unit.