CALCIUM

Lionking · 11-23-2004, 11:31 AM

Can too much calcium be harmful in a FOWLR tank?

Thanks

Birdlady · 11-23-2004, 03:13 PM

Too much of anything could be harmful in a FOWLR tank.

How high is it?

Lionking · 11-24-2004, 02:13 AM

I haven't set up the tank yet, but lfs guy told be I should add calcium every day if I want to get some coraline algae growth to my dead live rock. I was just wondering what is an acceptable level?

Birdlady · 11-24-2004, 02:20 AM

OK...to do this right, you need to know a few things.

Hmmm, not on my computer right now...don't have my bookmarked pages...I will post that later.

For now, *If you are going to add calcium you should have a calcium test kit as well. *Generally accepted leves are about 400-450.

You will also need to keep alkalinity up as that does affect the ability of organisms to lay down calcium....I think that should be *9 -14 dKh...again, you will need an alkalinity test kit.

Finally, if you have problems maintaining either of those parameters, you should check Magnesium, that should be 1300 - 1400.

These are all forms of salts and can be overdosed so make sure you test before you add. Additionally, if overdosed, you will get the opposite effect as it will spontaneously precipitate out of the water

*

Sorry! *Hope I did not give you too much info at once! *I will try and get those articles posted for you later that go into more detail...If you look under the chemistry part of this forum, you will find lots of related articles.

It's not really difficult or complicated...don't worry!

12-16-2004, 08:36 PM

If your calcium levels go too high, you will get precipitation of Calcium Carbonate. This will reduce the carbonate available in your tank. Coralline algae on your rock will want a 1:1 balance of calcium and bicarbonate/carbonate per mole or molecule.

There are four possibilities:

Ca too high/Alk too low: This will also cause poor growth. If calcium is high enough, it will precipitate out with carbonate to form calcium carbonate "white snow" on your sand and rock, and is useless to you. You need to slowly & steadily raise your hardness with baking soda.

Alk too high/Ca too low: This will also cause white snow. You need to steadily drip kalk until your calcium and alk levels are within acceptable ranges.

Alk too low/Ca too low: This is easiest to fix. You won't see white snow, but your coralline growth will be poor. Keep dripping kalk, and separately add your baking soda - possibly in your top-off mix.

Ca too high/Alk too high: This rarely happens, since calcium carbonate will precipitate rapidly out of the water as mentioned in the first two cases. This will "spend" both calcium and alkalinity. In other words, this is somewhat self-correcting. If you're lucky, you will be left with a balance of each and will be happy. Usually though, you will have more of one than the other and you will be left with one of the first two cases.

Birdlady · 12-17-2004, 02:13 AM

HI Again Vancouver Reef! Thanks for that info! Are you going to join as a member? It is Free!

Thanks also for reminding me about the article I was going to post regarding this thread...it just spells out a bit exactly what you just said

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm