dorkfish said:
You have'nt gotten into hard corals yet have you? well niether have I but I know some form of calcium suplementation is nesisary to keep hard corals or moderatly stocked soft coral tanks going, water changes are not suffiecient.
i have a 40 breeder stocked full of corals, softies, zoos, lps, sps, and a crocea clam. Ca is very necessary for corals, but unless you have a tank with a lot of sps, clams, or softies, you are not going to need to as long as you dont use IO salt. It has very low Ca levels. I use tropic marine, and before that reef crystals, and before that oceanic. Tropic marine is definatly my fav by far, but all have moderatly high levels of Ca. I have had no problem keeping my Ca levels at 420. Infact, before i got my clam and my sps, my Ca was upwards of 550-600. It all depends what salt you use. As long as you dont have tons of fast growing hard corals (softies need a lot too), then regular water changes will add all the Ca you need. You dont need a Ca reactor or to add any. Of course as i said this does depend on the number of corals you have and the type of salt you use. Even if you did dose a product like purple up that adds a lot of Ca, then you are going to throw off your ALK and pH unless you do a two part dosing system like B-Ionic.
and as far as purple up goes, you will get the coraline as your tank matures. IMO, there is no need to use it. It also contains different trace elements that you cant test for so you dont relay know if you are overdosing different things or not.
oh yeah, and if he is doesnt have any coraline growth, i doubt he is keeping hard corals at this moment in time. His tank most likely isnt mature enough.
