As a reef keeper you need a good understanding of Calcium, Magnesium and Alkalinity in order to maintain a stable and balanced supply of building blocks for your corals. Not only does it affect the growth rate of your hard corals, but also colour and overall health of your corals.
These elements are extracted from the water by the corals when they grow and lay down to build their Calcium Carbonate skeletons. Take note…Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) skeleton. Corals need these elements in a balanced supply in the water. They cannot grow if one of these elements are too low, which is why Balance is so important.
So one should always strive for stability! You must not let the concentrations of these elements in the water seesaw up and down, because this inhibits coral growth.
This is where regular testing comes in (once a week). The recommended range for alkalinity is 2.8- 4 meq/L or 7 - 11 dKH.
Alkalinity also gets depleted due to the fact that it neutralizes all the acids produced in the system, (fish urine to name one).
Due to this, alkalinity has to be monitored very closely because of the 3 elements we talking about it “gets used up” the most.
For this reason it is also called a pH buffer due to the neutralization of acids and for that the pH stays nice and stable, much more than in fresh water.
For calcium, the range should be 400 – 430 ppm calcium.
Magnesium is important because it stops the calcium and carbonate (alkalinity) from precipitating out of solution. You could use the analogy of it being a lattice, making sure your Calcium stays in solution.
For this reason you should keep your magnesium levels between 1320ppm to 1370ppm.
Calcium reactors
Calcium reactors bring stability because of gradual daily dosing of calcium and carbonate.
Calcium reactors use a Calcium Carbonate media (same as your coral’s skeleton). We add CO2 to this to form Carbonic Acid that dissolves the Calcium Carbonate media back in to the water as free Calcium ions and Carbonate ions so the corals can use it to build their skeletons. This basically reverses the process of corals growing.
How it works:
The kit consists of a reactor, Calcium Carbonate media, CO2 bottle, solenoid valve, pH probe and pH controller.
Aquarium water gets pumped slowly (depending on aquarium volume and coral demand) through the reactor that is filled with calcium carbonate media. CO2 gets added to this in a controlled manner by the controller to bring and keep the aquarium water with a pH of round 8.2 down to round 6.5. Now the media in the reactor dissolves slowly due to the acidity of the water. The lower the pH of the water the faster the media dissolves. This way you can keep up with the ever increasing demand of the system because the corals get bigger and their ever bigger demand for more calcium carbonate.
It is important to remember that a Calcium reactor does not fix imbalances, but rather maintains your Calcium and Kh (carbonate) levels, and it always advisable to make sure you have the correct balance of Calcium and alkalinity in your tank before you start the reactor.
Below are some pictures of Calcium reactors.
These elements are extracted from the water by the corals when they grow and lay down to build their Calcium Carbonate skeletons. Take note…Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) skeleton. Corals need these elements in a balanced supply in the water. They cannot grow if one of these elements are too low, which is why Balance is so important.
So one should always strive for stability! You must not let the concentrations of these elements in the water seesaw up and down, because this inhibits coral growth.
This is where regular testing comes in (once a week). The recommended range for alkalinity is 2.8- 4 meq/L or 7 - 11 dKH.
Alkalinity also gets depleted due to the fact that it neutralizes all the acids produced in the system, (fish urine to name one).
Due to this, alkalinity has to be monitored very closely because of the 3 elements we talking about it “gets used up” the most.
For this reason it is also called a pH buffer due to the neutralization of acids and for that the pH stays nice and stable, much more than in fresh water.
For calcium, the range should be 400 – 430 ppm calcium.
Magnesium is important because it stops the calcium and carbonate (alkalinity) from precipitating out of solution. You could use the analogy of it being a lattice, making sure your Calcium stays in solution.
For this reason you should keep your magnesium levels between 1320ppm to 1370ppm.
Calcium reactors
Calcium reactors bring stability because of gradual daily dosing of calcium and carbonate.
Calcium reactors use a Calcium Carbonate media (same as your coral’s skeleton). We add CO2 to this to form Carbonic Acid that dissolves the Calcium Carbonate media back in to the water as free Calcium ions and Carbonate ions so the corals can use it to build their skeletons. This basically reverses the process of corals growing.
How it works:
The kit consists of a reactor, Calcium Carbonate media, CO2 bottle, solenoid valve, pH probe and pH controller.
Aquarium water gets pumped slowly (depending on aquarium volume and coral demand) through the reactor that is filled with calcium carbonate media. CO2 gets added to this in a controlled manner by the controller to bring and keep the aquarium water with a pH of round 8.2 down to round 6.5. Now the media in the reactor dissolves slowly due to the acidity of the water. The lower the pH of the water the faster the media dissolves. This way you can keep up with the ever increasing demand of the system because the corals get bigger and their ever bigger demand for more calcium carbonate.
It is important to remember that a Calcium reactor does not fix imbalances, but rather maintains your Calcium and Kh (carbonate) levels, and it always advisable to make sure you have the correct balance of Calcium and alkalinity in your tank before you start the reactor.
Below are some pictures of Calcium reactors.
