calcium&KH,lots to chew on! (bonus pics for help)

ok so you seen my tank of lps&soft corals, so you should have an idea of what my setup is like.no sump.so far my corals were mostly bought small, and i maintained my water parims calcium,kh,ph, ect. with weekly water changes, they were always at 420 calcium, 10 dkh, ph 8.2-8.3,salin 1.024-1.025. now my corals have grown quite a bit and they are sucking up all the good stuff befor the week is over.so its time to start dosing . where do i start?, what do i buy?,im not totally clueless, but could you all help me understand what i neeed to do to keep levels in check. what are all the things that i have to check? how do the diff parims affect each other?what supps should i be adding?only thing ive checked is cal at 400ppm now and dkh at 9, salin 1.024+,phos 0,nitrate 0, amo&nitrite 0,

the bonus pics are proof of my coral growth, baby frogspawn heads,and my new addition clown goby perched in a green finger leather. i also got a female scooter dragonete to pair up with my male. have not got a pic of them in the same frame yet. they have already seemed to check each other out. oh and does any have a clown goby and neon goby in the same tank, they instantly started exihibiting odd behavior not cleaning or fighting. they just took turns laying on one another very calmly, one would be on bottom then they would switch the other would go on top laying in a x formation.(insert joke here.)this was about 1hr after they met
(clown gobys are easy)lol
Slideshow of bounus pics - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

This is just my 2 cents. The only paras that I would care about(dosing) is Cal, Alk/dkh, Mag. The rest should work itself out. As for what to use, thats a personal perference. You could use Kents and all other commercial brands or you could use homemade chemicals. That depends really all on you. To be honest, the little that I know of the homemade stuff, I've learned it from Tangster, RG, Otty and CR. What do I use, you ask? I was never a chemistry major, so I buy the over priced commercial brands, but I have used the homemade stuff as well. hope this helps. Luna

 

yeah in short that was exactly what i needed to know.
i see there is a similar thread, with more responses so ill proly jump on that one. for some more details.

 

Basically its really quite simple to get a handle on.. Now that is something many can't stand they need to just turn it into a chemistry lesson.. There is a water Guy Randy Farly . Many like to link to his writings of wisdom you can look it up , If you can stay awake long enough to get through the Bull to get to the point you need But Ca. DKH and Mag are about all I ever check on .. and I have a reactor to handle them I do add Dolomite to my Ca reactor media to help keep the Magnesium higher then just the Aragonite Ca media does. And I and a few others just posted to a similar question about Iodine and Ca Carbonates and mag. That basically tell you all the average person wants to know .. How how the Oppositely charged ions of the Ca and Carb. react with eachother..and what the mag does .

 

thanks ill check them both out. but you pretty much told me what i thought, that calcium,dkh,mag, are the big ones.and the others usually in check,on thier own. as ofright now im using kent calcium with s & m, and kent kh buffer,but not the part a & b stuff. until i get something set up permentaly, which is better to dose first calcium, or kh?

 

I'd just keep the Mag at 1400 and then it really matters not what is dosed first just don't let them jump to high .. Use Turbo calcium that is cheaper and better then get the powdered buffer that liquid stuff is just mostly water . Honestly I never really liked that 2 part stuff I had a Kent's set given to me yrs ago to try Its still more then half full last time I ran across it .Many guys used to use Dow Flakes for Ca.Chloride But they changed their formulia and sent out a waring to not use it in aquariums anylonger..

 

Thanks for the pics I think their are awesome, what ever you have been doing till now seems
to work pretty well! keep us updated.. cheers

 

thanks everyone, especially for keeping it simple. ill go buy a mag test proly tomarrow, whats a good one?. then ill do a water change then test everything and start from there.

hopefully ill have some pics of my scooter dragonetes getting it on soon.lol

 

I got a red sea and is pretty simple, to be complicated
in other words is basic, they way i like it

 

a simple but complex way to introduce Ca,Mg, dKH and other elements is with a calcium reactor. CO2 lowers the pH in the chamber to dissolve the media, the suggested pH level of the first chamber is 6.7.
either change the effluent flow or the CO2 bubble count, not both at the same time. once the flow is established test after 2 days to figure out the consumption rate of the dKH, adjust from there. if you think along the lines that a Ca reactor is actually a dKH reactor, youll be better off. heres a site.
Reactor Setup help

depending upon the rate of consumption liquid supps can also be used, seachem makes some good products.

salinity should stay constant around 1.026