Dosing Calcium weekly or daily?

Sorry if I'm posting 2 threads a few seconds apart, it just seems my questions aren't so related to be kept in just one thread.

Does it make a difference if I dose Calcium weekly vs daily?

I observed that my calcium depletes from 450ppm at the start of the week to 380ppm at the end of the week. Is there a difference if I dose 1 big amount at the start of the week to bring the calcium level back to 450? Or would it be better to dose small amounts on a daily basis so that my calcium is 450 at all times?

Thanks in advance.

 

MH -
IMHO if your demand is that large - you would be better off dosing EVERY day.

If you are dropping 10 PPM/day that is a rather large demand and that significant drop in concentration may affect your stability.

It would be best to dose starting with 5 ppm a day or so (you will have to calculate the dose based on the solution you are using to dose and the volume of your system.) Then continue to test every week and adjust until you are at the same value when you retest at the end of the week.

Sounds like you would be a good candidate for automated dosing!!! There are many solutions out there and the people that use them swear by it's simplicity and effectiveness!

 

Yeah, I'm thinking of getting one of those bubble magus dosers hehe. It's not readily available anywhere here in our country so I still need to order it online and have it shipped here. So it will either cost a lot more for express shipping, or take a lot longer to arrive lol

 

Those are top-shelf - you would not regret it and neither would your corals!

 

+1 on everything stated by M- Ocean Man

as a bubble magus user, I am very pleased with both the stability and the convienience of use

before I had the doser, I was manuallly dosing on a daily basis and at your current utilisation Marine Hobbyist, I would suggest you do the same whilst waiting to get the order placed on the dosing system

stability is considered a major aspect of success with reef tanks
thus at present with your levels going from 450 - 370 during a week or 80ppm drop
then adding enough solution to compensate for just over 10ppm per day would certainly be a better option than adding enough to increase by 80ppm on 1 day per week
for some corals that much of a change in water chemistry in 1 day, may cause issues for them , so by spreading the additions out over 7 days, you avoid major parameter swings and provide the stability that the corals will benefit from

Steve

 

+2 to M-Ocean and +1 to Steve's suggestions and recommendations. You will be very happy when you do it. I used to dose daily and my corals were quite happy. I got a doser and dose Ca and Alk 12 times daily each and have even happier corals.

 

ive been considering a doser for some time, but the cost has always run me away. truth be told i really do need to be dosing my tank everyday but i forget...

 

Wow. It can do that? I always thought it could only dose a certain amount once a day. That's cool! lol.

I bet my corals will indeed love it when I get one.

But right now, I'm still figuring out if I'm just losing Calcium to precipitation because right now I have constant alkalinity.

Not sure if I really need the doser asap, or just something wrong with my water chemistry.

 

Question: Can I mix Randy's recipe with my top off (RO/DI) water? Or will it precipitate?

I found that I usually top off 5 gallons of water in my tank daily. I just want to know if I can just mix my required Ca daily dose or will I just lose it since I'm mixing it with RO/DI and not saltwater?

 

Dude that is alot of evaporation. That is more than what I go through.