Calcium Chloride question

[Alex T.]

Anybody heard of bad things happening around the two year mark from dosing calcium chloride? I was reading on wetwebmedia the other day that there's a large chance that chloride ions over time can play havoc on stability....up to and including loss of sps. This is news to me. I've been dosing Seachem's reef advantage calcium successfully for two years with no ill effects. I do have a brand new calcium reactor that will be set up after the holidays when I have more time, but was very interested in knowing if what I've been doing was playing with fire.

Any chemists in the group?

[Frick-n-Frags]

regular water changes should dilute buildups of chloride to a reasonable steady state level. if you dont ever do water changes, yes, you will increase the proportion of chloride ions constantly, and it makes sense that there is a point where there is too much and bad things happen.

[Alex T.]

I'm pretty religious about performing a 15 gallon water change every week. Either I have to up the amount, or go with a calcium reactor.

[Frick-n-Frags]

sounds like you are ok

there is like 29,000ppm chloride or something retarded like that. the small % of ppm you add from Ca(Cl)2 dosing keeps getting cut by that waterchange, and it levels off a small % high, but even 1000ppm is a small % for chloride.

on paper, a Ca reactor really is the way to go. it adds Ca and carbonate, both of which get re-assembled into new coral skeletons. net garbage stuff: zero nada

2-part adds extra sodium and chloride. so if you dont change that water, you end up with table salt instead of sea salt somewhere down the road.