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View Full Version : Catalina Water Breakdown, is the Calcium Enough?


fantastic4
10/27/2006, 10:14 PM
Based on this water breakdown chart for Catalina water, is the calcium level high enough if water is exchanged on a daily basis? I'm replacing about a gallon of water a day in a 33 gallon cube with this. Can i get away without dosing kalk or other trace elements?

http://www.catalinawater.com/Report.html

danish
10/28/2006, 02:00 PM
the only way to know is to test... sps or soft coral tank??

danish
10/28/2006, 02:24 PM
according to that website you provided, the calcium was reported to be 4.3 micrograms per liter. since 1 ppm= 0.001 grams per liter, the math works out to be 430 ppm calcium. this is a good amount, but if you have a flourishing sps tank, this will be quickly depleted by calcification. adding kalk might be necessary

fantastic4
10/28/2006, 03:15 PM
My cube is a softies tank. Xenia, Polyps, Zoas, Mushrooms, Carpet anenome,

Many thanks for the ppm breakdown, I had no idea how to derive at that based on those specs.

Steven Pro
10/28/2006, 06:03 PM
I think there is something terribly wrong with that chart. The calcium level is 4.3 and 5.15 ug/L in the two samples, but the copper concentration was 3.79 and 4.26 ug/L. Iron was about twice as high.

MCsaxmaster
10/28/2006, 06:47 PM
Agreed. At a concentration of 4.3 and 5.15 ug/L the calcium concentration they are reporting is 0.43 ppm and 0.515 ppm. Typically calcium concentration in full-strength sea water is ~10 umol/L--about 410 ppm. Since Ca is extremely conservative in concentration relative to other major ions in sea water the actual concentration varies almost entirely depending on salinity. That chart has got to be screwed up to say the least.

bblumberg
10/28/2006, 08:18 PM
For what it's worth, I have measured catalina water at ~320 ppm with a calibrated Pinpoint Calcium meter....

danish
10/30/2006, 01:12 PM
well whatever the Ca concentration ACTUALLY is, in a softies tank i generally just watch for coralline growth to judge my levels.