CaSO4 - once per week? - Fertilizing

Bryeman · 08-30-2009, 04:45 PM

The water in my location is pretty soft (~4GH) and I'm going to dose Mg and Calcium. The Mg part I'm going to do daily and is no big deal. The Calcium part is tougher with CaSO4 since it's not very water soluble in terms of daily dosing any way. I plan on doing this on a weekly basis by mixing with 1/2 gallon of tank water to get it as mixed as possible. Anyone ever have problems with this? I assume the cloudy water this creates doesn't hurt anything? I've never had to worry about Ca before, but the water here is soft!

ashappard · 08-30-2009, 06:55 PM

GH4 is fairly ideal for many situations. Why are you raising it?
just out of curiosity.

either way, after water change is when I add Mg / Ca
and it is rough to mix in, but I do something similar to what you are planning.
I just mix it into a large volume of water and let it sit a while.
the little flakes that dont dissolve in the solution will eventually soak
into the water column after you add the mix.
and it does get cloudy for a bit. Not long though.

Bryeman · 08-30-2009, 07:45 PM

Thanks for the reply. I'm not planning on raising it much, but would like to get it closer to 6 or so. I've always had good results in that range. May not be anything wrong with 4, but I don't want their to be a lack of Ca or Mg. I guess it's more of a comfort thing for me since I had great success in the past.

ray-the-pilot · 09-02-2009, 07:20 AM

Actually, if you want to increase your Ca and you have CO2 injection, the best way is to use CaCO3 powder. This is not very soluble in water and will initially make your tank cloudy but because of the extra CO2 in your water the CaCO3 will dissolve:

CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 -> Ca+2 + 2 HCO3-

In my tank, the turbidity goes away in about 1-2 hours.

Bryeman · 09-02-2009, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ray-the-pilot

Actually, if you want to increase your Ca and you have CO2 injection, the best way is to use CaCO3 powder. This is not very soluble in water and will initially make your tank cloudy but because of the extra CO2 in your water the CaCO3 will dissolve:

CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 -> Ca+2 + 2 HCO3-

In my tank, the turbidity goes away in about 1-2 hours.

CaCO3 will raise KH too though correct, and CaSO4 wont?

ashappard · 09-02-2009, 03:53 PM

yes it will raise KH, and some plants do not like that.
depending on your plans, you may want to avoid it.

ray-the-pilot · 09-02-2009, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryeman

CaCO3 will raise KH too though correct, and CaSO4 wont?

Yes CaCO3 will raise KH in equal amount to GH. CaSO4 will only raise GH.

Cavan Allen · 09-27-2009, 05:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryeman

Thanks for the reply. I'm not planning on raising it much, but would like to get it closer to 6 or so. I've always had good results in that range. May not be anything wrong with 4, but I don't want their to be a lack of Ca or Mg.

The only reason there would be anything wrong with 4 would be a really skewed calcium to magnesium ratio. Ideally, you want about 3-4 to 1. It's really not so easy at all to run up against a deficiency of either. So unless you have some really funny tap water, I wouldn't worry about and and look elsewhere for any problems.

Bryeman · 09-27-2009, 10:09 AM

It's mostly about stability and knowing I have enough without testing for it. My 125g is growing excellent right now, so I will continue to add what I've been adding. I'm going keep my tank at a GH of 5 to 6 each week. When I do need to add, I go for about a 3.5:1 ratio of Ca to Mg. It probably isn't necessary, and I'll likely experiment with it in a few months. For now, consistency is the key for me. Want to get past the 6 week stage, which is the toughest in my opinion when starting a new tank. Thanks for the replies!