Home Made Calcium Buffer

I've heard of people making their own calcium buffer for much cheaper than the stores will sell it pre-mixed. Have any of you done this and could you tell me the results of your efforts? Also I have a tank that with sump has about 300 gallons of water so how much would I need to put in it to keep it at the level to get corals to thrive?

Hey jfinch how often do you add that to your tank?

 

Yeah, as you can probably tell from my first post I'm fairly new to the reef aquarium world. I just knew that you had a buffer thing and a calcium thing that you were supposed to add to the water. Talking to Flaz today I understand that I can use the washing soda and baking soda to buffer the water then I just need to get a calcium supplement to add in addition to this.

Wow, I just got reading through some of my older postings and found these questions from you Mark (I can read through older posting when I take a sick day ).

To answer some of your questions. I'm looking at adding this because I've talked to others and read on the net the need to add a buffering agent and calcium for corals. I'm basing it on what others have said and not on personal experience..... yet.

The only things that I've tested so far are the basics of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate which are all at safe levels (don't see any readings on any of these since the tank has cycled past the clown tang incident).

I currently have several different corals including Xenia, mushrooms, Green Star Polyps, and a couple of others. They all appear to be doing rather well especially the Xenia.

I have a bunch of crabs and snails in this tank. A sifting star (that I hardly ever see). Eight Chromis, a yellow tang, a cleaner wrasse, a gold spotted gobie, and a cleaner shrimp.

My filtration is 250 lbs of live rock, a 75 gallon refugium (currently holding only substrate and live rock but am planning to add calurpa (spelling) shortyly), and some basic mechanical filtration to keep the water clear. In another six months or so I'll probably add a skimmer but for now am not worrying about it so that it will build up a healthy eco system.

As I've said in another string the tank is 215 gallons for the main tank, 75 gallons for the refugium, and a 30 gallon tub for my pumps and the skimmer when I put it in.

Other than my ammonia problem of 2 weeks ago everything has gone well with the tank. At this point I'm trying to be patient (this is not easy for me) and let the tank build up to where I want it to be. Adam suggested that I let my tank be seen on the reef tour this year so I've kind of set my goal to have it as presentable as possible at that time.

Sorry it takes me so long sometimes to respond. I usually skim through everything once a day and miss stuff at times.

Edited by bhaight

Sarnack wrote: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2004/chem.htm Just ran into this article looking for another...