purple up enough for calcium?
 

for a whole year now i've been using carib-sea purple up to buffer my calcium. i'm wondering if this is enough or if i should supplement with another supplement specifically for calcium, such as kent liquid reactor or tech CB 2-part?

oops, nm (pls delete)

Have you been testing your calcium levels with a test kit? If so, what are the readings?

If not, you need to get a test kit ASAP. Adding chemicals to your tank without testing what the levels are actually at can be very dangerous to your reef.

o yes i've been testing calcium since day 1, calciums currently at 380, i'm just wondering if it can serve for long term use like i've been using it?

If you're happy with the level, growth in the tank, ease of dosing, why change?

Your calcium is a tad low, especially for an SPS tank. The majority of reef keepers like to keep it in the 400-430 range, but almost always above 400. Personally, I don't know everything that is in Purple Up (they don't list it, it's a secret), so I would not trust it to be the only calcium source. I also don't believe Purple Up does anything for coralline growth IMHO. If you want to continue using it though, by all means go ahead, but I would suggest that you supplement mostly with a high quality calcium supplement, and lower the usage of the Purple Up. For smaller tanks, I like to use Kent Liquid Calcium or Kent Turbo Calcium. A two part solution would be an even wiser idea, I like TLF C-Balance. :)

switching to aragamilk will give you more calcium than purple up with most of the same benifits i believe

On the bottle of Purple up I think it tells you to maintain calcium levels to a particlar number which I do not recall. But as stated above you wanna be over 400, I think going with a calcium supplement is a good idea. I just switeched to Tailored Aquatics Calcium and DKH and so far I am very pleased with the results. I do also add Purple Up on the days I dose calcium and its been working real well for coraline and my SPS.

A Ca of 380ppm is on the low side but wouldn't say unacceptable.

NSW

i agree 380 is a bit on the lower side i'm slowly bringing it up to the 400's, mark the reason i started thinking about changing is i'm finding that it's hard to get it too the mid 400's without it falling quickly back down to the 380's, is this because of my alkalinity level? (8 dkH )