Substrate clumping

[littlesilvermax]

If it is precipitated calcium, then 10 bucks says your magnesium is less then 1300 ppm.

What are your calcium, alkalinity, and magneisum levels?

[untamed]

Are you using Kalk to support Ca/Alk? That clumping can easily occur with heavy Kalk dosing.

[littlesilvermax]

Originally Posted by untamed

Are you using Kalk to support Ca/Alk? That clumping can easily occur with heavy Kalk dosing.

Reasoning being:

-kalk spikes the ph which can make precipitation happen easier
-kalk use often leads to depleted magnesium levels

I would keep your magnesium at 1400ppm or so.

[martym]

Not adding kalk, but using a cal reactor. Cal=400, Alk= 11, don't know mag.
It breaks apart when taped but if just moved around it stays together, the tank has only been running for 2 months.

[littlesilvermax]

What salt?

[martym]

Io

[littlesilvermax]

Originally Posted by martym

Io

What I figured.

IO works very good for fish only.

I use it for my reef, and so do many others. For myself I found it very hard to keep my alk and calcium in-line, untill I started adding magnesium to the mix.

FWIW it takes a lot of magnesium to get it to where you want it.

Many people follow my home made recipe:

Just do the math to get it to follow your water change shed:

-45 gallon of new water (RO, or DI or RO/DI)
-add 1.5 cups of magnesium
-add 6 teaspoons of calcium
-after the cal and mag are mixxed add the salt.

This will yield app 1380 mag, 420 cal, and 10 dkh alk

I always recommend testing, but FWIW I have not tested magnesium for over 3 years, and things are still going great for my tank, no precip on my pumps, or anywhere else!