# PPS-Pro, RO & Calcium deficiency



## Ricq (May 9, 2006)

Greetings all. I finally have my new reverse osmosis unit hooked up (my well water is off the scale for alkalinity and hardness) and am interested in starting PPS-Pro. Would I still need to reconstitute my RO water with something like Seachem Equilibrium or will the PPS-Pro additions be sufficient?

Or am I confusing apples and oranges?


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## snickle (Apr 8, 2007)

*Re: PPS-Pro & RO?*

Yes, you are going to need to do something. The PPS-Pro trace elements will not have enough calcium and maybe other things. Equilibrium seems like overkill though.

Maybe Edward can chime in and make a recommendation.

I would think adding calcium with every water change would do it.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

*Re: PPS-Pro & RO?*

*How to avoid Calcium deficiency?*


That depends on your substrate. With non-inert substrate you don't have to worry about Ca deficiency. Just pure RO water and PPS-Pro. 

With inert or unknown substrate you can add a connection to your RO unit to make produced water with the proper Ca level. Plants do well in 20 - 30 ppm of Ca. A bypass connection with a needle valve that goes between RO membrane input and RO membrane clean output. Then you can adjust any levels from RO to tap. The easiest is a TDS meter. Another method is a dose of CaSO4. 



Thank you
Edward


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## Ricq (May 9, 2006)

Thanks Snickle & Edward. I'm reluctant to add my well water back into my pure RO so I think I'll try dosing CaSO4.

Snickle, why do you think Equilibrium is overkill?


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## snickle (Apr 8, 2007)

Ricq said:


> Thanks Snickle & Edward. I'm reluctant to add my well water back into my pure RO so I think I'll try dosing CaSO4.
> 
> Snickle, why do you think Equilibrium is overkill?


If you are using PPS-Pro, you are already dosing most of the trace elements needed, just not enough other stuff (i.e. Calcium) to raise the hardness enough.

CaSO4 will raise the hardness and let the PPS-Pro solution 2 provide the other traces.

Using Equilibrium would overdose the trace by PPS-Pro standards.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

Yes, the equilibrium would mess it up.


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