# CaSO4 - once per week?



## Bryeman (Aug 24, 2009)

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!


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## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

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.


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## Bryeman (Aug 24, 2009)

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.


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

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.


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## Bryeman (Aug 24, 2009)

ray-the-pilot said:


> 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?


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## ashappard (Jun 3, 2006)

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


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## Bryeman (Aug 24, 2009)

ashappard said:


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


Thanks for the reply. I will stick with CaSO4 and I'm going to keep going with once a week and/or keep measuring my GH. I don't want to raise my KH.


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

Bryeman said:


> 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.


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## Bryeman (Aug 24, 2009)

ray-the-pilot said:


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


Thanks Ray. I'm going to stick with what I have and try it out. At the end of the day, I'm not going to be going much with the GH, but want to raise it slightly.


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

CaCO3 needs to be ground strongly so that it takes the form of extremely fine powder (or even dust). After grinding it is much better soluble and most of it dissolves very quickly - typically in 15..30 minutes. I use ceramic kitchen mortar to grind CaCO3. It's not pleasant occupation (the hands quickly gets tired and pains  ) but it's much, much better option than dosing regular (not ground to dust) compound.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

Bryeman said:


> 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.


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## Bryeman (Aug 24, 2009)

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!


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