fishrule101

I told my LFS that I wanted to have corals soon, so I asked them what kind of supplements I would need. They told me that all I needed is Purple Up. They said it was "beneficial"?? I read the bottle of what it all contains and it sounds like it contains everything that a reef need. iodine, calcium, magnesium, and something else. Are they right?

nemo addict

purple up is used to accelerate the coraline growth on your rock re the name purple up,,
depending on what corals depends what you need to dose ,, most just need water changes to replace traces ,,

Angela_96

I actually wouldn't ad anything until you test the calcium in the water and alkalinity.
I do use a product called seachem reef complete that contains the trace elements, then if my calcium is off I will ad calcium.

Mike

I kinda tested purple up a while back to see if it would keep the calcium and alkalinity levels up and I wanted to see if it could accelerate coralline algae growth. I didn't notice much of an increase in coralline algae but I did notice a nice increase in population with my zoanthids. Could be my lighting spectrum causing that though.

I was dosing a capful (50 gallon tank) every 3 days and testing weekly. The calcium levels were dropping slowly while the alkalinity levels were increasing, rather than staying balanced. In my opinion I think probably the toughest aspect other than feeding corals (and it's not really hard, just tedious) in reefkeeping is keeping alk and calcium levels up for good coral growth. I haven't done a dollar for dollar comparison with using calcium and buffers versus using just purple up, so not sure which route is less expensive.

fishrule101

So I should use something else?