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Low Calcium still?

A

Anonymous

Guest
Hello,

I've been going through this low calcium thing for a while now.

Tank is a 58 with 70 gallons of total water volume.

Calcium is at 330.
Alk is at 9 DKH.
PH is 8.3
Magnesium - 1100
Sal 1.025
Temp 80

I have tried these.

kalk - nothing.
B-Ionic - nothing but lowered my Alk ?
Trying turbo calcium now.

My Alk dropped to 5 DKH and I added Kent Superbuffer to get that back up. That took one dose and the ALK is back but the calcium is still low.

I have done 15 gallon water chnages once a week for a month then the last to changes have been 30 gallons each time.

I notice that the calcium has droppped when I switched from Coralife salt to IO salt.

Any ideas?

I am avoiding a calcium reactor but might have to make a purchase.
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A

Anonymous

Guest
What have you normally done in the past to maintain calcium? Did you stop for some reason then noticed it got low and are now trying to correct it?

In my case (a current problem for me too) I wasn't doing anything to maintain it as I didn't have a test kit for it for a long time. Now that I do, I can't get mine up from 250 no matter how hard I (safely) dose kalk..

I'll be getting and adding some calcium chloride to do the quick jump up and then dosing kalk to help maintain it. Maybe that's something for you to consider too??

As far as the different salts having different calcium levels, thats not suprising is it?
 
H

hillbilly

Advanced Reefer
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I too had problems maintaining high calcium levels in my 200 gal. reef.
What was weird was that both of 55 gal. reefs were pretty steady when
dosed regularly with 2 part additives. The big tank was always low. I
finally gave in and bought a reactor, put in some A.R.M. media, hooked
up some C02, and in a couple of days the calcium level was through the
roof! Anyway, after some bubble counter adjusting, I've never had a
problem since. Best thing ever invented for maintaing calcium levels!
Imo worth every penny! :D
 
A

Anonymous

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If my new SW readings are that low, then doing a water change will throw the whole tank out of whack.

Should I treat the new SW before I add it to the tank?

I would love to get a CA reactor and not worry about this but the getting the parameters in check is my first priority.
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C

ChrisRD

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Upstate NY
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Well if the fresh ASW levels are lower than your tank water, you don't have a supplementation problem in the tank. Sounds like the problem could be with either the test kit(s) or the new salt.

A couple of questions come to mind...
Have you tried more than one bag of IO salt or is this all the same batch?
Have you tried a Ca/Mg test on a batch of fresh ASW using the Coralife mix for comparison?
What test kits are you using and how old are they?
Have you tried to verify the readings of those kits with other kits or by having your LFS test your water?
 
C

ChrisRD

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The ratio of Ca to Mg looks like it's in the ballpark, so the test results don't really look wacked. Maybe you have a bad bag of salt?
 
A

Anonymous

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This is my second bucket of IO, I hope it is not a bad batch, I got 3 more buckets left.

I am out of the Coralife salt so I cannot test it.

Salifert test kits, Magnesium is only a month or so old, Calcium is 6 months old.

My LFS's only test for PH, Ammonia nd Nitrate.

I ordered another Calcium test kit as well.

I may try and get a small box of another brand of Salt to try.
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A

ADS

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I believe your Mg should be higher->1250. Try Kent Tech M to raise it. Once it's higher I expect the Ca will increase. Adam
 
A

Anonymous

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I just got my new Salifert Calcium Test Kit.

Same results.

Since my new SW is low on everything, should I treat the new SW before adding it to the tank?

What Reactor should I look to get for my tank?
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S

sstephen

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I was following this thread because my tank has a similar problem with low Ca. Currently, I've been using Salifert All-In-One for dosing Ca and Alk (I plan to switch to a two part system, but since I already have this stuff, I might as well use it). Today, while looking through some old articles from Advanced Aquarist Magazine, I stumbled across this one. Hopefully, this will help both of us!

Scott
 
K

kanapino

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hey stephen

it sounds to me as if the test kits are wrong. Probably because they are really old or something.

I'm making this assumption based on that you put a whole bottle of Tech-M in your 50 gallon tank and it only raised your Mg 50 points or what I am assuming is 50 mg/l.

I don't know the Salifert test kits but they are all basically the same except for batch to batch consistency, and if they were exposed to sunlight to much, or heat or even the powders to a lot of moisture they can easily be wrong.

just my observatrion for reading along with this.

Brian
 
S

sstephen

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Although test kits can be wrong, I'm not so sure this is the case here. In the article I mentioned in my previous post, the author notes that the low Calcium, high Alkalinity test results are common in aquariums that are out of balance. The Calcium levels should be corrected by (slowly) adding CaCl to the aquarium until the levels are balanced again. After that, normal dosing will keep the levels up. Again, check out the article before blaming the test kits. I can't speak for Rob_Reef_Keeper, but I'm fairly certain that this is my problem.

Scott
 
A

Anonymous

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I got a Brand new Salifert Calcium test kit and it is reading the same as my old one.

I did a test but taking one gallon of my freshly mixed IO and it read 260 and Magnesium of 800 and aan Alk of 11.65 DKh.

I took one gallon added some Turbo Calcium to it. After 2 hours I tested that water and the calcium rose to 420.

So my assumption is that since my tanks parameters are so far out of whack I need to correct somethink.

I have started dosing 4 tsp of turbo for the past 2 nights and the tank is now reading 390. Getting there.

Since my newly mixed IO is sow low I will do more frequent small water changes instead of the large ones.

Check out this link.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm
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