Balanced reef help

stinkydavis · Dec 4, 2023

Hello,
Long story long. I have a 4 month old 310 gallon tank. I have 9 coral in and everything is looking healthy. What I don’t understand is what is going on with my chemistry. My current parameters are
Salt-1.026
Ph 8
Alk- 13.2! ( Hannah and salifert titration test)
Calcium- 320
Phosphate- .04
Nitrates- 6
I know that calcium and alk are tied together at having a alk of 13 means I should have a calcium level around 480-500 but am not sure if bringing calcium up is the right call or alk down. The alk is high do to me being new to dosing and over saturating my top off with reef builder alkalinity. I dumped out what was left in the top off and re filled with just RO. Alk levels have been this high for a little more than 2 weeks hence me wanting to get involved. Corals look happy and may be just chasing numbers a bit but from the research I have done the balance is way off for their relationship.

Miami Reef · Dec 4, 2023

Don’t worry about trying to find specific ratios. Just keep each parameter within their target range.

If the calcium value at 320ppm is real, that is way too low. You’d want it from 400-500ppm.

Organisms will consume calcium and alkalinity in a fixed ratio. That doesn’t mean you need to keep the levels in a ratio, but it does mean you need to dose both to maintain them.

Just adding alkalinity to your top off without dosing calcium will eventually lead to you calcium depleting.

Keep your alkalinity from 7-11dKH. Stop dosing any alk additives and allow it to come down by itself. You can dose calcium to bring it up.

Organisms will consume about 20ppm calcium for every 2.8dKH of alkalinity.

stinkydavis · Dec 4, 2023

Miami Reef said:
Don’t worry about trying to find specific ratios. Just keep each parameter within their target range.

If the calcium value at 320ppm is real, that is way too low. You’d want it from 400-500ppm.

Organisms will consume calcium and alkalinity in a fixed ratio. That doesn’t mean you need to keep the levels in a ratio, but it does mean you need to dose both to maintain them.

Just adding alkalinity to your top off without dosing calcium will eventually lead to you calcium depleting.

Keep your alkalinity from 7-11dKH. Stop dosing any alk additives and allow it to come down by itself. You can dose calcium to bring it up.

Organisms will consume about 20ppm calcium for every 2.8dKH of alkalinity.

I was thinking of buying BRS calcium chloride and dosing a gallon over a 4 day period. It would according to there website bring it up to mid 400s. Would that be a to quick of a change?

Miami Reef · Dec 4, 2023

stinkydavis said:
I was thinking of buying BRS calcium chloride and dosing a gallon over a 4 day period. It would according to there website bring it up to mid 400s. Would that be a to quick of a change?

Here’s an easy-to-use calculator: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-calculator/reef-calcium-calculator

You can manually dose 25ppm per day. Randy Holmes-Farely, the Reef Chemist, recommends a daily rise no higher than 25ppm because some low quality calcium supplements may contain heavy metals as impurities.

You can find his posts about it here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/raising-calcium-but-not-alkalinity.995592/#post-11593712

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · Dec 4, 2023

stinkydavis said:
I was thinking of buying BRS calcium chloride and dosing a gallon over a 4 day period. It would according to there website bring it up to mid 400s. Would that be a to quick of a change?

Before you add anything to correct the calcium level, ensure you're reading the Salifert test correctly... It can be confusing whether to look at the amount of reagent left, or calculate the amount used...

kcsh91 · Feb 23, 2024

Miami Reef said:
Don’t worry about trying to find specific ratios. Just keep each parameter within their target range.

If the calcium value at 320ppm is real, that is way too low. You’d want it from 400-500ppm.

Organisms will consume calcium and alkalinity in a fixed ratio. That doesn’t mean you need to keep the levels in a ratio, but it does mean you need to dose both to maintain them.

Just adding alkalinity to your top off without dosing calcium will eventually lead to you calcium depleting.

Keep your alkalinity from 7-11dKH. Stop dosing any alk additives and allow it to come down by itself. You can dose calcium to bring it up.

Organisms will consume about 20ppm calcium for every 2.8dKH of alkalinity.

What organisms are those? Where can i read on these organisms?