calcium 350 everything else okay how to bring it back up safely?

[CenCalReef]

Hey so I have what some may call a fairly new tank around 4.5months old, I have quite a few mixed frags and three colonies of SPS, everything's been doing fine for the last month and i manually dose 2 Part ESV B-Ionic, I do 7.5ML of Alk at 5am, 7.5 at 4-5pm and 2.5 at 10-11pm but i was not testing and not adding equal parts calcium because well brain fart and the few times i did test it usually never dropped below 410 mostly stable at 420ppm with alk at 8.2-8.6 which i know is a big gap but still within .5 and not always does it drop to 8.2 unless lazy or beers. Anyways I tested my Calcium yesterday at 6pm and received a 340-350ppm reading with salifert test as well as Red Sea, mag on red sea was 1400 or 1300 cant remember but i know red sea kit usually gives a high reading(1600) so it's probably low lol. I used the calculator online to determine i need around 170ml of calcium to come up to 420, and was told to dose 30ml twice a day so far i've added 90ML since yesterday and retested earlier today to get 350ppm.. Should I increase my 30ML dose? how can I bring this up without messing up? Total system volume is 40G and the bottle of ESV recommends not dosing more than 1ML per 1Gal of water, It is not precipitating because when i add to the tank it doesn't cloud or do anything weird it just mixes in. Corals do not seem affected by the low Calcium, sps is still encrusting, zoas are beautiful, Favia and acans fat and puffy, Space Invader pectinia fluffy, mushrooms still centerfold spread open and sand is not clumpy. chaeto and dragons breath still healthy, what are you recommendations peeps? Also I have a weekly water change on saturday for 5gallons but i'm thinking maybe 10G would be better to help out with levels, I use Tropic Marin Pro Reef and manually add esv Alk to match my alkalinity since it usually mixes at 7-7.2DKH with hannah checker. I added 4 SPS frags on tuesday and they don't seem affected even though i introduced them into a low calcium tank polyps still out and wavy and i have more frags on saturday would like to get my calcium to at least 400 by saturday morning could adding a large amount of esv calcium throughout the day cause an issue?

 

[CenCalReef]

 

[Larry L]

You won't hurt anything to raise Calcium quickly, but most people recommend no more than about 50 ppm per day. Just make sure to pour it in a high flow area and slowly enough that it doesn't precipitate as it goes in.

Also, keeping Magnesium at the right levels also help keeps the Calcium and alk from precipitating, so if your Magnesium is low you probably want to dose that up first. Usually you don't want to dose Magnesium more than 100 ppm per day.

 

[CenCalReef]

@Larry L so does that mean I can pour as much of my two part as needed so long as I don’t go over 50PPM? Like if I’m testing 350ppm with two test kits and let’s say I need through a calculator 140ml to get to 400ppm I could theoretically dose the 140ml as long as it doesn’t precipitate? I know the bottle says no more than 1ml per gallon but that’s just a recommendation right? I mean rules are meant to be broken from time to time thanks Larry

 

[Larry L]

Like if I’m testing 350ppm with two test kits and let’s say I need through a calculator 140ml to get to 400ppm I could theoretically dose the 140ml as long as it doesn’t precipitate?

I've never had an issue dosing 50 ppm per day, I got the original recommendation from the Bulk Reef Supply calculator. If you want to err on the side of caution, you might want to spread it out over the course of the day and not dump it in all at once.

 

[CenCalReef]

10-4 @Larry L . I got my lazy butt up and tested with Red Sea kit came in at 0.76=380PPM I dosed 30Ml this morning at 5am. Going to recheck results with salifert test kit and go from there. In total I’ve added I believe 120ML? to 40G since wed the calculator recommended 170ml total so I might be on track to 420 here shortly but aiming for 400 to not disrupt anything. I think after I recheck I will add 30Ml and then recheck at midnight will do 8gal water change tomorrow and check the fresh mix and adjust it’s levels to what I need. Thanks!!

 

[PatW]

Your level is a tad bit low. I think natural sea water is something like 370. I dose my calcium up to 450, but that is probably more than I really need.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Your level is a tad bit low. I think natural sea water is something like 370. I dose my calcium up to 450, but that is probably more than I really need.

At 35 ppt, seawater contains about 420 ppm calcium.