Calcium and alk too high

[Phil v]

so i have a 40 gallon reef and i do not dose any trace elements or anything at all for that matter. My brand new salifert test kits are reading ca: over 500 alk: over 14. My old Red Sea test kits were testing the same thing so that’s why i bought new ones Bc i thought it was wrong. how is this possible? I do water changes with fritz rpm salt usually about once every few weeks.

 

[GoVols]

so i have a 40 gallon reef and i do not dose any trace elements or anything at all for that matter. My brand new salifert test kits are reading ca: over 500 alk: over 14. My old Red Sea test kits were testing the same thing so that’s why i bought new ones Bc i thought it was wrong. how is this possible? I do water changes with fritz rpm salt usually about once every few weeks.

Welcome to Reef 2 Reef, and hope you feel at home...

Are you using a good refractometer and calibrating it with .35 solution?

And... Have you tested the Fritz (cal and alk) after mixing, before the water change?

The new salt might be raising those two, during water changes and if your refractometer is off the salinity might be on the high side too.

 

[rkpetersen]

I was also thinking that increased salinity might be the culprit.
Either due to inaccurate measurement or not keeping up with evaporation/topoff.
Or something off about the salt as mentioned.
It's hard to think of another way to get an alk measurement that high without supplements.

Also welcome to R2R!

 

[Phil v]

Welcome to Reef 2 Reef, and hope you feel at home...

Are you using a good refractometer and calibrating it with .35 solution?

And... Have you tested the Fritz (cal and alk) after mixing, before the water change?

The new salt might be raising those two, during water changes and if your refractometer is off the salinity might be on the high side too.

Refractometer is calibrated correctly and i just did a water change today with reef crystals and i tested it before i put it in and the alk was 8.6 and calcium was 410 at 1.024 specific gravity so i think i might just keep using the reef crystals but i will make some water with the fritz another day to check what the levels are at thanks!

 

[Phil v]

I was also thinking that increased salinity might be the culprit.
Either due to inaccurate measurement or not keeping up with evaporation/topoff.
Or something off about the salt as mentioned.
It's hard to think of another way to get an alk measurement that high without supplements.

Also welcome to R2R!

I think it’s just the salt they sent me. I have a duetto ato from xp aqua and my salinity barely moves at all

 

[Phil v]

Refractometer is calibrated correctly and i just did a water change today with reef crystals and i tested it before i put it in and the alk was 8.6 and calcium was 410 at 1.024 specific gravity so i think i might just keep using the reef crystals but i will make some water with the fritz another day to check what the levels are at thanks!

Just did a big water change and my Alk dropped from 14.6 to 12.8 so i think switching back to reef crystals was a good idea thanks for the help

 

[Hemmdog]

Welcome to reef2reef! Sounds like your on the right track.

 

[LuizW13]

Take your bag of salt and toss it around a couple hundred times to mix up all the elements. My bag of red sea blue was mixing alk at 12 and destroyed my tank almost a year ago. The levels were all normal once i mixed up the salt.

 

[clm65]

Refractometer is calibrated correctly and i just did a water change today with reef crystals and i tested it before i put it in and the alk was 8.6 and calcium was 410 at 1.024 specific gravity so i think i might just keep using the reef crystals but i will make some water with the fritz another day to check what the levels are at thanks!

Did you ever test the Fritz? I have high calcium (over 500) and high alk (over 12), and I also have been using Fritz. I'm going to test some new water tomorrow, but curious if you have your results for comparison.

 

[clm65]

Tested a tub of water with Fritz salt this afternoon. SG was 1.026. Calcium was 480 and alk was 9.3. I ran the test twice and got similar results. Both are a little higher than advertised on the Fritz website, but not too bad. Extrapolating off the Salifert calcium test kit chart, I think my tank is just a little over 500 (maybe 510). At the end of March my calcium was 641 based on an ACI ICP test, so the water changes seem to be gradually working for the calcium. However, alk was 12.51 in that same ICP test, and is still in that range today. Over the nearly 2 months since the ICP test I've changed approximately 180 gallons in a 200 gallon water volume system. Any idea what may be keeping my alk up? And how to safely bring it down? I only dose NoPox.

 

[SeaDweller]

Refractometer is calibrated correctly and i just did a water change today with reef crystals and i tested it before i put it in and the alk was 8.6 and calcium was 410 at 1.024 specific gravity so i think i might just keep using the reef crystals but i will make some water with the fritz another day to check what the levels are at thanks!

If your alk using RC is that low, either your testing is off or you’re not mixing the salt enough before you add it to water. Regular IO usually mixes up at 9.5-10.5 for me and RC should be like 11+. Something is wrong right there.