calcium and alkalinity very high

hyeclass · Feb 13, 2020

i been having issues with my calcium and alkalinity, using hanna checker testing alk 11 and cal is 525 very high, only way i know to drop alk and cal is to change 80% water, i am not even dosing my tank. i only run calcium reactor i would say every 2 sec. i get a drip m ph is 6.6 on the reactor, not sure how i can fix this issue, and i am hoping someone can please help me.

specs:
RedSea 140 gal tank
calcium reactor octopus : 200

thank you

Spare time · Feb 13, 2020

11 Alk is not that high. Many salt mixes are at 12 or 13. Keeping corals in a tank with higher alk, lets say 11 compared to 8, often leads to faster growth. The calcium will just drop overtime too, so don't worry.

Duncan Tse · Feb 13, 2020

Just turn off your reactor and let it slowly fall down. Do you have any corals currently? I wouldn't worry about it too much as alk at that levels are fine like the above mentioned.

sde1500 · Feb 13, 2020

I'm not familiar with calcium reactors but I'd say it seems like you're overdosing the tank.

hyeclass · Feb 13, 2020

yes, i got corals in my tank SPS Corals LPS Corals Zoanthids Mushrooms, over time it will drop, am i the only one who's having this type of issues. yes Cal 525 is high 450-460 is great, alk 7-9 is good.

i am testing it everyday trying to see if it gets more higher, off course i can just turn off the cal reactor why even install it if i am going to just turn it off, i need to tune it correctly

sde1500 · Feb 13, 2020

How old is the tank? If it is new, you likely just don't need to use the reactor yet. Flipping your question, why use it if you don't yet need it? Struggling with high levels, and dosing to continue driving them up makes no sense.

hyeclass · Feb 13, 2020

when you thinking about a great setup and no dosing just use natural way seems like sure is a issue, what's the reason calcium reactor. making sure you alk and cal is running same level by tuning and not dosing.

sde1500 · Feb 13, 2020

hyeclass said:
when you thinking about a great setup and no dosing just use natural way seems like sure is a issue, what's the reason calcium reactor. making sure you alk and cal is running same level by tuning and not dosing.

huh?

zoomonster · Mar 30, 2020

I just did about 100g of water changes, over 2 weeks, and yes my calcium and alk are both a bit high about where yours is at 11/500+. The water change took alk up 3 points. I already had high Ca and the salt I used is known to be high alk. So I just retuned my Ca reactor, via Apex, to run a range of 6.9-7.20 PH up from 6.5-6.75. Not the first time I had to do that and at times I go higher. Your probably never going to get a final tune on the reactor and will have to periodically adjust it based on demand. It can never really be fully automatic until there is a viable Kh probe invented and I wouldn't hold my breath on the Apex vaporware you can't get overpriced reagents for.