High Calcium and Alkalinity, New to reef keeping

DGGuaglianone · Oct 9, 2023

Hi all I’m new to reefing this is my first tank. I tested my parameters today Calcium was 520 ppm, Alkalinity was 16 dKH, nitrates were 5.0 ppm, and phosphate 0.25 ppm using API Reef Master test kit. My tank is 6 months old with a conch, 5 snails, 2 fire shrimp, 2 yellow sponges, 2 montipora, 2 birds nest, a leptosaris, candy cane, Duncan, 4 hammers, 2 frogspawn, a micromusa, 2 favia, and a colony of Rasta zoanthids (all small frags 1-4 heads). I dose 800 mL of very low concentration Kalkwasser over night (1/4tsp to 5 gal RODI water). Light schedule is 9-9 on an ai blade grow. My question is should I take measures to lower my calcium and alkalinity before I burn my corals or just let things play out? Any advice or comments are appreciated, good or bad, thanks.

hexcolor reef · Oct 9, 2023

Edited:
Just seen you dose Kalkwasser, that raises your Alk so I can see the issue. You may feel you have diluted the solution enough but you want to stop dosing Kalk until you get water parameters in check. 800ml is a lot to dose in 24hrs. I would bring that way down to 50ml depending on exact ratio

You may want to double check calcium and ALK levels again or take a water sample to LFS to have them run an electronic test.
I say this because it would be odd to have such high calcium while Alk is still 16dkh.
If Calcium is at 500+ then ALK should be around 11-12DKH or lower as calcium can bring Alk down and vise versa.
Do you use tap water in your tank?

Also you can dose more calcium to bring your Alk down, or dose a 2 part calcium/Alk system or All for Reef solution which balances out your Alk and calcium

Reefahholic · Oct 9, 2023

I’d retest that to verify. Sounds like it could be an error. I’ve seen Alkalinity that high when somebody used (high Alk) tap water to make their Kalk solution. Ca is high but ok. Nitrate and Phosphate are fine.

DGGuaglianone · Oct 9, 2023

hexcolor reef said:
Edited:
Just seen you dose Kalkwasser, that raises your Alk so I can see the issue. You may feel you have diluted the solution enough but you want to stop dosing Kalk until you get water parameters in check. 800ml is a lot to dose in 24hrs. I would bring that way down to 50ml depending on exact ratio

You may want to double check calcium and ALK levels again or take a water sample to LFS to have them run an electronic test.
I say this because it would be odd to have such high calcium while Alk is still 16dkh.
If Calcium is at 500+ then ALK should be around 11-12DKH or lower as calcium can bring Alk down and vise versa.
Do you use tap water in your tank?

Also you can dose more calcium to bring your Alk down, or dose a 2 part calcium/Alk system or All for Reef solution which balances out your Alk and calcium

I only use 0 TDS RODI water in my tank, I do use reef crystals salt and know the parameters in this salt mix are elevated. I use my kalk bucket as the “auto top off” but still have to manually add more freshwater to compensate for evaporation. I’ll stop the kalk for a few days and just use freshwater for my top off, then retest, to see if the levels go down.
I don’t know why my calcium and alkalinity haven’t precipitated themselves out by being that high. Could it have something to do with magnesium? I don’t own a test kit for Mg though.

StripeCore · Oct 9, 2023

DGGuaglianone said:
Hi all I’m new to reefing this is my first tank. I tested my parameters today Calcium was 520 ppm, Alkalinity was 16 dKH, nitrates were 5.0 ppm, and phosphate 0.25 ppm using API Reef Master test kit. My tank is 6 months old with a conch, 5 snails, 2 fire shrimp, 2 yellow sponges, 2 montipora, 2 birds nest, a leptosaris, candy cane, Duncan, 4 hammers, 2 frogspawn, a micromusa, 2 favia, and a colony of Rasta zoanthids (all small frags 1-4 heads). I dose 800 mL of very low concentration Kalkwasser over night (1/4tsp to 5 gal RODI water). Light schedule is 9-9 on an ai blade grow. My question is should I take measures to lower my calcium and alkalinity before I burn my corals or just let things play out? Any advice or comments are appreciated, good or bad, thanks.

I am certain there is an error somewhere.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 9, 2023

Dosing kalkwasser is a seriously poor plan when alk and calcium are already too high, since it adds both.

Stop dosing it.

DGGuaglianone · Oct 9, 2023

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Dosing kalkwasser is a seriously poor plan when alk and calcium are already too high, since it adds both.

Stop dosing it.

I retested 30 hours later after stopping dosing. Ca is 580, alk is 10 dKH. Should I do anything else?

bushdoc · Oct 10, 2023

Glad that there are more reefers in Fresno. I thought I was the only one

I would do two tings:

Stop dosing as Randy suggests
Invest in higher quality test kits, especially dKH and Ca- My suggestiion is Salifert or Aquaforest

Amount of Kalkwasser you are dosing is not very high, but I have the feeling that you are not dosing it properly and concentrated kalk is getting into your DT, especially if ATO pump sits at the bottom of the ATO container. It suppose to be placed the way in which it doesn't pump kalk sludge from the bottom.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 10, 2023

DGGuaglianone said:
I retested 30 hours later after stopping dosing. Ca is 580, alk is 10 dKH. Should I do anything else?

Nope. Just do not dose anything until alk drops below where you want it.

DGGuaglianone · Oct 12, 2023

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Nope. Just do not dose anything until alk drops below where you want it.

Water change?

Jedi1199 · Oct 12, 2023

bushdoc said:
Glad that there are more reefers in Fresno. I thought I was the only one

Nope... In fact, there is a hidden gem of a coral shop in Fresno called Blue Planet. Kevin, the owner is extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

Someshmuk · Oct 12, 2023

DGGuaglianone said:
Water change?

Only if you were already going to water change but don't do it just because of your alk and cal. Let your tank consume your alk and cal. More stable and it'll give you time to validate your numbers. Double check the testing instructions and do it twice on the same sample of water to make sure you're not getting different results. Use rodi/pure water to top off and let your tank water walk down your alk and calcium.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 12, 2023

DGGuaglianone said:
Water change?

Nope includes everything you might do.

flozfzx1 · Oct 12, 2023

DGGuaglianone said:
Hi all I’m new to reefing this is my first tank. I tested my parameters today Calcium was 520 ppm, Alkalinity was 16 dKH, nitrates were 5.0 ppm, and phosphate 0.25 ppm using API Reef Master test kit. My tank is 6 months old with a conch, 5 snails, 2 fire shrimp, 2 yellow sponges, 2 montipora, 2 birds nest, a leptosaris, candy cane, Duncan, 4 hammers, 2 frogspawn, a micromusa, 2 favia, and a colony of Rasta zoanthids (all small frags 1-4 heads). I dose 800 mL of very low concentration Kalkwasser over night (1/4tsp to 5 gal RODI water). Light schedule is 9-9 on an ai blade grow. My question is should I take measures to lower my calcium and alkalinity before I burn my corals or just let things play out? Any advice or comments are appreciated, good or bad, thanks.

looks cool xf

bushdoc · Oct 12, 2023

Jedi1199 said:
Nope... In fact, there is a hidden gem of a coral shop in Fresno called Blue Planet. Kevin, the owner is extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

He helped me to setup my current DT.

hexcolor reef · Oct 12, 2023

I can tell you this, your Alk is at 10kh because Calcium is 580, if calcium drops your Alk will rise again. So keep your calcium raised until your coral start to consume the both.
So if you have a stand alone calcium supplement or calcium reactor( use last) then use it.
I wouldn’t use calcium reactor since it will drop PH and since your trying to get Alk down, it’s what stabilizes everything so use a liquid calcium supplement

Check your nutrient levels, if nitrates and phosphates are on the high end. As long as you use RO water and the salt you use has a 7kh rating then go for the water change. Just don’t crash your nutrient levels.

API test kits work very well as long as it’s the reef master test kit. Very spot on.

Neoma369 · Dec 10, 2023

Reefahholic said:
I’d retest that to verify. Sounds like it could be an error. I’ve seen Alkalinity that high when somebody used (high Alk) tap water to make their Kalk solution. Ca is high but ok. Nitrate and Phosphate are fine.

I got some All for Reef and either it wasn't well mixed-or a bad batch. I got my cal & Mag back where it needed to be but the Alk was at 19!!!(HANNA), tokk me 2 weeks to get it back down, but my corraline is gone, my birdsnest and BTA died and there is ZERO algae in the tank!! Can I just re-introduce some live rock now? Pods are everywhere and brittle star +shrimp are fine

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 10, 2023

Neoma369 said:
I got some All for Reef and either it wasn't well mixed-or a bad batch. I got my cal & Mag back where it needed to be but the Alk was at 19!!!(HANNA), tokk me 2 weeks to get it back down, but my corraline is gone, my birdsnest and BTA died and there is ZERO algae in the tank!! Can I just re-introduce some live rock now? Pods are everywhere and brittle star +shrimp are fine

So lets' back up. i do not see any posts by you in this thread, so we have no idea what this means:

I got my cal & Mag back where it needed to be"

However, if you used AFR to boost calcium significantly (not a good plan), the high alk what is expected. It adds 2.8 dKH of alk for each 20 ppm of calcium.