Low Calcium High ALK Help

Wetdiver · Sep 9, 2013

I need some advise...

current tank:

Set up 5 month old
DT 260 gallons
Sump 75 gallons
NO sand only in the sump
Calcium 360
ALK 12.5
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Phosphate .25
Salinity 1.021
water change 15% every 2 weeks

Lights LED
Lights in sump T5

Dosing A - B supplement (about 20 ML per day) drip method

So for the question: I know that it takes time for the tank to cycle and to start adding SPS BUT i just can get the two levels to come together.

What can i do to bring the levels off calcium to 460 and ALK to 9? I'm been working on this for 3 month and i just can get them to like each other.:wink:

Mike J. · Sep 9, 2013

Two things: First, I'd raise the specific gravity to 1.025 - 1.026. Second, I'd stop dosing alk for awhile and SLOWLY dose calcium to bring it up. Oh, three things, you didn't mention your magnesium level? Have a high magnesium level is very important.

Reefing Madness · Sep 9, 2013

Mike J. said:
Two things: First, I'd raise the specific gravity to 1.025 - 1.026. Second, I'd stop dosing alk for awhile and SLOWLY dose calcium to bring it up. Oh, three things, you didn't mention your magnesium level? Have a high magnesium level is very important.

+1^

Damon · Sep 9, 2013

Actually, depending on the salt you use, I would recommend two things, we'll three.

First and most important, check out some reading on how these parameters effect one another, because when you understand that, it will make sense how to adjust and make changes in the future.

Second, and it's two parts: long as your using a decent salt, I would recommend pushing your alk down and calcium up by increasing your sg to 1.025. I would do this via water changes. This will allow you to rid the system of the excess alk, while bringing your calcium up in a balanced manner. The water changes also hopefully will help with your phosphate level.

If you just bump the salinity up, your ratio is still going to be off. It may take a bit depending on your tank, but that is what I would do.

Oh- and only dose what you need per day. If you have no Calcium or alk decrease, no use in just dosing. Magnesium helps keep the two in solution and stable, so you would also want to check that level.

Sent from Note 2 on Tap 4

beaslbob · Sep 9, 2013

could be 360 ppm calcium is about right for a sp of 1.021

mcarroll · Sep 10, 2013

If you haven't added stony corals yet (did I read wrong?), there's no reason to be dosing...your water changes should be more than sufficient. (What salt?)

As others have suggested, I would stop dosing and bring your specific gravity up to 1.025 "naturally" with water changes. Once things balance out (to the Ca, Mg and alk numbers of your salt mix) you should see almost no need to dose until your stonies are growing and getting bigger.

And FWIW, your Alk number is going to be off in testing due to Calcium being that low - you'd expect alk to test high. If you used your test kit results and a reef calculator (see forum sticky) to see how much calcium to add to balance out your level of alkalinity (12.5 dKH) and dosed it all, you'd find that alk would test quite a bit lower than 12.5 and would not be in balance. You'd typically dose no more than half your calcium in this scenario and then you'd retest and recalculate for your next dose.

I would not do it that was in your case, however. No stony corals, no rush. (And it could take a LOT of 2-part to make up that amount of calcium....around 2 liters, depending what you are using. $$$) There is no danger in having the numbers you have. Just do water changes (maybe step up to 20% per week for now) until you see the numbers balance out to your salt mix's numbers. With no calcium or alkalinity being consumed, this shouldn't take too long to correct.

Last thing is your target numbers...I would reconsider keeping numbers that far out of balance. 450 ppm calcium is what it would take to "correctly" balance out your current alkalinity. 9 dKH is an OK target for alkalinity if you are running an auto-doser of some kind...but your correct balanced calcium for that level would be 425 ppm. I don't think you will see significant benefit with calcium levels above that anyway. (And BTW if your tank carries an abnormally low pH, you might have to consider 9 dKH your maximum....people in that boat tend to have problems trying to keep alkalinity higher than that. If not, you can safely keep alkalinity as high as 11 or so...useful if you can't dose every day.)

Hope this helps!

-Matt

Wetdiver · Sep 11, 2013

mcarroll said:
If you haven't added stony corals yet (did I read wrong?), there's no reason to be dosing...your water changes should be more than sufficient. (What salt?)

As others have suggested, I would stop dosing and bring your specific gravity up to 1.025 "naturally" with water changes. Once things balance out (to the Ca, Mg and alk numbers of your salt mix) you should see almost no need to dose until your stonies are growing and getting bigger.

And FWIW, your Alk number is going to be off in testing due to Calcium being that low - you'd expect alk to test high. If you used your test kit results and a reef calculator (see forum sticky) to see how much calcium to add to balance out your level of alkalinity (12.5 dKH) and dosed it all, you'd find that alk would test quite a bit lower than 12.5 and would not be in balance. You'd typically dose no more than half your calcium in this scenario and then you'd retest and recalculate for your next dose.

I would not do it that was in your case, however. No stony corals, no rush. (And it could take a LOT of 2-part to make up that amount of calcium....around 2 liters, depending what you are using. $$$) There is no danger in having the numbers you have. Just do water changes (maybe step up to 20% per week for now) until you see the numbers balance out to your salt mix's numbers. With no calcium or alkalinity being consumed, this shouldn't take too long to correct.

Last thing is your target numbers...I would reconsider keeping numbers that far out of balance. 450 ppm calcium is what it would take to "correctly" balance out your current alkalinity. 9 dKH is an OK target for alkalinity if you are running an auto-doser of some kind...but your correct balanced calcium for that level would be 425 ppm. I don't think you will see significant benefit with calcium levels above that anyway. (And BTW if your tank carries an abnormally low pH, you might have to consider 9 dKH your maximum....people in that boat tend to have problems trying to keep alkalinity higher than that. If not, you can safely keep alkalinity as high as 11 or so...useful if you can't dose every day.)

Hope this helps!

-Matt

Matt, thank you for the information and I will work on your recommendation. I was also told that the MAG will bring the calcium up. I will stop dosing until my MAG is at the required levels then salinity and finally the Alk.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

mcarroll · Sep 11, 2013

All parameters including Mg should normalize via water changes.

-Matt

LowezAkar24 · Sep 16, 2013

Wetdiver said:
I need some advise...

current tank:

Set up 5 month old
DT 260 gallons
Sump 75 gallons
NO sand only in the sump
Calcium 360
ALK 12.5
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Phosphate .25
Salinity 1.021
water change 15% every 2 weeks

Lights LED
Lights in sump T5

Dosing A - B supplement (about 20 ML per day) drip method

So for the question: I know that it takes time for the tank to cycle and to start adding SPS BUT i just can get the two levels to come together.

What can i do to bring the levels off calcium to 460 and ALK to 9? I'm been working on this for 3 month and i just can get them to like each other.:wink: