Question about Calcium..

[Martin H. Lawton]

I test every weekend and I have noticed that my Calcium has been dropping 5 or 10 ppm each week. I am already dosing 3 ml every hour starting from 1100 to 1800. I am wondering is this normal or is there something else wrong? I don't want to up my doses too much each hour. I have also noticed that my Coraline algae is declining.

 

[Shaun Sweeney]

I test every weekend and I have noticed that my Calcium has been dropping 5 or 10 ppm each week. I am already dosing 3 ml every hour starting from 1100 to 1800 is this normal or is there something else wrong? I don't want to up my doses too much each hour.

You can safely increase your dosing - assuming your testing is valid - as your tank will handle some fairly large daily increases in Ca. Make sure your Mg is in a good range as Ca will precipitate out if Mg is too low. That would show as Ca adhering to parts of the tank.

 

[Martin H. Lawton]

but my mag is 1380 a bit low but not that low..

 

[Martin H. Lawton]

I want to bring it up to ~1420.

 

[Shaun Sweeney]

but my mag is 1380 a bit low but not that low..

Ok then it is simply a matter of your tank absorbing the Ca. Up the dosing and keep your Ca above 400.

 

[Martin H. Lawton]

okay I just don't want to over dose .. thanks man

 

[Shaun Sweeney]

As an example, you could increase the Ca from 400 to 440 in one day and it wouldn't really bother anything in the tank. OTOH, letting the Ca drop below 400 will certainly make your corals unhappy.