Too much calcium too fast?

[Monsieur Kam]

Tested calcium the other day and it was 150 ppm. If I wanted to raise it to say 300 in one day would that be possible or can you add calcium too fast?

[ZephNYC]

im wondering how your calcium got so low, but raise it in two large doses a couple days apart. your ionic balance is way off.

[MikeTR]

i'd just do a couple 50% water exchanges at this point with a good reef salt.

50ppm / day is recommended to not harm SPS. You're in a whole other ballpark though that only water changes are gonna fix. With a reading like that you're either completely neglecting the tank or your test kit is wack.

[sunburn]

I would seriously question the accuracy of your test kit. How can it get so low? I would do water changes to bring it up instead of dosing. If you dose and then find out your test kit was off, your calcium will be too high. At least with water changes you won't go higher than whats in the salt.

[jservedio]

What are the Salinity, Alkalinity, and Magnesium levels? If everything is low you may have mis-measured your salt on a few water changes. I can't think of any way for calcium to get that low without massive dilution or precipitation.

 

If your Alkalinity isn't off the charts high or magnesium basically non-existant it wasn't precipitation. If your Salinity is normal it wasn't dilution. If it is neither of those - you need some new testing equipment.

[Monsieur Kam]

Salinity - 1.026
Alkalinity - 11 dKH

Magnesium - 1200

 

I don't know how calcium was 150... I am using Red Sea Reef test kits

 

I use Instant Ocean salt

 

I seriously think calcium was 150, because I had a Kenya Tree and Xenia not doing well and as soon as I added some calcium they both perked right up. Frogspawn got bigger, purple polyps started spreading. All in one day after adding calcium.

[Bobyboy]

Retest with a different test kit

[Monsieur Kam]

Well I have been reading up on Instant Ocean salt and I think it's low calcium in the salt mix. It is definitely low though.

[jedimasterben]

Regular IO salt mixes to calcium around 380-400ppm. After dosing, did you test again to see if it went up? The test kit reagents may be bad.

[jservedio]

Yeah I am betting the test kit. If you didn't dose anything prior to your calcium "dropping" and your Alkalinity was 11 after your calcium "dropped" it means it couldn't have precipitated out. And since salinity is correct, it isn't dilution.

 

There is really no way for your calcium to be that low from natural upatake without also using alkalinity so your calcium problem was one of 2 things:

 

1. Bad test kit - most likely

2. Bad IO - extremely unlikely. Mix up new water and test it with a different test kit, if it mixes correctly, it isn't the IO.

 

I wouldn't be making changes to your tank to correct for "low calcium" without having another test kit to verify your problem. Test kits can go bad easily and are very prone to user error.

[Monsieur Kam]

Well I am up to 350 ppm calcium now, it was not the test kit and not user error. I took a sample to my LFS and they used a Salifert calicum test and it was the same as what I was testing with the Red Sea calcium test.

 

I think it is the instant ocean salt. I am going to switch to their reef crystals here in a couple weeks and hope for better results.

[MikeTR]

 

I think It is the instant ocean salt. I am going to switch to their reef crystals here in a couple weeks immediately and hope for see better results.

FTFY

[Monsieur Kam]

FTFY

 

Thank you. I have not made the switch to Reef Crystals yet, since I had so much of the other salt left. When doing water changes I have been adding calcium chloride and now my levels are a lot better.

 

pH - 8.3

Salinity - 35 ppt

Alkalinity - 8.2 dKH

Calcium - 390 ppm

Magnesium - 1250 ppm