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High Alk Low Cal


Linilou

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Hello everyone!

 

Ive been noticing one of my monti caps starting to whiten around some of the edges, and I have only had it for a few weeks so Im assuming it isnt growth. I tested my water to see if anything was amiss.

Turns out these were my readings:

Alk: 11.3

Cal: 250

Mag: 1100

Ph: 8.4

Salt was also a little high at 1.028 so im not sure if t hat can effect the outcome-

 

My question is, what is a good way to get these back up and in check. I went out and got some reef crystals to replace my Instant Ocean and Im mixing up some right now, but should I plan on dosing? I didnt think moni caps would suck the tank dry so quickly.

 

I do about 1-2 gallon change a week with IO right now, and the last water change was Friday Night, tank is 12x12x12

 

Heres a picture of the monti- the green one next to it is doing fine, no white tips. When I got it it was a little bleached but besides that normal PE. The red one, either has very little PE or just very very tiny polyps.

post-49133-0-36886800-1416270716_thumb.jpg

 

The dark part of the skeleton thats showing was old and long dead before I ever bought it.

 

The other two sps that I have are an encrusting monti that was brown when I got it, and is starting to very slowly turn purple, it has extremely big/wide polyp extension all the time, but the 3rd I have which was deep red when I bought it is slowly getting lighter with not very much PE.

 

Lights are a Nano box Mini Tide turned down to about 30% intensity.

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Do you do any dosing? It's not common to have such a huge disparity in Ca and Alk unless some dosing gets messed up. I would recommend getting someone with another test kit to confirm. The ratio of Ca and Alk is loosely tied together, but that's almost an impossible difference unless something else is going on.

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That disparity does seem rather suspect. Most things that deplete calc/alk do so in a 1:2 ratio, and even more than that the amount of calc is much higher than the alk present so alk should've dipped far far lower than the calcium. I'd definitely double check the measurements.

 

Also, if that is indeed the chemistry present, I wouldn't correct it too quickly. Its pretty out of whack and suddenly doubling the calcium concentration is going to have negative consequences.

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First, bring salinity to where it's meant to be and test again. Since you'll be diluting if you just add RO/DI water, you may want to fix that with a water change that has slightly lower salinity.

 

After that, you'll probably still have disparity. You'll want magnesium at around 1300, 1350. That way your alk and calcium won't be precipitating out. Try and fix that first, because adding calcium without taking care of potential precipitation issues could end up a waste of time (and bringing alk down). Don't bring mag up by more than 100ppm over the course of a day, though. Then, when you're bringing up calcium, try not to bring it up by more than 40ppm in a day or so. Monitor all three parameters to make sure nothing whacky's going on.

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