Alk and Cal. troubles

[Goonter]

I have a 40g, and i am having some trouble with my Alk and Cal. My calcium is stuck at 330ppm and my alk hovers around 9.3... I am trying to get my Ca up to 400 and alk up to 10ish and I can't figure out how? I am using the dkh superbuffer and the turbo calcium by kent marine.

 

My magnesium as i am sure will be asked is at 1170 ppm (i added a little bit of that to try and get it up to about 1200-1280.

 

Any suggestions?

[lakshwadeep]

Try checking here:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

[JohnOTS]

From what I have read and understand is until you get your Mg up to 1350ish you will have a hard time getting your Ca and Alk stable.

 

Correct me if im wrong people.

 

Not to jack this thread but I have a Ca, Alk question.

 

When dosing independent Ca and Alk, not using an AB solution, how long apart should you dose the two? can you dose them together?

[Mr. Fosi]

Up the Mg above 1300 ppm and add more Ca. I've heard of ppl having a trouble getting Ca up w/Kent... Maybe try B-ionic?

[JohnOTS]

Up the Mg above 1300 ppm and add more Ca. I've heard of ppl having a trouble getting Ca up w/Kent... Maybe try B-ionic?

 

If doing what you suggest, would that correct Alk in my case, my Alk stays around 6.5 DKH?

[doctaq]

nope, that was for the op, if you need to raise your alk ( you do) then dose alk, i dont know what an ab solution is but generally people say to wait 30 minutes between dosing alk and ca, if you dose too close together you risk causing a snowstorm.

[Mr. Fosi]

nope, that was for the op...

 

^ Yup.

 

If you are having trouble keeping your alk up and you are dosing alk in the way that raises pH, mix up some of your own alk additive using Randy's Method #2 and combine the use of the two. Make sure your Mg is above 1300 ppm as well, as that will help prevent precipitation.

 

link

[Goonter]

thanks for the advice guys, i am currently working on getting my Mg up.

[Mojorizn]

Ok... I went thru this same thing.

 

Testing / additives / research / questions.

 

All the above advice is A#1 good stuff.

 

However, I have to ask the question as it was finally asked to me.

 

"Do you need those levels or are ya just trying to get into an "ideal" range?

 

On that note, I quit stressing, kept up my WC's and let the chips fall where they may.

 

End result = stabilization, happy corals and no stress.

 

I do check from time to time, but i find little change provided I keep up the WC's.

 

just my .02 there

 

best-o-luck

[doctaq]

thats not always the case, but generally, if you have to ask, its usually the same way.

not all tanks can survive off of water changes, if you have a high end sps tank packed with stony coral and clams that use 2-3 dkh a day and like 50ppm of ca you will need to change so much water every day it would be rediculous

but if you dont already know about dosing and maintaining alk and ca you probably do not have a tank like this and water changes and only occasional dosing might do enough for you.

[Mr. Fosi]

"Do you need those levels or are ya just trying to get into an "ideal" range?

 

What you need is largely determined by what livestock you have but there is virtually no way to avoid draw-down of Ca, alk and Mg, even if you don't keep stony coral. The coralline algae in the tank will pull out all three in good measure if sufficiently lighted.

 

The main points of consideration that I have found are as follows:

 

- If you have stonies, you need to have low-amplitude oscillations that don't travel far outside the recommended alk range of 8-11 dKH. If you don't manage this, you will lose color, see slow growth and perhaps experience recession or death.

 

- If you have only softies, your alk can swing a bit more and nothing will keel over if it drops into the 5-6 dKH range. Zoas, however, require Mg that is somewhere in the neighborhood of the recommended 1350 ppm. Less than 1000-1100 ppm is a recipe for irritated and receding zoas, IME. Zoas, however, are the most sensitive softies I ever owned and were prone to developing problems even in well-maintained tanks.

 

- As far as Ca goes, you really can't go wrong. Adding Ca via 2-part additive doesn't affect your pH, which makes it pretty fool-proof. Too little and things grow slowly, too much and you're likely to see precipitation (and concurrent draw-down of alk) on your heaters & pumps, but nothing will die from it. Plus, you can dose up 100+ ppm all in one shot, without making things too unhappy (may not be true for sensitive SPS).

 

For me, I always tried to get my system up to 10-11 dKH at the beginning of the week, knowing that the system will go through oscillations even if I dosed daily and I didn't want them to be too large, nor stray down below 8 dKH. My system typically consumed 1-1.5 dKH per day. Low alk stress, followed directly by high alk + pH-shift stress is a recipe for unhappy coralz.

[rhunter513]

Change your salt mix to something with higher ca, mag and alk. Be care with dosing it can cause more problems than it solves if not done carefully - esp in small nano tanks. Always dose wtih a balanced two part buffer like b-ionic, etc. Start with half recommended amount and increase slowly over many weeks. Just as two others said - your tank will respond most positively to stable params.

[reefer916]

What kind of salt are you using? I've noticed that the easiest way for me to keep my water params in check are to do 1 gallon daily water changes and a weekly 5 gallon water change in my 24 gallon. I use Reef Crystals and it keeps my water params right where I want them. I do dose a little, but since the salt already has decent Cal, Mag, and Alk. I just dose to maintain my numbers. I've been doing this for almost a year on my 24 gallon. I test my water once a month now and actually tested it last night. Here are the results that I always get by using this method.

 

SG: 1.025

Ph:8.3

Phos:0

Nitrite:0

Nitrate:0

Ammon:0

Alk:9

Mag:1350

Cal:450

 

 

My 95 gallon I do 25 gallon water changes every two weeks, but I do have to dose a lot more to keep my numbers up to par. I hope this helps

[franklypre]

I use a two part dosing system you can buy them most places they all work the same. You can also find a few online recipes like I use that will save you $$$$$$ and it is fairly simple if you don't have a high demand tank and don't mind dosing every other day or so

[amnestia]

Before you try to raise the dkh and the Ca you need to raise Mag. Mag is literally a "buffer" for Ca and alk, without it levels will drop quickly even with dosing.

 

You can raise mag up to 100ppm in a single day without harmful side-effects(depending on the supplement used). I would use brightwell magnesion as its quite a bit more concentrated than tech-m, definitely stay away from the seachem powdered stuff (doesn't do jack crap). Get your mag to roughly 1350, then keep track of your alk and make sure it doesn't go below 8-9, then start raising your Ca from there (low alk is worse than low Ca).

 

Dose alk a few hours away from your mag/ca dosing.

[franklypre]

This is the method I use I have some pool calcium about 15 bucks for a bag, some baking soda, and epsom salt,

Mix one cup of calcium (anahydrous) to a gallon of RO water It will get warm I suggest half a cup at a time

 

Mix a cup and a half of baking soda, baking at 350 for 15 minutes helps it a little, in a gallon of RO water.

Dose these two parts at the same time, same amount at different ends of your tank

 

Alright one of two things happend, a snowstorm that really makes you think everything is going to die, or nothing.

If the snowstorm is the case you need a bigger tank,LOL, seriously use less more often and this wont happen. a good strarting point is just a few drops, test, few more, test, and so on. Try and space the dosing atleast several hours apart, it will take a while for the results to show on a test kit.

 

Alright now for part three of my two part system. Yea I know. Add epsom salt to your discression or to your test kit if you have one, if you dose kalk on top of this recipe you won't need the epsom salt. However some people think kalk ends up hurting your alk in the long run. Last but not least if you dose the alk and calcium up to HIGH levels your ph may very well be 8.0, it is OK.

[Goonter]

alright i will have to try getting cheaper buffers when i run out of what i got. I have the brightwell magnesium powder and it is confusing. It says 1 mL raises 1 gallon by 6 ppm mg, but says add a max of 10 mL per 20G per day, so if i have a 40G and i add 20 mL then i am only raising my Mg per day by 3 am i not? (6ppm/40G = .15 *20 mL = 3 ppm?)

 

Another thing that has led to this is that i talked to this one guy and he said to do 5% water changes once a month, i experimented with it and decided i don't like that method because no matter what i did my water wouldn't buffer, so i am going back to a regular water change routine.

 

thanks for all the wonderful suggestions.