cant get it up....

wetone

wetone

Member
I knew that would get your attention.....
But its CA I'm talking about.
I have a 75G with 2 clams and about 6 acro frag 2-4" and 1 stylophora, 2 plate corals, 1 meat coral.
There is also about 150lbs of LR between the display and sump, some fish and LPS, also a 25G refugium.
My ca levels (via a salifert kit) are around 375. I add about 1-1.5G of kent Kalc every day via evaporation float switch. I started adding Kent turbo calcium powder almost every day for last 10 days with no real sign of change.
Any suggestions or will it just take longer? increase the dosage? another product?
thanks
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
I need to know your ALK reading.... it's actually more important than the Ca reading. Also, what do you do for a Mg supplement? Water changes, B-Ionic, etc.
Thanks!
 
broomer5

broomer5

Active Member
If you can't raise the calcium with calcium chloride ( kent products ) then I would imagine there's an imbalance with either your alkalinity or magnesium .. or most likely both.
What's your pH range ?
What is your alk ?
How often do you do water changes and what percent ?
 
wetone

wetone

Member
My PH is at 8.2, my DKH is around 9.5-10.5. I also have been doing about 10% water changes every 2 weeks because I was fighting an algae problem that I attribute to an old RO unit I have replaced with a new RO/DI.
What is an Mg. reading?
I use a Salifert test kid that is about 12-14 months old.
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
Mg = Magnesium.
Magnesium is required at Natural Sea Water levels to prevent the Calcium and Carbonate from forming crystals and precipitating. It sounds like you are doing everything right.
I don't have an answer for you.
Goldrush's point is that test kits are good for about a year and questionable after that. A second opinion never hurts if you want to take your water to the store to have it tested.
If you verify your low Calcium level then I suggest a large water change to try to boost you Mg level. About 25% should do the trick.
 
foulbrew

foulbrew

Member
What does your replacement water test at for alk and calcium? The container of instant ocean I'm using mixed with RO water at an SG of 1.025 tests low, especially for calcium (370).
Test yours, you may be diluting your calcium with your water changes.
 
wetone

wetone

Member
Because of the algae outbreak, I have added the refugium in the last 2 weeks as well as doing "lots" of water changes in the past 60 days since I got my new RO/DI. I'm not sure why, as my NO3 and PO3 do not read anything on my test kits but the nuisance algae is still there...(I know, I know PATIENCE !!)
Anyways all these water changes have been with IO salt, I will mix some and check the CA levels right out of the bucket
 
broomer5

broomer5

Active Member
Instant Ocean "should" mix to a calcium level somewhere around 360-370 ppm when using RO water.
This is not a bad thing at all.
If you were using municipal tap water - that contains calcium - you would expect the newly mixed aerated Instant Ocean saltwater to measure somewhere over 400 ppm.
That's the price of using RO or RO/DI water with most any saltmix.
We then in turn must add calcium if we want to encourage the rate of coral/encrusting algae calcification.
 
foulbrew

foulbrew

Member
I didn't mean to imply it's a bad thing, hope noone took it that way. I just thought folks should know that freshly mixed water is not always 'perfect', as we might sometimes be led to believe.
This was not a slam on Instant Ocean which I have had no problems with and will continue to use. Broomer is quite right about the results being consistent accross salts using RO water (atleast it was with the one other brand of salt I have used). Nor was I trying to imply that using RO water is a bad thing.
It's just the way it is and folks should be aware of it. Broomer thanks for pointing it out.
 
broomer5

broomer5

Active Member
Hi Rick,
Guess I could have/should have rephrased that.
Instead of a "bad" thing, maybe I should have said it's a "normal" thing.
Getting calcium readings around 370 on new batches of saltwater was one of the first things I noticed when I started using RO/DI water - it always puzzled me.
I didn't think you were implying that Instant Ocean is bad in any way ;)
 
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