Could calcium be too high?

trainfever

Active Member
I'm having problems keeping Xenia in my tank. I was told that it could be a lack of calcium since I was never supplementing calcium in my tank. I did start supplementing Coral-vite which has calcium in it. Anyway, I was told to test my calcium. I bought an Aquarium Pharmaceuticals calcium test kit and my levels were higher than the highest point on their chart. I know that the calcium should be at abot 400-450, i'm guessing that mine is about 900. Could this hurt? Is there a way to lower it? What would could cause it to be so high? I'm not overdosing on the Coral-vite.
 

mrdc

Active Member
Xenia doesn't need calcium. The ca in the coral vite would not raise it that high because there isn't that much ca in it. Not sure why your ca is so high if you are not dosing it. I would retest the water or get another test kit (or just take a sample of water to your LFS). If it is that high, you need to do water changes to get it down. You also need to test your alkalinity. A ca that high could destroy your impellers and if it starts precipitating, you will have a mess on your hands.
 

chipmaker

Active Member
You may not have anything in your tank that is utilizing the calcium amount that your dosing, so there fore it will build up in levels.........You need to figur eout how much calcium your tank is using up, and dose accordingly........With a cal level of 900 I would have to belive its like a snow storm in the tank. Is it precipitating out in the water? I run 460-500 calcium and my tnaks do fine. The big thing with zenia, especially the pulsing type is ph. I would suspect your alk is low as it usually runs opposite of the cal. and thus yur ph is probably low as well. Xenia like a 8.2 or higher ph to do their best. A water change wil help rediuce calcium levels, as will time. Do not add any more calcium to it until levels drop to where they should be. Take a alk test and a PH test to see where yu stand.
In reality your overdosing the calcium since its building up a high residual level, since evidently your tank is not utilizing the amount that your adding........You may want to adjust it to say half that amount every oter time that your doseing now, and see how it comes out. Its always best to start off at half of the recomended doses and work it up......its much safewr, but high cal wil not generally hurt anything longterm.
 

lion_crazz

Active Member
Are you sure you bought the Aquarium Pharm. kit? That is a titration test kit. It would take 45 drops from the solution to see if you got it that high.
 

trainfever

Active Member
No Ryan, its an Aquarium Pharm Inc calcium kit. I got it at Pets Plus. I just tested again and its still off the chart. I just checked, and I've ben adding calcium through the Coral-vite, Micro-vert and through the Zoe vitamins.
 

lion_crazz

Active Member
Is this the test kit you have?
Also, what salt are you using? Have you tested the calcium in a fresh batch of salt?
 

trainfever

Active Member
Boy do I feel like an idiot. I also have the Sera master test kit. I didnt realize that it also contained a Calcium test kit. Anyway I tested with it and my calcium was perfect. The kit says you multiply the number of drops by 20 and that is your reading. So I got to thinking that maybe API had misprinted instructions or I didnt follow them correctly and that maybe i had to multply the number of drops or something. I read them again and it said nothing about multiplying. I then looked at the chart again and realized that there were 2 columns. I thought the chart only went up to 13 drops when it really went up to 26. So as it turns out, my calcium level is perfect.

And yes Ryan, that is the API test that I have.
 
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