skimmer

[saltymight]

ok so every morning i wake up to a cal of 360ish and dose my 20 gal with 15 ml to brink it up too around 400 im pretty sure my skimmer is taking out my cal supplement does every one have this issue with losing so much cal over night or is my skimmer to big for my tank its a remor the one ment for 20-55 gal ?

[mbbuna]

skimmers wont remove Ca. what is your Alk and Mg at? what products are you using and how are you adding them?

[saltymight]

my mag idk did a 10% last week. my alk is 3.5 i its kent marine cb the AB parts two cap fulls above a power head

[mbbuna]

if your Mg is low you will have a hard time keeping Ca and Alk up. i would get a good Mg test kit and find out what it is.

these explain how they work together

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-04/rhf/feature/index.php

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/may2003/chem.htm

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-03/rhf/index.php

and this will make dosing a lot easier

http://reef.diesyst.com/

[saltymight]

Ok i will go out and buy one now its still early thank you

[saltymight]

ok i just emptyed my skimmer 3 hours ago and its filled half way again grrr what gives

[jakkalofv]

if you think it's your skimmer, turn it off for a night and see if your calcium still drops

[saltymight]

well its been running all day and i dosed about noon so I will see this weekend

[saltymight]

Ok i bought the mag test and it says its off the charts it is the red see single pack. I just did a water change I will test it in a few hours and see. my cal was also low too. my ph this morning before the lights went on was 8.2 now it is about 8.4.

[MalHavoc]

It is *possible* that you have a high calcium demand in your tank. What corals are you keeping? Is coralline algae growing?

Another possibility is that your alkalinity and pH are too high, and you're getting precipitation of calcium carbonate or calcium hydroxide. Do you have a sand bed? Is it starting to clump together at all?

Definitely read the links that mbbuna passed along. Some good stuff in there.

[saltymight]

I have no corals and not coralin algae yet my tank is only a month old i have a sand bed thats about 2 inches think and is starting to get darker colored underneath.

[mbbuna]

what Ca supplement are you using? and how are you determining how much you need to add to get to your target level?

[saltymight]

its kent marine and I'm using the scale from this website on the chemical page. I add 2 cap fulls 10 ml to my tank. ok well i just cehcked all my parms and im at
mag 1400
ph 8.4
cal 420
alk 4 meg/l
I f you need to know more I can write it on