CA dropping with CA Reactor!

[KyleO]

I have been dosing 2-part for a little over a year now and "had" respectable CA and ALK levels (480ppm and 10dk respectively) and decided to move up to a CA reactor.

Purchased and got the Octopus CA reactor all dialed in and backed off my dosing after a few weeks.

Now, my ALK is up to 11.5dk but my CA is down to 240ppm!!!

Of course I have bumped my dosing back up but that kind of defeats the purpose of the CA Reactor.

Has anybody else had similar experiences?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Are you adding any other supplements at all? pH buffers, for example?

I suspect that calcium value measurement error, unless you put something other than calcium carbonate in the reactor. If it alone is maintaining alkalinity, then it will also maintain calcium unless a water change drives calcium up or down.

[KyleO]

That was my understanding.........

I am still dosing the 2-part, but at a fraction of what I was.

No other supplements or buffers and only Calcium Carbonate in the Reactor.

I will try another Ca test kit to see what I get......

[power boat jim]

If the test kit has been around a while, it will probably show a very low reading. I have experienced this one first hand. Anything dated older then7-8 months could be trouble, and there is no telling how long it sat on a shelf before you got it.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I will try another Ca test kit to see what I get...

Sounds good. Let us know what you find. You can also use it on your starting salt mix as a crude test of the kit. :)

[crvz]

Intriguing, I'll be interested to see the results as well.

[KyleO]

I will definitely post my results with a new Ca test kit but now I am wondering about the "shelf life" of my other test kits!

Does anybody know about any other tests that "die on the shelf"?

[60Cubed]

I have had older test kits that side by side new ones give the same readings. I did say older, not expired! But that isn't always the case. If yours isn't expired, I would check against a known number. ie...a nickle weighs 5g and so on. Definitely don't let someone scare you to go get another kit if not needed. That is foolish.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If you buy a new kit and find it reads the same as the old one, you can just keep using it the old one, so there's little or no waste. :)

FWIW, I'm not sure age is as likely of a problem as poor manufacturing and user errors.

[60Cubed]

I was talking about the 7-8 month thing. That isn't a realistic number for test kit replacement. But I do agree something is wrong with the reading and it could be the kit.

[power boat jim]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13467580#post13467580 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 60Cubed
I have had older test kits that side by side new ones give the same readings. I did say older, not expired! But that isn't always the case. If yours isn't expired, I would check against a known number. ie...a nickle weighs 5g and so on. Definitely don't let someone scare you to go get another kit if not needed. That is foolish.

I was not trying to scare anyone out of using anything or doing anything foolish, only sharing a scenaro that I experienced. The only way to rule out the kit is to get a fresh one. I had a New Ca kit read 200 pts higher then an old one. I bought the new one becuase the reading from the old one made no sense, much like what is happining here. Generally when solving a problem you check for the simple and easy solutions first and move up to the more complex, thats all I was going for.

[KyleO]

I appreciate the input and agree with testing the old kit against a new one. I should be testing my Ca a lot more than I do and will soon need a new kit anyway.

I will post my results.......