My tank isnt consuming anymore?

[unbreakable]

My 75g reef aquarium isnt consuming anymore Alkalinity or Calcium.. any ideas why? I never dosed calcium before with Reef Crystals, but every 4 days my alk would drop by 1 DKH. Now it's been at 7.5 DKH for a week, and calcium at 600ppm. I havent done a water change in 2 weeks.. whats going on?

Ive been dosing vodka for 4-5 months now, been using prodibio for a month, and i have SPS and clams in the aquarium

[HighlandReefer]

Possibly your alk kit is getting old. I would double check it with another source.

[flyyyguy]

all of your testing results seem improbable to me unless I am misundertanding them.

[MrRyanT]

You might want to check your magnesium also just to be sure it hasn't dropped too low. If it gets too low then it slows down the consumption of calcium and alk.

[Percula9]

If magnesium drops to low you will get abiotic precipitation of calcium carbonate. Basically it's hard to maintain calcium levels with low magnesium. It is either testing error or maybe high phosphate levels. High PO4 will interfere with calcification.

[tmz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15119553#post15119553 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Percula9
If magnesium drops to low you will get abiotic precipitation of calcium carbonate. Basically it's hard to maintain calcium levels with low magnesium. It is either testing error or maybe high phosphate levels. High PO4 will interfere with calcification.

:) I agree. Low levels of magnesium will make it harder to keep high levels of calcium in solution,since more precipitation(consumption) is likely.

High phosphate would be my first suspicion.

[flyyyguy]

I still dont understand how yoru calcium level could be 600 if you dont dose, regardless of if it is consuming it or not.

[unbreakable]

just bought a new alk kit... im not making it up. reading at 7 dkh

btw, im dosing vodka and prodibio. It could be I have high phosphates but my algaes have been dying off and I can honestly say my tank is starting to look a lot better, even friends have said It's improving and doing better. I dont see why I would have a problem testing now when its been fine before. I went ahead and bumped the alk to 8 DKH, I'll see how it goes.

[unbreakable]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15123209#post15123209 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by flyyyguy
I still dont understand how yoru calcium level could be 600 if you dont dose, regardless of if it is consuming it or not.

Salt I guess. I chose RC because it's always been high in calcium for me. I have never dosed calcium even though I have everything I need.. alk, calcium, magnesium. ALK was the only thing I ever used for dosing.

[unbreakable]

I'll go ahead and check my magnesium levels tomorrow morning with my Elos kit; I havent checked that in a while but I usually keep it in the 1300 range.

Thanks for the responses :)

[flyyyguy]

Ive used RC for years, and the complete range I have ever gotten from it is 330-430. So if your tank consumes anything at all, that is why I think it very unlikely you are really above 400 ever, unless you do huge water changes often

[unbreakable]

Magnesium is 1400, i bumped up ALK to 8 DKH from 7, calcium at 520 ppm

[flyyyguy]

out of curiousity...what is your salinity and how do you test it??

the only ways physically possible to have the calcium as high as you think it is is either testing error, a bad test kit, or your salinity is higher than you think it is

[unbreakable]

refractometer, 35 ppt and calibrated to a solution, not ro/di