Parms too high!!! Advice please.

[lanshark]

Confirmed my suspicion today at LFS. Took sample of my water and bought new Calcium test kit and had the store chap test with me. This was after a 10% water change this morning. I suspect it to be my use of Calcium Reactor using Julian Springs media, effluent ph 6.8 and that I'm not "dialing in" properly.....



Calcium test from API kit was 32 drops of #2 indicating over 500ppm.
Salifert Mag test with store chap too, just at or slightly beyond 1500ppm.
DKH via Salifert is 10.2 (This was me testing alone (colorblind))....

Tank parms;
Ph Was 8.20 after I shut off CO2 to reactor, now 8.26.
Temp 78.5
Salinity 1.025
Advice needed;

Best method to bring Calcium,Mg,DKH back into optimal zone?

Also, I thought Calcium reactors were good at maintaining and not good at increasing values? Then how did I get where I am at? I haven't learn to dose anything yet.... Except trying VODKA and then aborting coz I thought it may be effecting my MONTI's. I think the MONTI symptoms are due to wacked out Calcium and Mg?

Thoughts please.

[Percula9]

Shut down the reactor and let calcium and alk come down to lower levels. The monti's could be reacting to the alk level. Meanwhile maintain alk with baking soda or a store bought alk supplement. You really have to monitor your levels when you run a reactor.

[bertoni]

Calcium reactors are fine for increasing alkalinity and calcium, but they do so at a fixed ratio. It's possible that your salt product is high in calcium, for that matter.

The magnesium level is high enough that I wonder about testing errors there. Was anything dosed for magnesium? Have you measured some freshly-mixed saltwater?

[lanshark]

Thanks for all the info!

If dkh were at 10-12 ish, Calc is over 500ppm, Mg is near 1500ppm any real concerns?

I will test my fresh batch of Red Sea Pro Coral Salt for parms today.

[iamwrasseman]

the mag shouldent be a concern as i keep mine there for algae controll .
the DKH needs to come down for sure so turn off that reactor and get that and your calcium down a bit .

[bertoni]

Those parameters aren't high enough to cause problems, in most cases. If you're dosing vodka, you might need to lower the dKH. If your animals look okay, I'd suggest not worrying at all. :)

[jeepguy242]

my dkh runs around 10 and ph at 8.3, mag at 1500 and calc at 460... i dont see a problem with your numbers

[Voyager22]

Those parameters are no real concern IMO...

[Metal Man 1221]

like said, it could be the salt, i just switched to instant ocean from oceanic because i kept getting bad batches wich read 800 ppm with a new test kit

[chuckreef]

I think you are in good shape actually. It may be that the reactor is a little large for your tank/system volume. I suggest you invest in a digital timer and use it to reduce the Ca++ Reactor run time by half (I.e., to 12 hr. during the day - presuming you are now running it continually); and let the Ca++ and alkalinity levels slowly decrease a little over time. After a week or two you should be able to dial in the exact amount of run time each day to get exactly where you want the tank to be.