Params outa wack

[dublo8]

Alright so i havent tested for cal alk or mag for about 4 months. Before then everything was always constant and ther wasnt much change. I tested last night and came up with the following
Cal-200ppm
Alk-8.2
Mag-510

How fadt can i bring these back up withput hurting any coral or livestock? As you can see, i have a long way to go before things are back to normal.

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[wickedfish]

Do a WC, should be a good way to get them level. Is your ph off too? Maybe a couple small ones, one early and then one later that day. If you have to mix some wait 24 hrs at least before adding.

[Steve Wright2]

according to many posts and articles I have read on here and other places on the net

Magnesium, - increase by no more than 100ppm in any 24 hour period
Calcium - increase by no more than 40ppm in any 24 hour period

so for Magnesium about 8 days
and for Calcium 5 days

should be a slow enough increase so as to not cause any issues with your livestock

Steve

[oscar.millan]

I would try to do it very slowly. I think more importantly, what will you be using to bring them back up?

[oscar.millan]

+1 Good salt should get you on your way.

Do a WC, should be a good way to get them level. Is your ph off too? Maybe a couple small ones, one early and then one later that day. If you have to mix some wait 24 hrs at least before adding.

[dublo8]

I'm not sure how they got that way since nothing has changed and my husbandry has remained the same since the last test. I ran out of tests is the reason I haven't tested anything in a while. However, while testing I always found myself right where I should be or at least nothing a little WC couldn't take care of.

As far as what I'm going to use. I have a bottle of precision mag to bring up the magnesium but the problem is that according to the bottle 1 cap full will only raise the mag. by 5 ppm. That's like 3 bottles worth. For calcium I'm going to start using Kalk in my top off water until I can bring things back to stable or close to it. Hopefully I can get close to range, do a WC and then be back to where I was. I have never been this low before so it kind of scares me a bit.

The other part that bothers me is that the alk is fine? I have no clue why. double tested with salifert and a 3rd test with API. all the same. API was 8.0 and Salifert was 8.2. Not sure how that's possible since everything else is out of range.

[bertoni]

Dosing calcium at 100 ppm per day seems safe enough, in practice. I agree that 100 ppm per day of magnesium is a good limit, too. I'd get second opinions especially on the calcium kit, before dosing much at all. Water changes up to 20% or so tend to be very safe for the short run, if any animals are having trouble.

The kalk won't work to help the calcium problem, since it'll spike the alkalinity (and possibly the pH) if that much is dosed. You'll need a calcium chloride product, like Turbo Calcium.

What's been dosed into the system? pH buffers (which are high-pH alkalinity supplements) and tap water can provide a lot of alkalinity. If nothing's been dosed, I suspect the calcium kit is having a problem.

[mscarpena]

I would just do a bunch of water changes that way your safe either way if your test kit is wrong or not. Also you only have a 10 and 20 gallon tank. I would test your water change water and bring a sample to your LFS of both if your tests are out of wack. If you have reef tank with corals that use calcium, alk, and mag you need a way to add them. B Ionic should be good in your case. Also very cheap due to the size of you tanks.

[ptr13]

B ionic and a good Mg supplement should do the trick,30 ml of alk and Ca,50 ml for mg,raise it slowly. Water change will speed up the process too.

[dublo8]

Alright so this is getting old really fast. I need to figure this out. I went through a bottle of mag. and have been dosing 2 part twice a day before lights and after lights since the start of this. I have been half dosing the alk portion since it seems to be in a nice spot. I did 2, 4 gallon water changes over the past 2 days and even took my water to my LFS to double check my tests. Here are the results.

Mag 500
alk 8.8
Cal 130
PH 8.2

It's dropping faster than I'm replacing it. What am I doing wrong? How is the alk still sitting somewhat steady? Please help me with this. I have no clue what to do. I tested my mix water and it comes out as expected. Once it hits the tank and testing an hour after it's still low.

The little 10 gallon tank is holding steady and doing fine. There isn't much coral in there right now since I moved most of it over to my 20. It's mainly LPS and softies as of right now. I tested the 10 gallon and it's doing swell. The 20 is having the problem. I have never experience a problem like this before. As much as I hate to do it, I'm going to pick up some brightwell calcium and magnesium powders tomorrow.

[bertoni]

I don't believe those numbers. I suspect testing errors on the magnesium and the calcium. I'd test some freshly-mixed saltwater, as a sanity test.

[mscarpena]

I agree something does not seem right to me with those results. I would think your coral health would be suffering. However If your newly mixed salt water seems in normal parameters I would do some more water changes. I use all dry powders as it is most efficient and cheapest IMO. All the 2 parts you are paying for a lot of water. I will caution you to go very, very slowly with dry powders. They can raise up levels very, very fast and that can be bad. I would do 4-5 25-30% water changes and see what your results are at. What you are doing wrong is your corals are using the elements faster than what your are adding them at. If you have corals at use these elements you need to replace them. I would get your levels where you want them then test every 2 weeks and get a routine of how much of what you need to add. Then cut back to testing every month or so when you know how much to add weekly. You will need to do this anytime you add anything new. I suspect you had your levels set then added more LPS corals or a clam that uses a lot of this stuff and stuck with the old regime.

The little 10 gallon tank is holding steady and doing fine. There isn't much coral in there right now since I moved most of it over to my 20. It's mainly LPS and softies as of right now. I tested the 10 gallon and it's doing swell. The 20 is having the problem. I have never experience a problem like this before. As much as I hate to do it, I'm going to pick up some brightwell calcium and magnesium powders tomorrow.

When you did this is when I suspect the problem started. You needed to start to dose more of the lacking elements when you did this and probably did not.

[dublo8]

Im suspecting the alk portion is off from my tests or its inconsistant with the salifert test kit. I came up with 11.2 dkh this morning. Others params held steady over night and tested where they were yesterday with little fluctuation in numbers. Im done adding stuff until i do another water change tonight and ill run the tests again on the new batch of salt once its mixed.

These are brand new test kits i am using. I have ran them both in the diluted form and full to check for consistancy.


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[tmz]

I'd suspect a testing noise of some sort with those numbers or unbalanced dosing of alk and calcium.
The calcium depletes when it joins with carbonate which is part of the alkalinity thus reducing the alkalinity as well. Each 20ppm of calcium used in forming calcium carbonate uses 2.8 dkh alkalinity ,so the alkalinity should deplete more precipitously than the calcium if consumption were the cause.

Dosing 5 parts magnesium chloride/ and 3 parts magnesium sulfate at 100ppm per day along with calcium chloride at 100ppm per day should get you where you wan't to be( calcium around 400ppm, magnesium >1280ppm With a 20 gallon tank, I'd might just do a series of 25% water changes checking the mag ,alk and calcium of the newly mixed salt water. What is the salinity? What buffers are you using?

[dublo8]

Is there any possability that the test kit instructions are for the new kits and i got the old formulations? I know they switched some thing a little while back and the test kit instructions state the same thing.


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[dublo8]

Update: Must be bad test kits. But both of them being bad perplexes me though. I mixed up 2 fresh batches. 1 of regular IO and another of RC. Let them run for 24 hrs with a powerhead, heater and the venturi going on the powerhead. turned off the venturi and let the water settle for a couple hours. Ran both tests again and this time they showed zero for calcium and extremely low for Mag. I dont get why both kits could possibly be bad and why when I test against my DT they actually show a result vs. a freshly mixed batch of SW. It's not user error btw lol

[tmz]

Don' know. Could it be a bad batch of salt?

[dublo8]

Ok lets clear some things up here. I want to just let you all know that i care for each one of you and respect you as individials and want thank all of you for the help, despite the fact that you are all going to laugh at me. I have been reading the test backwards..... I have never used the salifert kits before and thought it was pretty straight forward. I have been following the instructions and counting from the 1ml up to where the plunger was. Instead of counting from the plunger to the 0 indicator. Feel free to flame. Good thing i didnt try to dose calcium and mag to bring those params up...


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[tmz]

Glad yu figured it out.