calcium low !! Help

[maymond]

Ok my tank will be up and running on the 14 of this month for 2 months. Its a 60 gallon cube with a 30 gallon sump . Skimmer and fuge. As of right now I just have a coral beauty and flame hawkfish in the tank. And very small zoa colonies. I test my water about once a week. Well for some reason I haven't tested calcium for about 3 weeks. These are my reading tonight. Sal 1.025, free amn 0, nitrate 0, nitrite 0, ph 8.2, alk 9.5 dkh, mag 1400, and my calcium is 100. What do yall think? How can I get my calcium level up? I have a friend selling some really nice coral for a good price. Im wanting to know if my tank is established enough to house the nice pieces. One is a brain coral( platygyra ) and the other is favia? Also a huge frogspawn.

[acabgd]

I would first double check the result using another test kit for Ca.

[maymond]

The test kit im using is a salifert. I checked it twice. and same result . I will get my friends test kit tomorrow and double check it that way.

[shaggss]

Double check with another separate test kit. That number is not right.

[blanden.adam]

I would be shocked if that number were right. The only way calcium could get that low would be that your salt manufacturer forgot to add calcium to their mix, and oh my if that wouldn't THAT be the end of someones career there :P. Get another test kit and test again :).

Out of curiosity, what was your calcium level 3 weeks ago?

[Whiterabbitrage]

Salifert is a good kit, but sometimes a kit gets compromised.
Above guys are right. Retest with another kit.

[bertoni]

Did you reverse the method of reading the results? Maybe the kit is saying 400 ppm. How much of the syringe was left when you were done with the titration?

[maymond]

3 weeks ago it was 370 ppm. There was about 0.2 left of 1 ml left in the syringe. Im getting my friends tonight and retesting. I thought myself that that was wrong is why i retested.

[maymond]

Ok well i just read the insturctions on salifert website. Im a dummy. I was reading the table backwards. My reading is 400 ppm. Thanks for the help guys. But on my other questions. You think my tank is established enough to house lps corals as i listed above?

[shaggss]

The longer you wait the better, though, so long as you are sure your parameters are stable, i'm sure some hardy LPS would be ok. Remember start slow as nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.

My advise....wait a couple more months.

[Spyderturbo007]

I added my Purple Tipped Aussie Hammer coral about 30 days after my cycle finished. Based on your parameters, you'll be fine trying your hand with some LPS.

[bertoni]

Some hardy LPS corals should be fine at this point.

[maymond]

Ok thank yall. My parameters have been pretty steady. Even after I put both of the fish I have in there I didn't see any bad spike. I have a nws 200 reef octopus as my skimmer . kind of overkill but I think it helps.