Keep up KH and CA

[csaba911]

I have read many page in this subject but cannot figure it out why I cannot keep up with them.
Reef running for close to 7 years, in the last 4 month it's a constant battle to keep up my KH and CA, dosing 100ml 2x a day now from Bulk Reef supply's 3 part solution what I'm using for a long time now. Mag is keeping up 1280-1310, PH swings 7.9-8.2, using RO/DI water clean as it can be 001-000 ppm. Phosphate little bit high 5-30 "Hanna digital meter" depending if I feed heavy or not. I wonder if some other parameters chewing up my CA or 200ml of concentrated solution is acceptable. If I miss a day KH drops low as 6 and CA goes down to 350.
Tank doing fine others than a RTD wiped out a colony of acropoa a few months ago.

Any suggestions?
Ty


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[WarDog]

What's your total water volume?

[whatcaneyedo]

Your tank looks well established so I'm not surprised. But to be certain, try another test kit to make sure that you are getting accurate results because overdosing can be disastrous. If that proves that you're simply consuming a lot of calcium carbonate then I guess you're consuming a lot of calcium carbonate and you'll need to supplement more.

When my colonies were larger and my system volume was smaller I could easily drop over 1 DKH daily if my Ca Reactor wasn't running.

[csaba911]

155G - 80lb LR and living beings.

API test kit expires jan 2016 reed sea expires oct 2016
Probably will get new kit on Boxing Day.

[Reef-Geek]

100ml per part should be considered normal, if you use the calculator thats only like 5ppm for your system. No way it can drop to 350ppm unless you starting point is low.

[daplatapus]

I had the same problem for a while. The only thing that fixed my issues was getting Mg up to 1450. I know some people will roll their eyes at that, but honestly, once I got it up there, my calcium reactor didn't get touched for months at a time and everything stayed rock solid

[csaba911]

Yes calculator say that, I should mention even with 200ml wont get up to 480 where was no problem before, usually I'm happy with 420-450 and 8-9 DKH.
Will try to get MG up to 1400, my salt mix "Reef Chrystal" also have strange low KH to start with 7-8 and 400 CA, I had used various salt mix in the past all worked fine even the generic AquaGiant "only a few times for experiment"
Calcium was tested with Salifer, RedSea and API so I know it's low.

[Myka]

Are you dosing by hand? Invest in a doser and you will wonder why you ever went so long without one. Bubble Magus just brought out a neat little doser where you buy a single digital "master" and you can buy "slaves" to daisy chain to it. I think the Master is a bit over $100 and the slaves are $75?? So for about $200 all in you could have a doser.

The amount you're going through isn't unusual. I don't like the API kit for calcium though (alkalinity one is fine), and much prefer either Elos or Salifert.

[e46er]

sounds like a low dose to me:neutral:
my tank is 120 G and have about 15% the corals you do and I go through a gal/month of cal and alk.
Id try a new test kit beofre I made any drastic changes because your tanks looks great

[csaba911]

What really bothers me that this was never a problem, I'm going to get new test kit.
Ps: why are many test kit have no expiration date on the box, only on the bottles on the inside :(

[Myka]

What really bothers me that this was never a problem, I'm going to get new test kit.
Ps: why are many test kit have no expiration date on the box, only on the bottles on the inside :(

Salifert has them on the outside of the box. :)

[Myka]

Are you winning?

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

[csaba911]

So cannot confirm for sure but looks like I have bad test kits, calcium is low for sure but KH looks like to high now. Old API and RedSea both show low but Aquascape KH show 15-16.
Called RedSea for explanations, nothing so far but expecting a new reef pro test kit from them.

[Myka]

So cannot confirm for sure but looks like I have bad test kits, calcium is low for sure but KH looks like to high now. Old API and RedSea both show low but Aquascape KH show 15-16.
Called RedSea for explanations, nothing so far but expecting a new reef pro test kit from them.

I've never heard of Aquascape test kits. Why don't you just buy some Salifert kits? They're easy to find, reliable, do lots of tests, have expiry dates on the outside, and affordable. :D I use a variety of different brands, but sometimes I wonder why when the Salifert does the trick. :lol:

[csaba911]

:) some people work 6 day a week from 7-7, today is my day's off and my wife birthday so might not have time to go anywhere near LFS

[csaba911]

Got new Salifer KH, new reading 12.8
And Nutrafin CA 300
AI had no Salifer CA test

[Myka]

:) some people work 6 day a week from 7-7

Oh, these were old test kits you had laying around? I thought you went out and bought this Aquascape kit.

Got new Salifer KH, new reading 12.8
And Nutrafin CA 300
AI had no Salifer CA test

Well that's annoying. I hate driving to LFS to pick up some supplies and they're out of stock. Is the Nutrafin a new kit?

[csaba911]

Yes both kit new and have many years left. Nop the AquaScape I picked up from someone.
I noticed the new Salifer have 2020 expiration date, how long the RedSea was sitting in the store if expires in October 2016!

[csaba911]

Slowly my CA start to get up again, 410 was this morning, for the last 4 days I was dosing 50ml AK only and 200ml CA, KH still up at 12.
As for the RedSea test I'm very disappointed, called and emailed them with little to no response, one of the lady she said she will talk to her chemist and will see if they can provide a replacement or not! Wtf I paid $80 for that stupid test just back in May or June

[csaba911]

Update-
Received replacement from ReSea it's about 20-30ppm different from Salifer.
Got from a friend a Seachem 425ppm reference solution, unfortunately it's 2 year old and both RedSea and Salifer read way to high value, near 520-550ppm
Is there any safe/sure way to home brewed calcium test solution?

[Myka]

Update-
Received replacement from ReSea it's about 20-30ppm different from Salifer.
Got from a friend a Seachem 425ppm reference solution, unfortunately it's 2 year old and both RedSea and Salifer read way to high value, near 520-550ppm
Is there any safe/sure way to home brewed calcium test solution?

It's the Red Sea Pro test kit? The expiry on the Salifert one is 2020? They essentially agree with each other, I'd believe them.

There is not a good DIY calcium standard you can make because calcium salts are hygroscopic, so you can't accurately tell how much water is in the CaCl when you weigh it. Maybe it would be "close enough" to get an idea (especially if you used a freshly opened tub of CaCl), but I wouldn't call it a "standard solution". The easiest and cheapest thing you can do is test your freshly mixed saltwater mixed at 1.0264 since each brand is usually predictable (unless you also just happened to have an off batch), and would provide you an answer that is at least as accurate as a homemade CaCl solution. Which salt do you use?

[LeanneP]

Just thought I would let you know that I have been using Salifert for a couple of years but couldn't get one for testing alk so I ended up getting Red Sea. I have a mixed reef tank that is doing well and I thought that I had my alk at about 8.5 but when I tested with red sea it was 7.6. I was quite surprised and was informed by another reefer that Salifert always tests a bit higher. I went and bought another new Salifert alk test kit as well and it was still off by about 0.6-0.8 so just a little food for thought!