Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board - CAl and alk levels

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Mike, why not take the Kalk Reactor off line for a bit, while dripping Baking Soda or other Alk supplement until Ca gets used up. I have the same problem, when I use Kalk alone, Ca rises and Alk drops slowly. The fish and other bioload use up Alk. I find my tank uses around 10ppm a day of Ca, so when I stop Kalk, it drops 10ppm per day, but I keep Alk high with baked Baking Soda dissolved in RO. Once the SPS and Clams get bigger, you may get away with Kalk alone, just more of it, with a bigger demand on Ca from Corals.

To give you a little more info, my salinity is a 1.023. I have not been dosing anything for quite a while now, although I did up until about 7 months ago using Reef Complete. I have mostly softies, but a few SPS as well. I also have a reasonably decent Bio-load with 10 fish in a 70 Gallon tank. I don't have an RO/DI myself, I purchase RO water from a local vendor (same stuff I drink). I don't use any tap water and have not used any in 2 years. I don't have a lot of new coraline algae growth, but my rocks are nicely purpled up from the last few years.

Any other suggestions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by untamed (Post 303773)

How's your salinity? Maybe you've gotten over-concentrated. You do have an unusual problem, to be sure. You are not dosing anything to supplement Ca/Alk, yet your Ca/Alk is RISING. That suggests that you have nothing in the tank that would use up Ca/Alk. Even a normal growth of coraline aglae would eventually use up Ca/Alk in a tank if there were no supplementation.

Do you happen to have a very clean, fish-only system? I'm baffled by that one.

mseepman, I am at a loss to offer an explanation.

There is no mechanics that I can think of that would allow Ca/Alk to go UP beyond the levels of the replacement SW in any system that is supporting SPS and coraline algae.

I don't think that fish or overall bioload are a factor as they don't pull Ca from the water.

In order to try and bring things back into line, I am doing a 20% water change this weekend. I did a 20% last week as well but it didn't seem to do much.

Without having my own RO/DI, big water changes are a real pain in the butt!

I do...have you checked for a faulty test kit. What test kit are you using..A lot of problems with Salifert as of late, could be your alk or Ca test kit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by untamed (Post 303958)

There is no mechanics that I can think of that would allow Ca/Alk to go UP beyond the levels of the replacement SW in any system that is supporting SPS and coraline algae.

I thought the same thing...but I have a Hagan test kit and the Salifert and both read similar. I bought the Salifert kit after getting these readings from the Hagen kit. I have a friend with a red sea kit (ugly I know) but I will have him do a test and see if he confirms.

Test the RO water you are buying for Ca, not being run through a DI filter I'd bet it contains Ca.
As mentioned by Scumchug, you are then adding Ca everytime you top up your tank and slowly increasing Ca levels.

I will try testing it, but wouldn't it show when I test my newly mixed salt water too?