still having calcium problems ***FIXED***
 

Ok, bought a salifert Mag test kit. Mag was at 700ppm. Got it up up to 1400ppm. Now even with dosing kent turbo at 2x reccommended, my calcium will not go over 250ppm. Alk is @ 10.9dKh and stable. Ph is at 8.25( pinpoint) Sg is at 1.026. Been dosing smokinreefs calcium hydroxide. The IO salt when mixed and circulated for 12hrs the readings are cal. 320ppm, mag 800ppm alk. 10 dKh. HELP. suggestions please. :biggrin:

How are your corals doing?

They are doing fine. One of the monti dig's it finally starting to incrust the rock it is on. Growth is better than it use to be but I attribute that to the lighting upgrade. Lots of coraline algae.

FWIW my 90gal setup with monti cap, monti digi, several lps pieces, small acro and small millepora required 2 tsp/day of turbo calcium in addition to 3/4 gal saturated limewater to maintain ~400ppm Ca. That is ~4X the 'high load' recomendations on the container.

Re: still having calcium problems
 

[quote="martym"]Ok, bought a salifert Mag test kit. Mag was at 700ppm. Got it up up to 1400ppm. Now even with dosing kent turbo at 2x reccommended, my calcium will not go over 250ppm.

I find that when I dose with Turbo Calcium I need to add a lot more than the "maximum" that Kent suggests. I know that there are others that can confirm that.

Didn't I email you a link with a calculator for how many teaspoons of calcium chloride you would need to hit a certain target. If you use that, you'll see you need a lot more than what Kent recommends.

Good luck,

Bill

Re: still having calcium problems
 

are you talking about the 1 tsp daily type recomendation on the jar? after you fixed your Mg did you bring your Ca back to normal using a 1 or two time large addition of turbo Ca or simular product or did you just start dosing by the recomendation on the bottle?

Steve

I started by using reccommened dose. The calculator says to use 38.5 tsp of turbo calcium. :eek: Seems pretty drastic to me. Maybe I'll try 5tps to start.

:eek:

Hi Marty,

Are you sure of the accuracy of your Calcium test kit? Even a normal water change using IO salt should keep your Ca at a higher level than 250.

That's what I said Christy :smile:
I get the same readings from Salifert and Hagen. My Bucket of IO measures 320ppm calcium when mixed over night. Going to try Crystal sea next time. I talked to Robert @ Crystal sea and he said you can change your salts but do so slowly. I going to try smaller more frequent changes if I like the readings, probably 5 gallons /week instead of 10 every 2 weeks. Not very impressed with IO's readings.

when I fixed my Ca problem i brought it up at a rate of 50ppm/day.. I think this was less than what was recomended by RHF, maybe Brad can coment as he has used it more than the once I think.

Steve

What did you use and how much? What is your water volume? I can't raise by anything because it's not moving.

I assumed 120 gal for my water volume and used the calculator on reef central to figure out how much I would need to raise the ca level in 120 gal of water 50ppm

then I desolved that amount into 1 gal of ro water and slowly added into a fast flowing area of the sump.

Steve

Couldn't find a calculator on RC But I used this one from OA's web site
http://www.andy-hipkiss.co.uk/index.....uk/cacalc.htm
it say I need 10tsp to raise 50ppm

thats the same on the link from RC went to.. and yes I did the 17tsp I think i even did 34 the one day.. I did do some reading in the chemistry forum on RC about how fast you could bring it up.. do a serch on turbo ca in the chem forum and you will find a lot of info.

Steve

Thanks I'll do that.

Thank you everyone. What I did was, seeing as how nothing was working, I mixed up a batch of IO( 5g) brought it up to temp, added my salt to 1.026sg let it circilate over night and tested it. Cal= 260ppm, mag=700ppm alk=9dkh. So that was where I was getting the problems from :evil: . I have been slowly changing my salt brand to Crystal sea. ( readings are, cal 390ppm, mag 1300ppm alk 10dkh) Talked to Robert at Crystal sea and he said do the change over slowly. I'm changing 5g per week. Had to dose 10tps of turbo calcium for 4 days to get up to 420ppm. It has now been stable for the past 3 days. cal 420, mag 1400, alk 9.3dkh.
I got my IO salt back when there was all that trouble with it. Thought that after I returned my 1st bucket that the replacement would have been proper. So if anyone else is having troubles, CHECK YOU SALT!!!!!
Again, thank you everyone for your help.

That's just strange. I just tested my IO, and Ca=370ppm, alk=10.4dKh @1.025 SG.

That's what J&L said. They asked me to bring in a sample and if they tested it bad they would give me a new one. After serveral water changes there wasn't much left in the bucket 2-3 lbs so i didn't bother. I am going to keep- a closer eye on what I'm putting in my tank from now on.

I had some issues with Crystal Sea salt mix over time. I had more pods during that time but I lost coraline algae and clams. My results were in line with most people on RC as well. A lot of people also had sps bleaching. My tank's been happier going back to IO. I did notice that my pod population has decreased now back to where it was before I started using Crystal Sea though. So I'm almost certain that the salts had a role to play.

I don't know what the problem with Crystal Sea was. Reefs.org announced that Inland Aquatics was going to do a study of the salts 1.5 years ago but not sure where they are at now (The last I heard, they just ordered the equipment and were waiting for it so probably no tests performed yet). Probably doesn't matter now since the salt formulas probably have changed. So we will probably NEVER know what caused the urchin larvae to die in IO salt in Dr. Ron's test 1.5 years ago since IO's formula has already changed since then.

Keep us posted about your experience with Crystal Sea over time.

just tested my io as well
380ppm calcium n 12dkh alk @ 1.026

Hello,

Wondering who is using a calcium reactor and yet still have the problem with Mg and Ca levels because of salt mixes? As far as I know, media would dissolve the proper ratio of elements into the tank.

Titus

I don't use a reactor.
Those were my test results. Way too low. It seems people are not believing me. But like I said, now that I have switched salts I was able to get mag and cal up to where they should be and they are staying. The only place they would stay with IO was cal 260 mag 800. You tell me why there was a change when I switches salts, after battleing for months.

hi Marty,

I'm sure that people believe you...in my own case it's more another example of how different batches of salts always seem to be different. Lack of true standards? Who knows, but I'm happy that you were able to get the problem resolved! :biggrin:

Best,

Rob

There is no standars from what I can tell. What I can't figure out is why after all the trouble IO has had, people still use it. Habit I guess

because only a few people had problems.. the majority of people using it have not had any problems.

Steve

Point well taken. I just hope that they have fixed what ever the problem was.( Hung over worker on a monday) And that I start having better results with the new salt I'm using.