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Old 12-11-2015, 05:52 PM
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Default Keep up KH and CA

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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Old 12-11-2015, 07:03 PM
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What's your total water volume?
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Old 12-11-2015, 07:04 PM
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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.
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Old 12-11-2015, 07:39 PM
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Default Keep up KH and CA

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.
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Old 12-11-2015, 08:36 PM
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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.
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Old 12-11-2015, 08:47 PM
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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
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Old 12-11-2015, 09:12 PM
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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.
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Old 12-12-2015, 01:01 AM
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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.
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Old 12-12-2015, 04:38 AM
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sounds like a low dose to me
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
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Old 12-12-2015, 04:58 AM
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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
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