[bg3489]

About a week ago I noticed that my alk dkh reading was low ( around 7 dkh). I used kent super buffer to raise my alkalinty and was then at a PH of 8.4 and alk of 12 dkh. My calcium had been low at this point, around 300 ppm. I picked up a bottle of kent marine tech cb part B, the calcium buffer. I added this to the tank for several doses as directed however to find no results. Test after test showed no real increase in my Calcium. I today bought turbo calcium and added 1/2 teaspoon to the 115 gallon tank. I retested this evening and found my calcium to still be at 300ppm! What is going on? I'm afraid to touch anything else for fear of worsing my situation. I know my alk is probably too high but should i just keep adding the tubo calcium slowly to correct this problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[bg3489]

Just to note I only added the calcium part A buffer not part B the alkalinty buffer.

[zhenya]

Sometimes you need to add alot of stuff to see any increase. I always use this handy calculator to calculate how much of the supplement to add.

Reef Chemistry Calculator

HTH.

PS.Here, I tried to check out how much of CaCl you need to add to increase your Ca from 300 to 425ppm...you'll need to add 151.3 grams of the product, that is hardly half the spoon. My advice would be to add slowly, third of the required volume at the time and do not exceed more than 20-25ppm increase a day.

[vtec si]

On the same note that Gene finished with is that two part supplements may not work correctly if not used in conjuction of one another. I would try kalk or Bio calcium from Tropic Marin. (If you do not has a Ca reactor, I would use the Bio Ca It works well and fast but expensive.)

Martin

[charlie]

Just for grins, have you checked your magnesium levels? If I am not mistaken, your Mg should be about 3 times what your Ca level is, and if the Mg is low, you will have a tougher time keeping your Ca levels up. HTH

[bg3489]

Alright so I retested and my calcium went up from 260 to 320 since around 2 days ago! The problem however is my DKH went back down from 12 to 10. Is this normal? And if I continue over the next week or so to raise my calcium to around 400 will my dkh continue to drop?

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by bg3489

Alright so I retested and my calcium went up from 260 to 320 since around 2 days ago! The problem however is my DKH went back down from 12 to 10. Is this normal? And if I continue over the next week or so to raise my calcium to around 400 will my dkh continue to drop?

If you will continue to raise Ca without adding any alkalinity supplement then it will certainly go down. I think you need to continue with the balanced additives, like B-Ionic's Calcium and Alkalinity. If you need to boost Calcium to say 420ppm than I would use the CaCl( turbo calcium) to boost it( use that calculator that I linked to) and continue to add alkalinity. You may wish to consider doing a good size water change and correct your problem that way, I find it the easiest way to correct inbalances.
Have you read articles by Dr. Holmes-Farley on Ca and Alkalinity and how to correct things when they go awry? If you need links to them I can post them here.

[bg3489]

The links would be great! Should I aim to raise my levels up to about 420 and then get a balance additive to mantain it at that point? I feel liek if I keep using seperate calcium and alkalinty supplements separetly I'll be chasing my levels forever!

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by bg3489

The links would be great! Should I aim to raise my levels up to about 420 and then get a balance additive to mantain it at that point? I feel liek if I keep using seperate calcium and alkalinty supplements separetly I'll be chasing my levels forever!

I think it would be quite perfect to have Ca at 420-425ppm range and alkalinity of 10-12dkh. I'll post the links for you and let you decide what is the best action to take after you read them.

Chemistry and the Aquarium - Randy Holmes-Farley
Chemistry and the Aquarium
Chemistry and the Aquarium
Chemistry and the Aquarium
A Simplified Guide to the Relationship Between Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium and pH by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
Calcium and Alkalinity by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

Give this a go, I'm certain that this articles will help you alot. If you have any problem after that just holler and we can go over everything. It can be quite frustrating to bring aquarium back into balance and sometimes you end up playing the numbers game. It happened to me on a few occasions...

[bg3489]

Alright I really appreciate it. I added a little more turbo calcium to see how much it brings me up and I'm planing on visitng my local fish store to see if they can test my Magnesium. I'll post if I have any more problems.Thanks again!

[charlie]

Originally Posted by bg3489

The links would be great! Should I aim to raise my levels up to about 420 and then get a balance additive to mantain it at that point? I feel liek if I keep using seperate calcium and alkalinty supplements separetly I'll be chasing my levels forever!

Once you get them to the balanced point, it will be a heck of alot easier for you, believe me. We have all chased levels, so don't feel alone. Good luck, and let us know how you turn out. I am really interested to see what your mag. level is.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by bg3489

Alright I really appreciate it. I added a little more turbo calcium to see how much it brings me up and I'm planing on visitng my local fish store to see if they can test my Magnesium. I'll post if I have any more problems.Thanks again!

You know, I never really asked you what type of tank that 115g is, or which salt you are using. It may help to know what the demand is for carbonate in your aquarium, or which brand of synthetic salt you are using.

[bg3489]

So I re-tested today and everything is back to normal. I'm at 400 ppm of calcium and my alkalinity is between 10 and 11 Dkh. I'm going to track these numbers for the next few days in order to see how much of each my tank uses per day so I can know how much to dose. The tank's inhabitants range from numerous hard corals, softies, and mushrooms ie- elegeant coral, open pineapple brain, 2 closed brains, a clam, a colt coral, a leather, trumpets, frogspawn,star polyps, a plate coral, and a few different kinds of mushroom polyps. I'm using Instant Ocean sea salt.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by bg3489

So I re-tested today and everything is back to normal. I'm at 400 ppm of calcium and my alkalinity is between 10 and 11 Dkh. I'm going to track these numbers for the next few days in order to see how much of each my tank uses per day so I can know how much to dose. The tank's inhabitants range from numerous hard corals, softies, and mushrooms ie- elegeant coral, open pineapple brain, 2 closed brains, a clam, a colt coral, a leather, trumpets, frogspawn,star polyps, a plate coral, and a few different kinds of mushroom polyps. I'm using Instant Ocean sea salt.

Sounds like a good plan. To maintain Ca and Alk you can probably replace evaporated water with kalkwasser( calcium hydroxide), given that you don't keep stricktly bunch of sps in the tank, although you have some stonies as well in there. This is probably the easiest way to maintain Ca and Alk, and probably the cheapest.

[bg3489]

I have been testing both my calcium and alkalnity each day for about a week now. My results and subsequent dosings are as follows: 1/29 (Ca 320 ppm , Dkh 10-11, Dosed 1 tsp turbo calcium), 1/30 (Ca 400 ppm, Dkh 10-11), 2/1 (Ca 340 ppm, Dkh 9-10), 2/2 (Ca 280 ppm, 8 dkh, Dosed 1 tsp turbo calcium and 1 tsp kent superbuffer), 2/3 (Ca 300 ppm, 8 dkh) 2/4 (Ca 380 ppm, Dkh 8-9, Dosed 1/2 tsp turbo calcium and 1/4 tsp superbuffer), 2/5 (Ca 320 ppm, Dkh 9-10, Dosed 1/2 tsp turbo calcium) 2/6 (Ca 320 ppm, Dkh slightly over 10)... These results don't make much sense to me at least! Any suggestions on what my problem could be?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by bg3489

I have been testing both my calcium and alkalnity each day for about a week now. My results and subsequent dosings are as follows: 1/29 (Ca 320 ppm , Dkh 10-11, Dosed 1 tsp turbo calcium), 1/30 (Ca 400 ppm, Dkh 10-11), 2/1 (Ca 340 ppm, Dkh 9-10), 2/2 (Ca 280 ppm, 8 dkh, Dosed 1 tsp turbo calcium and 1 tsp kent superbuffer), 2/3 (Ca 300 ppm, 8 dkh) 2/4 (Ca 380 ppm, Dkh 8-9, Dosed 1/2 tsp turbo calcium and 1/4 tsp superbuffer), 2/5 (Ca 320 ppm, Dkh 9-10, Dosed 1/2 tsp turbo calcium) 2/6 (Ca 320 ppm, Dkh slightly over 10)... These results don't make much sense to me at least! Any suggestions on what my problem could be?

They don't make much sense to me either. It is never a good idea to change anything quickly. Jumping from 320 ppm Ca to 400 ppm Ca in one day is way too fast in my opinion.

For starters, your original 7 dKH alkalinity reading was perfectly normal. Yes, we like to maintain alk a little higher than that but your original reading was absolutely normal compared to natural seawater.

Second, your new alkalinity of 10-12 dKH is not "too high." In my opinion, that's a nice range to go along with 450-475 ppm Ca.

Third, your original calcium reading of 320 ppm was on the low side but it wasn't going to cause any harm to anything in your tank. Yes, you should raise it if you expect to see growth but you aren't going to kill anything with 320 ppm Ca. You should strive to raise it gradually, not overnight.

If I were you, I would discontinue the turbo calcium and buffer products altogether and just stick with the two-part product since that is the approach you have selected for maintaining calcium and alkalinity in your tank. You should dose both components daily but adjust the balance between the two components depending on your readings. For instance, if your calcium is lower than you would like, add a little more of the calcium component -- say 4 parts calcium to 3 parts alk. There is no need to test every day because there is no need to rush things. If it makes you happy, test every third or fourth day. Later on you could test every week and eventually every month.

P.S. -- I may have misread your post. Are you using any sort of two-part product? (B-Ionic or C-Balance or something similar.) If not, then that is what I think you should switch to. Either that or Kalkwasser (limewater). I used B-Ionic's two-part product for the first five or six week after starting up my tank and then switched to limewater (Kalkwasser) once my calcium and alkalinity levels were where I wanted them to be.

[bg3489]

I just bought Kent Marine's Tech CB two part system. Currently now my Ca is at 360 ppm and my alkalinity is between 8 and 9 Dkh. Should I just dose the reccomended amount until I reach my target Ca and Alk (which is 450 ppm calcium and around 10 or 11 dkh alkalinity)? I thought that it would take too much of this supplement to raise my Ca that much and I was wondering if dosing Kent Turbo until I reach this level and then switiching to the two part was the better plan. Also when I have my desired levels achieved how much to I need to add per day to maintain this?