new topic of Cal And KH test to high

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by imdaring

so what is a good test kit?

I use Seachem for calcium and magnesium. Salifert for alklinity.

[JAG107]

For salt, reef crystals gave me fairly consistent levels of calc & alk, I liked it, but I recently switched to oceanic for the elevated mag & calc so I don't have to dose as often. RC should be just fine unless you were unlucky in getting a bad batch.

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by JAG107

For salt, reef crystals gave me fairly consistent levels of calc & alk, I liked it, but I recently switched to oceanic for the elevated mag & calc so I don't have to dose as often. RC should be just fine unless you were unlucky in getting a bad batch.

That's why I test my water change water. I like to get my readings where I want them before I add it to my tank.

[imdaring]

well Iv'e had high cal and KH for al long time now so I mixed up a small amount of the RO and reef crystals and did test the salt water B/4 I placed it in the tank and cal was 520 KH was 16 drops? I'm going to the LFS today and I think I will have them do a test 4 me also to see if they get any thing Dif, if not I'm going to call fosters and see about a refund I have almost 3/4 of 10 gal bucket of salt that I won't be able to use..

[imdaring]

how many of you think that 520 is high for the CAL?

[ccCapt]

Originally Posted by imdaring

I mixed up some of my salt and tested again CAl came back 520, KH came back 16 drops!

That does not seem right. I've heard of RC having bad batches with low calcium, but I haven't heard of anyone reporting ca that high. What does 16 drops equal?

Originally Posted by Piggy

That's strange because I switched to Reef Crystal and my readings were
Alkalinity 3.5 meq/l
Calcium 400

These levels sound more typical of RC.

FWIW...KH is karbonate hardness (German) and dKH is degrees of karbonate hardness. Meq/l is milliequivalents per litre. PPM is part per million. They are all just different ways to measure alkalinity.

As far as the best brand of salt, you can ask 50 people and you can get 50 different answers. That being said, I use Red Sea Coral Pro.

520 ppm calcium is high. It won't hurt anything, but it won't help anything either.

[imdaring]

16 drops = 286.4

[imdaring]

thats ppm

[yote]

16 drops=16DKH

I like Oceanic salt myself.

[dustin_P74]

520 is salt is very high, natural sea water calcium equals 400, and the highest i think that would be recommended for home aquariums would be 450