Cal dropped like a rock

[sen5241b]

Nitrates 0
Phosphate 0
Alk 6 dkh
Ph 8.2
Mag 1400+
Calcium 200 !!

If you been following my other chem thread, my alk is chronically low and after a couple weeks like that the Ph drops also. I have been dosing with Seachem Marine Buffer to keep Ph at 8.3 but the alk never rises. This is the first time I've seen calcium drop so low ever in my year and a half old tank. I'm adding API eco-calcium. I have tons of coralline but few corals.

Seachem told me to add Marine Buffer to keep Ph at 8.3 and add Marine Builder to keep Alk at normal. My god, do I need to add those two things plus calcium? Dosing with three different things seems crazy.

Is this a typical pattern with tanks like mine?

 

[AdeptMrSniffles]

Wow, that's nuts.

I'm interested to see whats goin on with cal. I'll be following.

 

[ccCapt]

I gave you advise in your other threads. Stop dosing everything. I told you that before and I'll say it again. You are throwing your tank chemsitry all out of whack. I gave you multiple links to read. Take some time and read them.
So...once again. Stop dosing everything. Do a 10% water change every 2-3 days. Don't dose anything. Do water changed every 2-3 days for 2 weeks. Then..and only then test your water.
Don't dose anything. Test your water. Wait 2 days. Don't dose anything. Test your water. Don't dose anything. Test your water. Now, in the 6 days since your 1st test, how much did your parameters drop...without dosing anything.

Did I mention...stop all your dosing?

 

[Bifferwine]

I have tons of coralline but few corals.

With few corals, you probably shouldn't even be worrying about testing for calcium. It will only complicate things!! ;)

 

[dcantucson]

+1 ccCapt
I've gone the route of trying to dose for everything, like the chemical companies suggest and have on more than one occasion had complete tank fails. I believe that less is more now.

 

[sen5241b]

I did do a series of small water changes and some big 40% changes too and it seemed to have little effect on the low alk problem. At one point I did two 40% changes in the same week and the alk never rose more than 1 dkh. Also, the low alk problem started well before I ever dosed with anything.

But I'll go back and read your links again. Maybe I missed something. BTW, I have only dosed with Marine Buffer once every 10 days or so and I never used Marine Builder. Last night was the first time I ever added calcium.

 

[sen5241b]

The borate (in Marine Buffer) if anything would give too high an alk reading and that has not happened. Also, changing from Oceanic to Coralife did nothing to raise alk.

 

[ccCapt]

Sen, dude, your over complicating everything. It's complicated enough on it's own. You don't work for the gov't (Senator? lol) by any chance do you? They seem to like to over complicate everything.

Boron in a Reef Tank
"One additional complication that comes from substantially elevated borate is the confounding of the interpretation of alkalinity tests. When reef aquarists are concerned about alkalinity, they are almost invariably concerned with the alkalinity that comes from bicarbonate and carbonate, and it is largely used as a surrogate measure of bicarbonate, which is necessary for calcification. Nearly all hobby test kits measure alkalinity with a single titration that provides total alkalinity, which is the sum of bicarbonate, carbonate, and borate alkalinity. When the levels of boron are similar to natural levels, then the contribution of borate to that test is minimal, and is generally safely ignored in guidelines for alkalinity (for example, keeping a reef tank at 2.5-4 meq/L total alkalinity). However, if the boron level is substantially above natural levels, as it is in the Seachem salt mix with 12x normal levels, borate can actually begin to dominate such tests, and makes knowing the real bicarbonate and carbonate alkalinity much more difficult. Seachem sells a special borate alkalinity test kit to try to disentangle these effects, but that is only really necessary with tank water that contains greatly elevated boron levels."

Check this General Guide to Salt Mixes and pick a salt that looks like it has the parameters you want. Do a bunch of water changes with no dosing between. Your tank will eventually match the parameters of the salt you use. It has to. Just don't dose anything.

 

[sen5241b]

This is starting to make sense becuase I did not test for alkalinity for the first year of my tank and the first time I did it was low. I always used Oceanic until recently. Maybe it was always low becuase of the salt I use. I hope your are right --that using a salt with high alk will fix the problem.

I think all the coralline is sucking calcium and carbonates out of the water. Everything in my tank except the glass has coralline on it. The coralline actually grew over some of my bryopsis and completely coated it. A year ago I did not have anywhere near this much coralline. I can't believe the coralline has no impact at all on my water chemistry . I think at least it is a factor in my low alk and Ph problems.

(I hear people argue over the cause of something all the time. In science most causes are multi-factored.)

 

[winyfrog]

I don't dose anything in my tanks either. Its usually just not nessassary (spell check :)
for most tanks.

I top of with kalkwasser in the 850 and the 120, but thats it, my other tanks get iodine once a month, my water changes take care of everything else.

 

[yote]

Coralline can and will suck up calcium and carbonate.Just like a tank full of SPS will.

 

[daugherty]

the older a tank gets the more elements it uses up but i would do just as ccapt has said then go from there i do think you have a big chemical inbalance and that will take a while to fix

 

[sen5241b]

My calcium test must have gone bad. I got a test at the LFS today and they said Ph 7.9, Alk 2.8 meq or 7.84 Dkh and calcium 600. I dosed calcium on Friday so that is why the calcium was high but I strongly believe the test was wrong. After the first dose the test said cal had dropped. Test bad! I described my long term problem (chronic low alk followed by lowering Ph) to the guy at the LFS and he said my problem was that I need to stop dosing for Ph and start dosing for Alk.

 

[yote]

I bet he was quick to recommend one of his products for it too.
I think Capts pointed you in the right direction to get every thing balanced back out.

 

[sen5241b]

I don't disagree with Capt, lots of water changes are a part of the solution (and I've done that) I just think there's more too it. One thing I did not know that the LFS guy explained to me is that dosing for low Ph will not raise alk at all until Ph rises to 8.2. This explains why my dosing for low Ph left me with chronic low alk. When I dosed with Marine Buffer the Ph rose from 7.8 up to 8.3 and I noticed that there was always a small rise of only 1 dkh.