I cannot freaking keep my calc/alk up for the life of me!!

S

Solarfall

Totally Gnar
I dose B-Ionic every day.....about 60 MLs and I can't get my calc above 400 or alk above 9. This is just rediculous. The bottle reccomends about 20 MLs for my size tank, I'm running triple that and it won't go up. I'm switching over to reef crystals salt when my regular instant ocean runs out, but I don't know if the difference will be vast.
I don't have many hard corals either. I've got one tiny acropora, a tiny favia frag, a plate coral, a small hammer frag, and a maxima clam using calcium in there. I should not have to dose this much!

Anyone have a suggestion? This is really, really frustrating.
 
Whats you magnesium level?
If magnesium is low,then you'll never be able to keep the calcium and alkalinity up.
 
yep what yote said what is your mag levels it is a common one that gets left unchecked it should be around 1300 to 1500
 
I need to get a mag test yet. I asked the LFS about that and they said just using the B-Ionic should be enough.
I put a mag test kit on my secret santa wishlist on here so I'm not sure whether I should go grab one or not.
 
by the way dont triple whats recomened. if its not working at what the instructions say. obviously your not at the root of the problem. lol so dont triple it.
 
If I don't use a huge dose, my alk/calc drop though. And it's actually like a reccomended "starting" dose. Probably should've clarified that. Says to use more as needed until you get the desired results.
 
Why not switch to Oceanic salt and just dose for alkalinity. Oceanic has higher levels for calcium. around 480-500. Just a suggestion. IO is always low on calcium.
 
I've got a box of reef crystals already but I'm still waiting til my IO runs out, I'll see how that goes. In the mean time I still need a mag test.
 
+1 Bj
Try mixing the reef crystals and regular instant ocean 50/50.Might give it the boost it needs and keep you from having to dose.
 
+1 yote, +1 Knucklehead. Seachem ftw. One thing that helped me with my calcium and alkalinity troubles was switching to seachem's powdered buffer. They mix it with strontium, magnesium, and potassium carbonate to help maintain alkalinity levels. I saw the growouts at my work get switched to it from brightwell and kent products and alkalinity levels stabilized greatly. In my own tank I went from 3 dKH per day to 2 dKH per day consumption and saw increased growth.
 
I got a mag test today and it's coming up 1350. So I'm going to go ahead and blame this mass dosing on the fact that my coralline has been spreading like wildfire for the past 2 months or so.

Ugh, I'm gonna go broke with all this B-Ionic :(
 
get the BRS two part it is 40 bucks for the starter kit and it makes about 4 gallons of cal and 4gal of alk and about 1.5gal of mag
 
i was having the same problem. i switched salt from IO to red sea coral pro. i did 2 15 gal water changes and everything is coming up. i'm also going to use dowflake and baking soda for cal and alk. lets see what happens.
 

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