CA to high?! help

[Conski]

i counted like 31 drops which puts my CA at like 640

my alk is 10.. i dk what to do.

[Reefscape]

What is your Mag and pH, out of interest?

[Conski]

i have never tested it :/ dont even have the tester for it.

[Conski]

is that sort of CA dangerous?!

[Reefscape]

No, its not overly dangerous, but if it keeps elevating, you need too find out why...Do i assume that you dont have much coralline algae in the tank? A high calcium count usually means your alk is out of balance....but seems wierd as your alk is 10.

[Conski]

ill test it now, it was 10 yesterday.
yup its either 8 or 9 today (sort of hard to tell but im saying 9)
im pretty sure i have decent coraline growing.. mybe i test Ca wrong ill do that now

[Conski]

yup its definitly up there at over 520 inbetween 29 and 31 drops give or take and its usually 500.. im gonna go to my LFS and have them test it.

[Amphiprion]

No, its not overly dangerous, but if it keeps elevating, you need too find out why...Do i assume that you dont have much coralline algae in the tank? A high calcium count usually means your alk is out of balance....but seems wierd as your alk is 10.

Exactly. This is why I think one of your tests are off, as maintaining them this high is usually not possible. Get a second test result from another kit and see what it says. Beyond that, what are you using to supplement calcium and alkalinity? What salt mix are you using?

[Conski]

I dont supplement either except for iodine to help with molting.. everything in my tank has been stable for 5 months no ups or downs.. i have a feeling its my new RO unit and water. i use OCeanic Sea Salt mix..

[Amphiprion]

i use OCeanic Sea Salt mix..

As was my other suspicion :D. If you don't like and/or have issues with it hat high, switch salts. Oceanic always had abnormally high calcium levels.

[Conski]

FOUND THE PROBLEM!

alright so i have 0 nitrates haha.. i do a water change once a week regardless of nitrates.. turns out with the abnormally large amount of calcium in the tank is because of my salt mix and i am just adding so much into it that i have abnormally high calcium.. its at 680 or around 31 drops..

the guy at my lfs said i am being like a mother with a new born baby, and that i need to relax my water changes try once every 2 weeks or even once a month.. he said he cant believe my nitrates are even 0 and over a long period of time my calcium will go down...hopefully my tank doesnt calcify! im gonna get a clam lol hell help out with the calcium



i guess being over obsessive is a bad things sometimes

[Amphiprion]

Heh, calcium will fall much, much more slowly than alkalinity. You could be a while :).

[Conski]

just need to hold back on the water changes and pray that my sand doesnt turn to a brick lol

[Conski]

wow on a much greater note.. i bought a frogspawn when i first started and it had one head and it looked like crap for a month then it had 2 and looked good... then it looked like crap for 2 monthes now it has 4 :)! i get new polyps every day and my snails breed all the time so i must be doing something right.. hopefully my CA doesnt affect it

[Conski]

btw just for reasurrance.. i know it goes down very slowly but is it dangerous?! :/

[jenniferroman]

i had high calcium too at one point. my calcium was 580. and i wasn't dosing the tank either. i personally think this happened to my tank because i didn't really have anything in my tank to eat up the calcium so it just kept on accumilating. but as soon as i got a decent amount of corals my calcium went to 400

you will be fine it is not so much dangerous. i had high calcium at one piont and everything was fine in my tank. and i agree too with your lfs i think we do to frequent water changes. i also do 10% water change every week but it's because i have high nitrates but as soon as i get rid of my nitrates i will go to doing water changes once every two weeks

[Amphiprion]

i had high calcium too at one point. my calcium was 580. and i wasn't dosing the tank either. i personally think this happened to my tank because i didn't really have anything in my tank to eat up the calcium so it just kept on accumilating. but as soon as i got a decent amount of corals my calcium went to 400

you will be fine it is not so much dangerous. i had high calcium at one piont and everything was fine in my tank. and i agree too with your lfs i think we do to frequent water changes. i also do 10% water change every week but it's because i have high nitrates but as soon as i get rid of my nitrates i will go to doing water changes once every two weeks

Agreed. You'll be fine with the higher level as long as other parameters remain in check. If anything, the higher concentration increases the availability and the coral doesn't have to work as hard to transport it.

[Conski]

Well not doing water changes drives me nuts!

So today becuase my salinity has been at 1.032 i just did a 1 gal. freshwater RO change.. got it back down to 1.025 (on a hydrometer..boo).

im a little less crazy now, im not even gonna bother testing the cal. i kno its still at high levels