Calcium WAY TOO HIGH!!!!!!

[clowninout456]

Is it possible for the calcium in a reef tank to reach about 800??? i have tested it with 2 different tests and they are about the same.
Temp: 77*
Salinity: 1.025
PH: 8.3
Alk: 6
Mag: 1450
Calcium: 800!!!!

i know my Alk is low but when i add ESV Alk to bring it up it makes my tank look like its snowing, i was told it is coming out of solution, possibly because the Calcium is too high.
i was dripping Kalk but stopped once i realized the calcium was that high. everything is doing great (so far) but i would like to bring the calcium down.

I have a 75G Tank with a 20L frag tank and a 33L for a sump. I use H2Ocean salt for my water changes and change about 10G a week.
i have alot of SPS and LPS and 2 Large Clams....thinking they would use up the calcium and it would drop slowly on its own but its been about a week now with no change except for the alk dropping. i have not added anything since last weekend.
i kno i need to raise the alk but not sure how. maybe a big water change???
any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA

 

[Bobbofin]

It should look like it's snowing in your tank at those levels and sheeting on the glass. I don't think the water can hold it with out percipitating out at those levels. I'd retest to make sure.

 

[clowninout456]

no sheeting on the glass at all....its crystal clear, but im going to buy another test tomoro and retest with a differnt brand

 

[JohnK]

Stop doing anything and get a second opinion on the parameters. (take a water sample to a good LFS)

If your Ca is really super high, you could start doing some steady water changes to bring the numbers back in line, but first make sure you are clear on what's going on.

 

[clowninout456]

i will bring a sample right after work tomorow.....if it is in fact that high i will start with water changes. thanks

 

[JayM]

FWIW, I once had a steady Ca level of 750, verifid with 2 tests. I did not have a snow incident right then, and was planning on letting my Ca level drop normally. Subsequently, my Alk dropped, and THEN I had a snowstorm of Ca.

My suggestion...if you KNOW your Ca is that high, so a water change with lower Ca Water, stop dosing, and WATCH YOUR ALK and Mg level (keeping them both on the high side) until you get it under control

 

[JohnK]

Article on correcting Ca/alk imbalances. Click the link and give it a few sec, it should work even though it seems to go nowhere at first.

http://web.archive.org/web/20021127040526/http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

 

[RadReefer]

There are stretches that I add Alk every day and calcium mabye once weekly.

 

[stingythingy45]

Oddly enough I just had the same thing happen.
My calcium now is 580 ppm and my alk is 7 dkh.
This is after a 50% water change today.I think my kalk top off hose started sucking sludge from the bottom of the barrel.
I cleaned that all out as well this weekend.It was like 5 lbs. of precipitate in the bottom of the barrel.It was either that or it pluged up then topped off all at once.I'm just going to correct alk and top off with ro/di till everything settle back down.My Mg. is 1350 ppm so that's in range.

 

[pallobi]

There are stretches that I add Alk every day and calcium mabye once weekly.

though i dont add my calcium only once a week, i do test both calcium and alk every 3 or 4 days, and it is not uncommon for me to skip calcium all together for a day or two... it causes no harm whatsoever...

GL to the OP... as long as stuff isnt dying off like mad, i think you will be ok with a little time and some changes... if the level got that way becuz you were blindly dosing, then you really need to stop doing that, and figure out how much your tank is using up, and start adding small amounts of whatever is being used, SLOWLY...

again, GL to the OP, let us know what you find out from a second test, then go from there

 

[inverted]

Something dosn't quite make sense with what you've said so far.

What exactly do you add?

H2Ocean salt mixes up to 450 ppm ca, 10 dkh and 1380 mg @ 1.026. You're above all of those, except alk @ 1.025. Is the only thing you've added kalk?

Saturated limewater is 800ppm ca and 112dkh. Also, kalk will raise the pH and cause precipitation, so, it is not possible for kalk to raise you ca that high. So, it is testing error, unless you've left something out.

I do believe your ca is high though. If you're adding alk and it looks like it's snowing, you are probably correct, it is coming out of solution because the ca is too high (or could be mg too low, or alk too high, from your parameters ca seems the most likely).

Again though, based on what you've said, your ca is not 800, unless you've added a lot of ca supplement or are using tap water with high calcium, or your salinity measurement is way low and your s.g. is much higher than 1.025. It would have to be about 1.046 though to get to 800ppm.

Some test kits aren't accurate at the high end, so, my guess is your more like 500ish and your kit just can't handle that high a number and gives a goofy reading

 

[inverted]

By the way, this article explains the relationship between ca, alk and mg:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

 

[clowninout456]

Something dosn't quite make sense with what you've said so far.

What exactly do you add?

H2Ocean salt mixes up to 450 ppm ca, 10 dkh and 1380 mg @ 1.026. You're above all of those, except alk @ 1.025. Is the only thing you've added kalk?

Saturated limewater is 800ppm ca and 112dkh. Also, kalk will raise the pH and cause precipitation, so, it is not possible for kalk to raise you ca that high. So, it is testing error, unless you've left something out.

I do believe your ca is high though. If you're adding alk and it looks like it's snowing, you are probably correct, it is coming out of solution because the ca is too high (or could be mg too low, or alk too high, from your parameters ca seems the most likely).

Again though, based on what you've said, your ca is not 800, unless you've added a lot of ca supplement or are using tap water with high calcium, or your salinity measurement is way low and your s.g. is much higher than 1.025. It would have to be about 1.046 though to get to 800ppm.

Some test kits aren't accurate at the high end, so, my guess is your more like 500ish and your kit just can't handle that high a number and gives a goofy reading

Yes, the only thing i have been adding for the past few months, (without any problems until now) was Kalk. i was adding it as top-off very slowly throughout the day and i know it wasnt keeping up with evaporation because RO was kickin on when it called for it.

As for the H2Ocean salt, my water change water is as follows....@ 78.7*, salinity @1.025, PH @8.3, Alk @ 9 dkh with Salifert kit, Ca @ 400 with 2 different Elos Kits, Mag @ 1350 with Salifert Kit
Alk @ 7 dkh with Elos Kit Mag @ 1150 with Elos Kit

the only other things i add is a few drops of Elos Amino Acid, ESV Potassium Iodide and Brightwell Aquatics Koralcolor every couple of weeks.
i have not added any 2 part Ca since i started with the Kalk but have added 2 part Alk when needed. I have not added any MAG in about a year, since before i switched to H2Ocean.

After a 5 gallon water change yesterday the Ca went down to about 750 (according to 2 different Elos test kits) and everything else stayed the same
Everything looks better than ever but assume if i do not fix this then something bad is bound to happen. i am going to do steady waterchanges throughout the week and see how it goes.

 

[JohnK]

How are you holding the dropper bottles when you run that Ca test? It makes a difference...

 

[Greg Hiller]

>FWIW, I once had a steady Ca level of 750, verifid with 2 tests. I did not have a snow incident right then, and was planning on letting my Ca level drop normally. Subsequently, my Alk dropped, and THEN I had a snowstorm of Ca.<

I'd be inclined to believe that the drop in alk was a result of the precipitation, and not the cause.

It is possible to get very high calcium levels in a tank if you dose with concentrated calcium chloride solutions. If the calcium is really high, keeping the alk artificially low is not really a very good solution. The corals need both alk and calcium to make their skeleton. You do need to be careful about not letting the alk, or more importantly the pH get very high when you have super high levels of calcium. OTOH, a calcium precipitation event in your tank is not necessarily a catastrophy. I've had a number of them in different tanks over the years, and usually things get better pretty quickly. It's more lilkely you will have a heart attack when looking into the tank!! Once the precipitation get blown off things, usually the corals and fish are okay. You do need to be careful to remeasure calcium and alk. levels after the precipitation though as they may have changed dramatically as a result.

 

[inverted]

A 5g water change bringing it to around 750 sounds about right. minus some potential precipitation, it's really just a weighted average. If we assume that there are about 70g of water in your system @800ppm and you add 5 @400 then you have [((70 -5) * 800) + (5 * 400)] / 70 = 771ppm. Test kits aren't that accurate, especially at these ranges, so, 771 vs 750 is within a reasonable range of error for sure.

If you want to go from 750 to say 500, then you need to therefore do a 50g water change. This may be a bit too much at once, but you could do say 10 g per day for 5 days, or around 17 for 3 days etc... that should be fine.

It still leaves the question of how it got that high. It's not possible with saturated limewater. If your tank is at say 400 and limewater is 800, then there is no way to get to 800 unless you replace all of your water with limewater. Potentially, over time, you could add that much topoff water, but not without messing up your salinity and other parameters. So, you would have had to adjust for this somehow. Even to go from 400 to 800 with something very concentrated, such as dow flake, would take about 14 oz. That's a lot. So, anyways, something had to have happened, kids dumped a bottle of 2-part, part A in or something, I couldn't even guess. However, as long as it's an isolated event, I'd say just do the series of water changes. If it's testing error, or some other type of ongoing mistake, then it's better to think about what could be happening some more, to prevent reoccurrence, or worse, if it's testing error, inadvertently lowering ca to dangerously low levels..

Good luck!

 

[clowninout456]

How are you holding the dropper bottles when you run that Ca test? It makes a difference...

not quite straight up and down...a little less. how should i be holding them??
stupid question.....why does it make a difference? difference in amount per drop??

 

[clowninout456]

A 5g water change bringing it to around 750 sounds about right. minus some potential precipitation, it's really just a weighted average. If we assume that there are about 70g of water in your system @800ppm and you add 5 @400 then you have [((70 -5) * 800) + (5 * 400)] / 70 = 771ppm. Test kits aren't that accurate, especially at these ranges, so, 771 vs 750 is within a reasonable range of error for sure.

If you want to go from 750 to say 500, then you need to therefore do a 50g water change. This may be a bit too much at once, but you could do say 10 g per day for 5 days, or around 17 for 3 days etc... that should be fine.

It still leaves the question of how it got that high. It's not possible with saturated limewater. If your tank is at say 400 and limewater is 800, then there is no way to get to 800 unless you replace all of your water with limewater. Potentially, over time, you could add that much topoff water, but not without messing up your salinity and other parameters. So, you would have had to adjust for this somehow. Even to go from 400 to 800 with something very concentrated, such as dow flake, would take about 14 oz. That's a lot. So, anyways, something had to have happened, kids dumped a bottle of 2-part, part A in or something, I couldn't even guess. However, as long as it's an isolated event, I'd say just do the series of water changes. If it's testing error, or some other type of ongoing mistake, then it's better to think about what could be happening some more, to prevent reoccurrence, or worse, if it's testing error, inadvertently lowering ca to dangerously low levels..

Good luck!

my plans was to do 10g water changes daily until it reaches a safe level, as for how it got that high is beyond me, there are no kids here to dump anything in the tank. and i am very cautious as to what and how much of what goes in there.

 

[inverted]

Sounds good, that should prevent overdoing it, if the test kits are just going berserk at high levels.

 

[JohnK]

not quite straight up and down...a little less. how should i be holding them??
stupid question.....why does it make a difference? difference in amount per drop??

Apparently the elos bottles are sensitive to the angle, they should be held straight up and down, not perpendicular or at an angle. Probably not the problem, but worth mentioning. I once had an issue with getting false high readings from an elos kit and it ended up being because I was holding the bottles at a 45 deg angle.

I'd suggest running the test that way once and see if you get a lower number, rule it out so to speak...

You could also run the same test on your make up saltwater. If that tests high, then you know there is some error somewhere with the tests.