How important is it to maintain alkalinity and calcium in balance. I currently have alkalinity at 8.5 and calcium at 475. I have checked alkalinity with both Salifert and Hanna and both show exact same result. For calcium I only have one test kit which is a Salifert but only a few months old and got exact same result testing twice. I'm not sure how these are getting out of balance as I only use a calcium reactor which should provide balanced input. I can only suspect that the large amount of neomeris I am dealing with is somehow consuming more alk than calcium. Should I dose one of a two-part to get back into balance? It is odd that about 6 months I had the exact opposite problem, alk upto 12 but calcium around 340.
Alkalinity/Calcium Balance
- Thread starter hilde123
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If I remember correctly, Alk and Ca have an inverse relationship. In other words, a high Ca can suppress Alk and a high Alk can suppress Ca. Your numbers are not bad, IMO. Alk is at the lower end of target range and Ca is a tad high.
If you want to increase the Alk and lower the Ca, the first thing I would do is test a sample of freshly mixed saltwater to ensure you don't have a bad batch of salt. I had two separate batches (2 bucket with different batch numbers) that had a super high Ca and super low Alk.
If the freshly mixed salt tests in line with what you're expecting, it certainly couldn't hurt to use an Alk supplement to achieve your target reading. The increase in the Alk should lower your Ca.
If you want to increase the Alk and lower the Ca, the first thing I would do is test a sample of freshly mixed saltwater to ensure you don't have a bad batch of salt. I had two separate batches (2 bucket with different batch numbers) that had a super high Ca and super low Alk.
If the freshly mixed salt tests in line with what you're expecting, it certainly couldn't hurt to use an Alk supplement to achieve your target reading. The increase in the Alk should lower your Ca.
