Calcium too high?

[DownwardDawg]

This is a new tank with a very small bio-load and a handful of corals that I moved over from my 30 gal tank. Leathers, poly's, and 2 Hammer corals.
I'm using Seachem Reef Salt and I'm dosing Kalk in my ATO. (1/2 tsp/gal of RO/DI water) I tested today and my calcium is 520. I used 2 different test kits, API and Salifert. My peramiters today:

Calcium 520
Alk - 8.4KH
PH - 8.4
Mg - 1335
Salinity - 1.025
PO4 - 0.06 (Hanna)
Nitrates - 0

Should I stop the kalk in the top-off water until I have more corals in the tank as the tank ages? I'm not even growing corraline algae yet.

 

[Thunder3]

You sound like me last month. I was dosing the same kalk with Part A and B morning and night and everything was great gut I had some large SPS Montis then when a few of them died I continued dosing the same so my calcium went from 480 to 600. I use reef crystals now. I was using Brightwell Marine salt. They are both similar I think. Add less kalk and or don't add any additional calcium. I don't know how much calcium is in your salt your using.


Keep doing the kalk. It keeps your PO4 down also as well as maintain PH and calcium. My calcium is now at 500 with API which is not the great in accuracy. Your not that bad. When I get that deep purple color in the API test I do one more drop and thats it. The directions say 1 or 2 more drops. Really its hard to tell if its dark purple or the blue.

 

[Mekanic]

Seachem reef salt has a baseline calcium of 540. .. sooo.. yeah... there's yer problem lol..

If using kalk to maintain your levels, you should go with a salt mix that closer to what you want to keep your reef at.

I use regular Red Sea, tons of people use plain ol Instant Ocean, I want to use DD H2Ocean, but too pricy and no one sells it locally, may try Tropic Marin Pro Reef next, it has about the exact levels I like my tank to be at, then kalk and 2 part+mg to keep it there

 

[swcc]

change salt...no need for crazy levels of cal or alk... instant ocean...red sea regular is all you need for salt. then dose appropriately to maintain levels.

 

[DownwardDawg]

So, is the Reef Salt a problem? Is that too high considering coraline algae should start growing and I'll be purchasing stony corals?
I used Red Sea Coral Pro before now and I chased my alkalinity all over the place. Every bucket was different.

 

[DownwardDawg]

change salt...no need for crazy levels of cal or alk... instant ocean...red sea regular is all you need for salt. then dose appropriately to maintain levels.

Thanks swcc. My line of thinking for choosing the Seachem Reef Salt was that I could start with highere levels and not have to dose too often. I travel a lot and rely on family members to keep up the tank. I'm trying to make it as easy as possible.

 

[swcc]

Thanks swcc. My line of thinking for choosing the Seachem Reef Salt was that I could start with highere levels and not have to dose too often. I travel a lot and rely on family members to keep up the tank. I'm trying to make it as easy as possible.

I think it will be fine with the kalk and a more reasonable cal/alk salt mix so as to not let levels get out of control.

 

[bertoni]

520 ppm is fine. You might see a bit more abiotic precipitation (buildup inside pumps, etc), but I doubt it'll make much difference.

 

[DownwardDawg]

520 ppm is fine. You might see a bit more abiotic precipitation (buildup inside pumps, etc), but I doubt it'll make much difference.

Thanks. I want to keep using the Seachem salt for a while to see how things turn out once the coraline starts growing and I add more stony corals.

 

[bertoni]

You're welcome!