Stupid chemistry...grrrr

[Stickgal]

Have a 75 g approx 6 months running. Have one frogspawn coral frag that is doing well. I want to add more corals now that tank is stable. Issue is calcium. It's too low for corals at 360. I dripped 2 gallons of kalkwasser....no change. Lfs recommended turbo calcium, so I mixed a gallon and added it in two half doses to my sump...nothing. I did test about 10 hours after dosing. One issue was that when I checked the turbo jar, the expiration date was this past Oct. I called the lfs and he said that shouldn't affect its use. But, when I did the mix, the water did not heat up as he had said it would. Ideas? I don't mind slowly building it up, but sheesh...
Other preamps: mag is a little high at 1360, alk is 10 and ph is 8.2.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Portsie]

What's you salinity? And what salt are you using? Also, what kit are you using to test you Cal reading? Is it possible to get the results verified by another test kit?

 

[phillrodrigo]

A calcium of 360 is fine for lps. I would bring it up but its not gonna kill the coral you add. My thing were I would say to hold off is that you have added alot of kalk and other stuff to try and bring it up. If I remember right kalk wont bring your calcium or alk up it just helps maintain current levels. You shouldn't add to much kalk since it will make the ph go pretty high. I would buy a 2 part to get the calcium up and then maintain with either the kalk or the 2.part.

 

[Stickgal]

I am using API to measure calc. Salinity is just under 1.024. Yeah my lfs told me, after he sold me the kalkwasser, and I told him it didn't work, that kalkwasser was used to maintain and not raise. Here's what I get from what you're saying. I need to do wc next week anyway, so probably best to leave alone till then, then maybe do turbo calc with the wc and maybe every two weeks or so dose it again till I get the calc up? Would like to try to get it to 400 and then maintain. But in the meantime it's ok to add corals once I do the wc? My ph is stable so far at 8.2

 

[wrott]

Actually changing any one of the three, Ca, Mg and alk, too fast will affect the other two and definitely stress corals.
As suggested above, 360ppm is fine for now, just bring it up slowly w/ WCs and small additions of CaCl2 along w/ the usual additions of Na2HCO3 and some Mg.
If you have no change in Ca from your test kit after adding a few teaspoons of CaCl2 in a 75g, the kit is bad.

 

[Stickgal]

Ok. Thank you guys and I will def take your suggestions. I'm also going to return the turbo calc and get a new jar tomorrow.

 

[Stickgal]

Oh, you said the test kit? I'll take some water in tomorrow and get my lfs to test it

 

[wrott]

Oh and inorganic salts cannot go "bad" by passing expiration date. They can be hydrated further w/ water vapor and this causes clumping. Things that really can go bad are certain antibiotics like tetracyclines and local anesthesias like lidocaine (and other meds--formalin, etc..)

 

[Stickgal]

Oh gotcha. Thanks for the help.