Post vacation ionic balance

murjan · Nov 27, 2014

Hi guys,

thats my first question here!

so after a wonderful long trip in Asia, I came back to my reef which was looking good on first sight except for the ongoing brown algae issue which does not seem to be a big problem anyway, I decided to do some testing today and here are the results that I had:

Cal 320 ppm red sea
Alk 9 dkh red sea
ph 8.0 salifert

Mag tested ~30 days ago and always kept around 1350 but i didnt get around testing it today before heading to the office but i think it should be ok, and i did not bother testing nutrients as there is enough algae in the display to tamper with the results.

Display is 90g with 20g sump medium packed with LPS and some softies, I have 2 branching hammers that are a bit huge 40+ heads (maybe more) that i had for over 4 years in an older tank, one is ~8" across and te other is about 5" with some other smaller euphylias and a few LPSs here and there(current tank is around 1 year old now and just recently i find it starts to stabilize a bit coming from a rough departure earlier)

I use Randy's recipe with either Kent Turbo calcium or fauna marin calcium powder and Arm & Hammer baked baking soda on well calibrated Jebao Dosing pumps, 15ml each per day which i thought was good before my trip, but maybe im wrong seeing the results today.

before vacation Calcium tested at 430 and Alk was at 9.5

I dosed 600ml of part A today, which will be followed by another 600ml tomorrow to get Calcium back to normal.

no signs of precipitation to be noticed too except a very thin layer on the heater that can be mistaken for debri which i know cannot be blamed for anything, right?

Now the questions:

1- is it normal to drop calcium from 430 to 320 ppm and only drop ALK from 9.5 to 9 dkh in about 30 days having dosed equal parts of each solution for that period?

2- in case this is all normal and inadequate dosing rate is to be blamed, does this mean I have to up my calcium daily dose accordingly and keep the same daily dose for part B? or increase both?

I know you normally have to dose equal parts of each solution but I was also reading that you may play with that to suite your tank needs but im not sure how much, or if my tank falls into this category having this result from today's testing.

I am relatively new to using 2 part as the main supplementation, and im going without water changes for a while too and have no plans to water change anytime this year.

I hope to get help on this one guys, thanks a lot.

Moe

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 27, 2014

1. No, there's not really any way that calcium can drop a lot of alkalinity does not (aside from a water change). Look for possible calcium testing errors.

2. Before upping the dose, I'd carefully test again over a day or two.

Playing with the two parts of the dose usually is needed because a water change messes with the ratio, or the two part itself is not exactly balanced. Otherwise, such playing should not be needed. All tanks use about the same ratio, even if the total demand can be much higher or lower.

murjan · Nov 27, 2014

Beside being humbled receiving a response from the greatest chemist I know

, I would like to thank you for your answer and time Randy, your recipes and literature always helped me thru the hobby where I live, where you get double prices and double BS. or more.

Back on the subject. I also doubted the test result when i first saw it although the kits are fresh and I had a reasonable trust level using red sea calcium and alkalinity tests for about 3 months, but everything was done twice with extra caution and i still received the same numbers in today's testing. I will be holding back from adding more calcium or changing anything until I verify my tests.

one thing is bothering me though and will help me sleep better if I can get a confirmation on until i verify my numbers, which is about the calcium powder I am using. when mixing my last batch of calcium using fauna marin calcium which is part of the balling light method they have, I followed your recipe for the calcium chloride dehydrate, but in their recipe they use 2KG of this calcium to make 4 liters of calcium solution!. I found it dissolved much faster, and completely generating little less heat than usual when using Kent turbo calcium which is calcium chloride anhydrous, this is no science, its just me looking too close to things maybe, but it felt like I am not making it right.

Reading further on that i found someone else asking about this somewhere, and he received a confirmation that he should mix this calcium product like any other calcium chloride dehydrate used in the hobby.

do you know of an easy way I can do to test for the concentrations of the 2 parts?

Sorry if I am asking common questions but I could use some more reassurance over here!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 27, 2014

Thanks for the kind words,

You can dilute the calcium part and run a test on it with a kit, if that would help, but the kit may be the issue if it reads wrong.

What salt mix are you using? Maybe try the kit on that.

FWIW, a weak calcium part will make the calcium decline over time. You should use less Turbo Calcium than dihydrate, at leas ton a weight basis. Not sure of its volume dosing since I'm not sure how "fluffy" it is.

Also, it could be the earlier calcium tests that were in error, not the current ones.

murjan · Nov 30, 2014

Thank you so much for your help, I have been digging into it more because something did not feel right from the beginning, so I took the investigation one more step into it and tested both parts of the solution on a 1 liter of freshly mixed salt water made from Kent reef salt, which is the salt that I have been using on this system, I get around Cal 420-440 and Alk 8-9 on this salt, it is a range because this is how much i found it to differ between different mixes,

(again not sure if thats normal or not for salts or is it my test, I have never had major problems with my ionic balance in this tank since the start and there seems to be no more reliable way around me to verify my test kit except trusting the results and the "story" that makes more sense, along with visual inspection and the test kit I have)

all tests made perfect sense and the results i had indicated that both test kit and 2 part solutions work as expected and are normally balanced solutions, all tests were also made twice to verify in separate sessions.

this is when i discover that my doser was set to dose 20ml of Alk and 15ml of Cal per day, I have no memory when I changed this for some reason but it must have been part of the pre-vacation preparation tremors and i must have decided to up the dose by 5ml somewhere around the few days before my vacation, set one pump and forgot to set the other pump. sorry :angel:

I am sure that this along with consumption have shot down the calcium to 320 in one month but kept the Alk high at 9dkhish, makes sense?

And happy thanks giving everyone