High Calcium levels without dosing?

sk8ter20art · Feb 25, 2017

I have a client with a 220gal reef tank. Mostly soft corals, a dozen fish, skimmer, refugium with chaeato and calurpa, ato, sandbed 2-4in, mostly tampa live rock. Checking his water the other day. testing with a red sea foundation kit. many of his mushrooms and softies are looking great, a few stony frags he got recently are not all looking so great.

1st check parameters
Calcium 500+
Alk 8.4 dkh
mg 1500
Sg 1.025

After talking with him some more, he claimed he wasn't adding anything that would raise the calcium. the only thing he added was some purple up a few months ago (doesnt have much coraline at all), and was adding some mg. I reviewed the items he was adding to the tank currently and he was using two little fishies marine snow, some phyto, pods, and has been vinegar dosing to help with some cyano issues.

did a recheck a few days later got pretty much the exact same results. so no error in testing.

Did a 30gal water change, he uses Reef Crystals salt mix. I checked the batch prior to adding and calcium was high at 470.

So can anyone with better understanding of reef chemistry help me figure out why the numbers are so out of whack? thanks in advance.

Diesel · Feb 25, 2017

It's the purple up.
It has CAL and ALK in there as it raises your levels to make coralline algae grow.
The reason it's that high cause I'm think the ALK is of balance as well.
Stop dosing purple up and do weekly water changes it will come back to the levels your salt mix is.
While you do that you have to test every other day and write down where you test results are.
ALK
CAL
MAG
No3
Where its the Po4 at as we speak?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 25, 2017

They aren't that out of whack, and are unlikely to be any problem, assuming the calcium is in the 500's. 470 ppm calcium is fine and not to be concerned with.

Many people get false high readings for magnesium with that kit, not sure why. Same test over and over gives same false high readings.

How are you measuring specific gravity?

sk8ter20art · Feb 26, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
They aren't that out of whack, and are unlikely to be any problem, assuming the calcium is in the 500's. 470 ppm calcium is fine and not to be concerned with.

Many people get false high readings for magnesium with that kit, not sure why. Same test over and over gives same false high readings.

How are you measuring specific gravity?

I use a refractometer to check salinity.

he said he was dosing some Mg without actually testing prior( so he didnt know where it was prior). I had a feeling the purple up was the main culprit to calcium level bieng over 500. now he is only feeding the tank and doing vinegar dosing.

He is also color blind so some of the color changing tests are difficult for him to read.