All For Reef (increased calcium level)

[Antoniocastro]

Hello

I started dosing everything for Reef about 15 days ago. I checked the calcium level at 425 and the alkalinity at around 8.4 dkh, and I started dosing this method after a few days. I checked the calcium again, and it stayed at around 425-420. I ran out of the calcium test I normally use, from Salifert or Red Sea, and I went without the test for about two weeks. I kept checking the alkalinity, and it stayed at 8.4. (I assumed that the calcium remained at that level because the alkalinity didn't change, it remained very stable at 8.4 8.5, so for no reason did it occur to me that the calcium was increasing.). And I continued dosing everything for reef in my tank. Today I bought a Hanna calcium checker and checked the calcium, and to my surprise, it was at 540 ppm! To my surprise, my corals are doing great. They're growing much better than ever, and I think I've found very good stability. But the calcium is at that level. What should I do? Thanks for your comments.

 

[rishma]

Likely test error. It’s a common enough issue that I don’t test calcium anymore except one to two times per year with ICP.

I’ve had calcium up to 600 with no impact to corals.

AFR doses about 2ppm extra calcium for very 2.8 dKH dosed. Unless you were using a large amount of AFR, the difference between the two tests is likely test error and not a real calcium rise.