CA+ 480 and Kh 7.0

[Ballyhoo]

not sure how I could have such a differential. I thought high calcium would mean KH. I stopped dosing AFR because my calcium is so high, but I wanna bring up my KH. i use salifert test kit. Mostly now my tank Euyphilia. Not seeing issues with coral per se, but I certainly would my parameters to be more in line with the natural seawater.
Should I just leave things as is and continue and accept these values. or do something to raise my KH?
I use blue bucket, with about 10% water change every 10 days.
I had in the past do about .250ML of AFR just for a few days to increase my KH but since the calcium is high, I have stopped. Occasionally, I use reefroids two or three times a week and less frequently I use purple up. Trying to raise KH and just enhance the Coraline. i'm wondering if I should do a water change with a higher KH salt like the other Red Sea brand which has a higher Kh. I know they say don't suddenly use a different type of salt but if you're only doing a 5% water change with a different salt mix, wouldn't that be OK?

thanks!!

 

[Gk5321]

Yeah, sounds like your tank is doing fine overall, especially if the Euphyllia look happy. That said, your KH might be just a bit on the low side. You could consider nudging it up a bit—maybe closer to 8 dKH—just to be more in line with natural seawater and give a bit more buffer.


If you’re not seeing any issues, it’s not urgent, but a gentle adjustment wouldn’t hurt. Small water changes with a slightly higher-alk salt could help without shocking anything. Just keep things steady and gradual.

 

[rtparty]

Natural seawater is 6.5-7dkh

Your numbers are fine. All for Reef adds slightly more calcium than alkalinity over the long run and water changes will keep the calcium from running off too high. I’ve seen calcium as high as 600ppm and no ill effects

If you want to bump alkalinity slightly, dose a little sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to get your desired level

 

[exnisstech]

Curious how long you were using AFR? Ive read about it raising calcium in tanks but I'm just not seeing it after using it for more than a year in my acro tank.
Salifert was used for all calcium measurements.

 

[Ballyhoo]

Curious how long you were using AFR? Ive read about it raising calcium in tanks but I'm just not seeing it after using it for more than a year in my acro tank.
Salifert was used for all calcium measurements.

i've just used it off and on but more recently with closer monitoring the ca and kh daily. I think you should start a separate thread for Randy to explore what's what in your situation. Why would it not raise your value, unless your dose is the equivalent to the consumption?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I agree that the numbers are fine. Calcium doesn’t really matter much in the 400-550 ppm range.

 

[exnisstech]

i've just used it off and on but more recently with closer monitoring the ca and kh daily. I think you should start a separate thread for Randy to explore what's what in your situation. Why would it not raise your value, unless your dose is the equivalent to the consumption?

Calcium normally doesn't changes enough to warrant daily testing. I'm maybe a once a month tester of calcium. I'm at 27ml AFR daily and the tank is doing well. I'm not curious enough to ask why it's not doing something I would prefer it not do. I'm happy it's not raising calcium so will just roll with it. I don't think AFR is something to use off and on. It releases slowly it isn't good to use to adjust levels but rather maintain them. At least that's how I understand it's purpose from reading.

 

[BriDroid]

If you decide that you want to raise your alkalinity a bit with sodium carbonate, this website is great! I use it from time to time, and the measurements for sodium carbonate are dead on!

https://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

[rtparty]

Curious how long you were using AFR? Ive read about it raising calcium in tanks but I'm just not seeing it after using it for more than a year in my acro tank.
Salifert was used for all calcium measurements.

I surmise that being an acro dominant tank it uses quite a bit of calcium. When I initially ran AFR on my old 50g cube, I had very little coral and it was all LPS. That tank continually climbed into the 500s for calcium just to maintain an 8dkh alkalinity level. I tried it for months and months and could never stop that calcium climb.

I then gave up on AFR as a viable option. I was wrong and have since figured out that with weekly water changes the calcium would have eventually leveled off and stopped climbing.

Now I run my 25g on it and never even test calcium. The tank gets a 25% water change every 1-2 weeks depending on schedule.

 

[Ballyhoo]

Curious how long you were using AFR? Ive read about it raising calcium in tanks but I'm just not seeing it after using it for more than a year in my acro tank.
Salifert was used for all calcium measurements.

i've just used it off and on but more recently with closer monitoring the ca and kh daily. I think you should start a separate thread for Randy to explore what's what in your situation. Why would it not raise your value, unless your dose is the equivalent to the consumption

Calcium normally doesn't changes enough to warrant daily testing. I'm maybe a once a month tester of calcium. I'm at 27ml AFR daily and the tank is doing well. I'm not curious enough to ask why it's not doing something I would prefer it not do. I'm happy it's not raising calcium so will just roll with it. I don't think AFR is something to use off and on. It releases slowly it isn't good to use to adjust levels but rather maintain them. At least that's how I understand it's purpose from reading.

you mean like 1/4 of a ML of AFR a day, or 2.7 ML a day?

 

[exnisstech]

27.0 ml daily to keep up with my tanks consumption.
EDIT: increased to 30ml today

 

[Ballyhoo]

I still see my KH is very low. About 6.2 or 6.3. I dosed soda ash yesterday, about 7.5 mL powder. It raised the KH to like 12 for four hours and then it dropped down to 6. 4 in any case after I dosed the soda ash and measured the kh and saw it go up to 12 It freaked me out and I was about to do a major of water change. but instead, I just turned the pump on the highest level and took off the lid to aerate everything. I'm wondering if I should continue to dose soda ash or leave things be. I mean it just seems odd to me to have such a low KH I don't understand why it's so low, everything doing seemingly great though. my tank is reaching the one year mark and i can see the change in coral health .

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You say you dosed 7.5 mL of powder. Do you really mean you dosed powder directly?

 

[Ballyhoo]

well i mixed it in a water change, 10% percent WC using blue bucket.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

well i mixed it in a water change, 10% percent WC using blue bucket.

It’s not generally appropriate to mix alk supplements into salt water. The alk would get very high and potentially precipitate calcium carbonate.

While those particles are still suspended in the water, they will falsely show as boosted alk since the particles will dissolve in the alk test, but one the settle out, alk will read correctly. That is a possible explanation for what you observed.