Calcium drop from 400 to 320

[aarondaape]

Hey everyone first time on here, here is the situation. My son threw play-doh in my tank on accident causing corals and other things to get irritated so I rushed home to do a big water change (about 30g on a 60g system) Added a canister with carbon and changed all the filter socks, before this day my calcium was at 400 (using API test it) now 3 days later it’s at 320

I am currently only dosing Kalk at night to deal with the PH dip and everything seems fine
All My Parameters stayed pretty much the same except calcium and nitrate the both dropped (nitrate dropped from 30ppm to less then 10ppm) and (calcium dropped from 400 to 320)

Need advice to bump it up and keep it there it’s been 24 hours and still hasn’t increased

Tank Parameters using API kit
Nitrate <10ppm
Phosphate <0.25
Calcium <320ppm
PH 8.2 Day - 8.0-8.1 Night
Alk/Kh 8
Salinity 1.025

 

[Garf]

Hey everyone first time on here, here is the situation. My son threw play-doh in my tank on accident causing corals and other things to get irritated so I rushed home to do a big water change (about 30g on a 60g system) Added a canister with carbon and changed all the filter socks, before this day my calcium was at 400 (using API test it) now 3 days later it’s at 320

I am currently only dosing Kalk at night to deal with the PH dip and everything seems fine
All My Parameters stayed pretty much the same except calcium and nitrate the both dropped (nitrate dropped from 30ppm to less then 10ppm) and (calcium dropped from 400 to 320)

Need advice to bump it up and keep it there it’s been 24 hours and still hasn’t increased

Tank Parameters using API kit
Nitrate <10ppm
Phosphate <0.25
Calcium <320ppm
PH 8.2 Day - 8.0-8.1 Night
Alk/Kh 8
Salinity 1.025

I imagine it's a test error, unless the water you added was very low in salinity. Can you test any new salt water, at correct salinity.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

There seems to be some uncertainty on what exactly is in play doh aside from flour and salt, but I'm not really seeing a reason for calcium to drop that much.

In any case, if you think the kit is working properly (try it on some new salt water), I'd raise it with calcium chloride.