Can high cal affect alk?

[BAMatter]

I was having the same problem with kalk, my calcium likes to ride 550-600 so I stopped.. I’m using sodium hydroxide now for my ph boost and alk and it’s working well! My calcium has dropped to 500 finally over a week but it’s holding steady and I don’t dose calcium lol..

I don’t want to stop dosing kalk, but need to figure out what the deal is.

 

[BAMatter]

I was having the same problem with kalk, my calcium likes to ride 550-600 so I stopped.. I’m using sodium hydroxide now for my ph boost and alk and it’s working well! My calcium has dropped to 500 finally over a week but it’s holding steady and I don’t dose calcium lol..

I will say though, I put a stop to my calcium dosing for the moment until it’s at a reasonable level. Took your cal about a week to drop from 600 down to 500? What’s your daily dkh drop that you dose for? I’m trying to get an idea how long it might take for my cal to drop…

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I will say though, I put a stop to my calcium dosing for the moment until it’s at a reasonable level. Took your cal about a week to drop from 600 down to 500? What’s your daily dkh drop that you dose for? I’m trying to get an idea how long it might take for my cal to drop…

It will only drop if you do water changes or dose alk not accompanied by calcium. For each 2.8 dKH of alk dosed and consumed, calcium will drop 18-20 ppm.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

@Randy Holmes-Farley - what’s your take on Triton Core 7? I’ve been searching around and am seeing that elevated cal and mag are a fairly common thing. Could this be where my issue is stemming from?

Presumably folks dosed based on demand so I don’t see it being a source of very high calcium.

 

[BAMatter]

Presumably folks dosed based on demand so I don’t see it being a source of very high calcium.

Ok. Didn’t know if you have crunched the individual concentrations of each of the parts or not. Thanks…

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Ok. Didn’t know if you have crunched the individual concentrations of each of the parts or not. Thanks…

You can adjust the individual parts if one parameter is getting too high.

 

[BAMatter]

You can adjust the individual parts if one parameter is getting too high.

Yea, I know that. Triton just advertises as everything is ionically balanced when you dose equal across the parts. I had read on another thread about the calcium could have a higher concentration than the other parts do for their relative concentration. Don’t know if that’s true or not, just what I saw someone’s speculation was.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yea, I know that. Triton just advertises as everything is ionically balanced when you dose equal across the parts. I had read on another thread about the calcium could have a higher concentration than the other parts do for their relative concentration. Don’t know if that’s true or not, just what I saw someone’s speculation was.

There’s no scenario aside from massively accumulating nitrate (and hence alk depletion) where balanced dosing of the Triton Core system results in very high calcium.

If you find calcium rising too much, it is fine and appropriate to back off on the calcium part, and not worry excessively about the ionic balance part.