Question

[jaime rocha]

I have a 90 gallon tank with a gravity fed 29 gallon refugium for extra water volume and for caluerpa and pods to be in with a trigger systems sump. My tank is all LPS with 3 clams. The tank is fully stocked. I know this is bad but the tank has been running for 2 years now and I finally started testing calcium, mag, and alk. Mind you all my corals and clams are healthy, but I noticed after testing with red sea test kits, that my calcium stays at 395, mag is 1300, and Kh is at 10.4. I only dose ions magnesium everyday only 12 ML and mag stays at 1300 and B-ionic 2 part and calcium and alk are not moving. They stay at Cal 395 and Kh at 10.4. I was dosing 50 ML of b ionic and those did not move. Oh ph is at 8.2 to 8.3. My question is why the calcium and alk are not changing anymore, but tends to raise ph only. I feel like 50 ML of b ionic is a lot. I only dosed 50 ML because when i started testing the mag was low and so was the calicium and alk. Took 5 days of dosing to get the params where they are now. When i first started testing 5 days ago the calcium was at 375, kh 9.2, mg 1260 and ph 8.1. I added pics of my tank just for the heck of it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The B-ionic is adding about 1.2 dKH per day. That is a perfectly reasonable demand for that tank.

The higher the alk and pH the higher the demand. So when you started dosing, you probably bumped up the demand a bit, so the levels did not rise much.

Alkalinity is the canary for the overdosing or underdosing of alk and calcium equally. It responds way faster to such conditions. Calcium will hardly move.

 

[jaime rocha]

Ok. So if the PH and alk keep going up but the calcium stays the same at 395 should I dose less or more? Also since the mg is staying at 1300 with daily dosing of 12 ML of aquavitro mg should I dose more to get it higher or is 1300 a good range for a LPS tank? Sorry about the dumb questions. You would think after reefing for 15 years I should know this. I just used to do weekly water changes and always had good growth and color and that's why I never tested. But recently I decided to to test just for the heck of it and found out I was low on alk, calcium, mag and ph even though everything looked great.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Ok. So if the PH and alk keep going up but the calcium stays the same at 395 should I dose less or more? Also since the mg is staying at 1300 with daily dosing of 12 ML of aquavitro mg should I dose more to get it higher or is 1300 a good range for a LPS tank? Sorry about the dumb questions. You would think after reefing for 15 years I should know this. I just used to do weekly water changes and always had good growth and color and that's why I never tested. But recently I decided to to test just for the heck of it and found out I was low on alk, calcium, mag and ph even though everything looked great.

Dose two part systems in an amount to maintain alkalinity. If calcium gets too high, stop dosing that part. If calcium is too low, then make a one time correction to it. It won't rise noticeably with dosing a two part equally if you are maintaining alkalinity.