I have been die hard on using Red Sea calcium test kits. I also use Red Sea for mag but most others are salifert and Hanna. I have a 3 year old mixed reef and a 7 month old, soon to be sps tank. About a year and a half into the oldest tank I started testing weekly for anticipating alk and calcium levels to need more than water changes. All parameters were as expected except alk so I started dosing alk with a komer and it worked great for my 8.5 needs. Shortly after this my cal levels started to drop slowly so I hooked up another komer and started dosing a couple of ml per day to see what happened. The cal levels paused for a minute and then started climbing to my anticipated 470 expectations. Red Sea kit was very consistent with what I expected from dosing and I felt like I made good adjustments to reach and hold the 470 cal level for about a month or so. I then started to notice the coral not reacting as expected. I collected a icp sample and tested on my own at the same time for comparison . Red Sea was showing 470 but a couple days later my icp came back as 590 cal and warned me of these levels along with low iodine… blah blah blah. I turned my cal dose off because I didn’t know what else to do.
Along this time I started apex triton without dos on my newer tank. It ran a couple of months and seemed to be fairly accurate. Meanwhile my older tank was loosing lps and color. I am still on Red Sea calcium test kits at this time bc the mag levels were as expected and I still trusted the cal test. I started using Red Sea cal test to prove triton on the new tank bc I read so much about questionable triton accuracy. My triton would read 460 but Red Sea would read about 360 in the new tank very consistently? About a few weeks with test comparison inconsistencies I ran another icp on the old tank the same time as I tested using my kits. Again, icp said 570 and Red Sea said 460. I then started testing old tank, new tank and triton readings on only calcium at the same time. Red Sea always showed about 100 ppm lower than triton on the new tank and old tank started to drop cal level slowly from lack of dosing. Once the old tank started testing at 370 rs my corals started to grow again. As a test I used the fixed agent bottles that you get from Neptune with the reagent kits. The listed cal level was 465 on the reagent but my rs cal kit showed a level of about 360.
I feel like the Red Sea kit gives results about 100 ppm lower than reality? Maybe I’m doing it wrong after watching “every” you tube video available. I started cal komer dosing back on the old tank once rs started showing 340, 330 the 320. Brought it back to 370 and corals are still growing fine.
Anyone else notice this? Any help would be great.
Along this time I started apex triton without dos on my newer tank. It ran a couple of months and seemed to be fairly accurate. Meanwhile my older tank was loosing lps and color. I am still on Red Sea calcium test kits at this time bc the mag levels were as expected and I still trusted the cal test. I started using Red Sea cal test to prove triton on the new tank bc I read so much about questionable triton accuracy. My triton would read 460 but Red Sea would read about 360 in the new tank very consistently? About a few weeks with test comparison inconsistencies I ran another icp on the old tank the same time as I tested using my kits. Again, icp said 570 and Red Sea said 460. I then started testing old tank, new tank and triton readings on only calcium at the same time. Red Sea always showed about 100 ppm lower than triton on the new tank and old tank started to drop cal level slowly from lack of dosing. Once the old tank started testing at 370 rs my corals started to grow again. As a test I used the fixed agent bottles that you get from Neptune with the reagent kits. The listed cal level was 465 on the reagent but my rs cal kit showed a level of about 360.
I feel like the Red Sea kit gives results about 100 ppm lower than reality? Maybe I’m doing it wrong after watching “every” you tube video available. I started cal komer dosing back on the old tank once rs started showing 340, 330 the 320. Brought it back to 370 and corals are still growing fine.
Anyone else notice this? Any help would be great.