What is consuming all my calcium

[me & my baby]

I am trying to figure out what is consuming my calcium . My tank is 8 months old . No coral only fish and cuc I do have some cheato in the sump . I could understand more if I had coraline covering everything but none has started to grow yet

My fresh saltwater is
KH 7.7
Mag 1350
Ca 420

June 7th
KH 7.0
Mag 1290
Ca370
Did a 50 gallon water change

June 26th
KH 8.7
Mag 1160
Ca 315

Any ideas

 

[TylerHaworth]

What type of test kits are you using?

 

[me & my baby]

Salifert on all the test

 

[slingfox]

Salifert on all the test

What salt are you using and what are the parameters of freshly mixed saltwater?

 

[me & my baby]

Aquaforest sea salt

My fresh saltwater is
KH 7.7
Mag 1350
Ca 420

 

[Tahoe61]

Are you seeing a lot of Coralline Algae?

 

[TylerHaworth]

Are you dosing any calc/alk/mg?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If you are not dosing any alkalinity, then there is NO calcium being consumed, and any changes are a salinity change or test kit error. :)

 

[Project1004]

Don’t know how big your tank is so 50G water change on how big of the system?

Seeing mag and calcium dropping. Maybe test error or your tank is soaking up for some reason. But likely test error since you don’t have anything that would take up all that calcium and magnesium. But if your magnesium is not stable, you will have issue balancing the 2parts.

 

[me & my baby]

Are you seeing a lot of Coralline Algae?

No none

 

[me & my baby]

If you are not dosing any alkalinity, then there is NO calcium being consumed, and any changes are a salinity change or test kit error. :)

Last week I did put my kale reactor online to see if that would help but so far a steady downward trend . My test kits are only 6 months old and I am testing the same way I have for the last 20 year with the salifert except I have an aqua stir so no more shaking or swirling . I have also double check the salinity at the time of test and it’s at 1.026

 

[me & my baby]

Don’t know how big your tank is so 50G water change on how big of the system?

Seeing mag and calcium dropping. Maybe test error or your tank is soaking up for some reason. But likely test error since you don’t have anything that would take up all that calcium and magnesium. But if your magnesium is not stable, you will have issue balancing the 2parts.

Total water volume is around 260 gallons

 

[Reefering1]

Why is alk rising? Ive noticed that raising dkh drops calcium. Idk why you would be using kalk with no coral and rising dkh... (?)

 

[me & my baby]

To try and add some calcium to the tank because it keeps dropping

 

[Reefering1]

To try and add some calcium to the tank because it keeps dropping

Have you tried adding calcium by itself and testing again soon after?

 

[me & my baby]

I haven’t tried that yet I just found my doser so I might order some in

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Calcium is not being consumed. You should not be adding any.


It is impossible for calcium to be consumed without alkalinity being consumed. A 100 ppm calcium drop requires consumption of 14 dKH of alk. Since that is not happening, you need to look for other issues, which include testing (.most likely), a big salinity drop (not that likely) or water changes with a seriously flawed salt mix.

 

[Reefering1]

Calcium is not being consumed. You should not be adding any.


It is impossible for calcium to be consumed without alkalinity being consumed. A 100 ppm calcium drop requires consumption of 14 dKH of alk. Since that is not happening, you need to look for other issues, which include testing (.most likely), a big salinity drop (not that likely) or water changes with a seriously flawed salt mix.

Does precipitation follow the same ratio with alk?

 

[Reefering1]

Calcium is not being consumed. You should not be adding any.


It is impossible for calcium to be consumed without alkalinity being consumed. A 100 ppm calcium drop requires consumption of 14 dKH of alk. Since that is not happening, you need to look for other issues, which include testing (.most likely), a big salinity drop (not that likely) or water changes with a seriously flawed salt mix.

Can new dry rock bind(for lack of better word) calcium?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Does precipitation follow the same ratio with alk?

Yes. :)