Cal and Alk gone wacky, need help!

Hey guys,

Not sure how it can test this way, but I tested my Alkalinity first, and its only 100 mg/l which is way too low. On the flip side, when I tested my calcium ... it was 600 mg/l.

I don't use kalkwasser, I don't have a reactor, and I haven't added any type of buffers or calcium to the tank in a really long time, probably 3 water changes, so a month to a month and a half give or take.

I use Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt, and it doesn't show on the pail what the params should be at using their salt.

Whats going on?

 

there is a great reef chemistry article i hope someone will post in a minute for you.

what is your Mg result? Without Mg at proper steady levels, keeping Ca and Alk stable is a nightmare.

Sounds like your problem to me.

In simple general terms, you want your Mg to be 3.5xCalcium

 

Here is the chemical Calculator you should use
3reef.com - Forums for coral reef aquariums, salt water fish, corals, inverts, protein skimmers, aquarium lighting and more - Calculators

TMP tends to have elevated CA and OK ALK I'm not sure what the conversion is from mg\L to meq\l or DKH so I'm not sure what 100mg\L is. I'll try and find that some where

 

OK so conversion from milliequivalents/liter (meq/l) to
degrees. To convert from mg/l of alkalinity to meq/l you have to divide
the alkalinity by 50 to get meq/liter, then you multiply by 2.8 to get
degrees.

in your case 100mg\L /50 = 2meq/L * 2.8 = 5.6

So your ALK is a little low for 600 CA.

 

I'm slowly raising at this point. I have some Seachem Reef Builder which raises Carbonate Alkalinity.

Will balancing the Alk change the result of the calcium test?

If I test both again in an hour or so ... will on the ALK be different, or should I retest the calcium again as well?

 

X2 on the magnesium. Also I would not make any drastic changes it needs to done over a span of days taking it in steps. But this is just my opinion.

 

yup ... its going to be a very slow change ... Nothing good happens fast in a reef, learned that rule very quickly lol