Yikes... calcium kit and tank off by 100 ppm

[tenurepro]

Ok, I like to keep my tank around 8.5 dkh and 420 ppm Calcium... over the last month or so, I’ve noticed a gradually decline in calcium... so I adjusted my dosing to compensate. Calcium kept decreasing and I kept increasing my dosing etc etc... then my alk started to decline as well, so I upped the Alk dosing too but that seems to have had no effect... today I ran out of my sailfert calcium kit and opened a new one... did a test and was shocked to see the result - 475 ppm ; I measured 380 yesterday. I got a friend to test my water and we confirmed this calcium is indeed 475 ppm; Alk is at 8.6...
So what is the best way to correct the imbalance... I read Randy’s classic article on the topic and he suggests increasing Alk by dosing baking soda or washing soda... but I wonder if I can also correct the problem by not dosing the Calcium component of my ESV bionic two part ?
Thanks for help and advice!

 

[Greenstreet.1]

You can stop dosing the cal part until it drops to where you want it to be

 

[Larry L]

This is a good reference by Randy Holmes-Farley on solving calcium and alkalinity problems:

https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/11/chemistry

Look at the graph in Figure 1 to to see what region your alkalinity and calcium fall into, and then do whatever is recommended for that region.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, 475 ppm calcium is perfectly fine, and I wouldn't change antthing except dose calcium in equal parts to the alk part of the B-ionic.

But if you want it lower, you can stop the calcium part of the B-ionic for a while.

 

[tenurepro]

FWIW, 475 ppm calcium is perfectly fine, and I wouldn't change antthing except dose calcium in equal parts to the alk part of the B-ionic.

But if you want it lower, you can stop the calcium part of the B-ionic for a while.

Ok thanks Randy