Treefer32
Valuable Member
Something quite simple, I noticed my calcium going way faster than my alk even though I had both set the same. I thought it was an issue of calibration and it's a 10-12 year old doser, so figured I'd decrease what I was dosing per day. As I set the doser to lower amounts, my calcium jug kept decreasing by anywhere from 1/4th to 1/3rd of the jug in a 1-2 day period.
Within 5 days the jug was empty. I initially thought it was still a doser problem and I didn't have time to triage it as I was traveling at the time. (340 gallon tank). I refilled the calcium and decreased the doser further to 1 ml per day. The jug still depleted 1/4.
I got back and realized after some further testing that the doser head was not stopping the flow. It formed a slow drip siphon. I took the doser head apart and noticed the rollers had left deep black marks on the tubing. My guess is it had stretched the tubing out or the rollers had decreased in size just enough to no longer stop the flow. I checked my salinity and it was near 1.030. Which confirmed my suspicion I had dumped a month's worth of calcium into my tank. Raising both salinity and calcium. I noticed two things 1- my midas blenny had some how jump through my screen covers and was laying on top of the cover and I can no longer find my blue jaw sand sifting goby. Assume he perished. My gonipora had stopped opening, Acros, hammers, and even a couple torches are all fine.
So, I replaced about 20 gallons of tank water with fresh water to reduce salinity and hoping to reduce calcium.
In 48 hours I got salinity gradually down from 1.030 to near an even 1.026. I thought that would take care of the overdose. I also expected the excess calcium would precipitate out. . . It did not.
I've waited two weeks now doing nothing but checking alk, which is staying between 8 and 9 dkh with regular dosing. I've noticed ph staying higher at the 8.3 to 8.4 range now. I let things stabilize not changing anything else. My gonis still won't open, and have noticed hair algae starting to grow on some rocks. Something still isn't right. (No algae in 6 years.)
So, I decided to test calcium today knowing that's probably the biggest parameter that's off given alk remains stable despite the reduction of salinity. If calcium or MG were low I would expect alk to be tough to keep up.
So, I tested calcium today with Nyos low range test kit. It came in at between 800 and 820 ppm.
This would explain my goni's complaining about water. Not sure why calcium would be fueling hair algae or briopsis. But, can I let the system ride it out. Not replenishing any calcium for a couple months? Or do I need to do a major 50-75% (150-200 gallon) water change? Knowing that the new water is going to be around 400-500 with reef crystals.
I've of a mindset to let it decrease over time. Maybe retest in 2-3 months. I also didn't think calcium could get that high without precipitation occurring? Will enough calcium per week be consumed by stony corals to reduce it to safe levels without hurting anything or do I need to force it down more?
I was thinking if it naturally consumes around 20 ppm per week that's 5 weeks to get it down to the low 700s. 2 - 3 months it would be much safer in the 600s and hopefully gradual enough that the corals wouldn't notice it decreasing?
I don't believe in knee jerk reactions. Things must have grown accustomed to the high calcium.
Mg is usually in the 1400-1600 range when I test.
Within 5 days the jug was empty. I initially thought it was still a doser problem and I didn't have time to triage it as I was traveling at the time. (340 gallon tank). I refilled the calcium and decreased the doser further to 1 ml per day. The jug still depleted 1/4.
I got back and realized after some further testing that the doser head was not stopping the flow. It formed a slow drip siphon. I took the doser head apart and noticed the rollers had left deep black marks on the tubing. My guess is it had stretched the tubing out or the rollers had decreased in size just enough to no longer stop the flow. I checked my salinity and it was near 1.030. Which confirmed my suspicion I had dumped a month's worth of calcium into my tank. Raising both salinity and calcium. I noticed two things 1- my midas blenny had some how jump through my screen covers and was laying on top of the cover and I can no longer find my blue jaw sand sifting goby. Assume he perished. My gonipora had stopped opening, Acros, hammers, and even a couple torches are all fine.
So, I replaced about 20 gallons of tank water with fresh water to reduce salinity and hoping to reduce calcium.
In 48 hours I got salinity gradually down from 1.030 to near an even 1.026. I thought that would take care of the overdose. I also expected the excess calcium would precipitate out. . . It did not.
I've waited two weeks now doing nothing but checking alk, which is staying between 8 and 9 dkh with regular dosing. I've noticed ph staying higher at the 8.3 to 8.4 range now. I let things stabilize not changing anything else. My gonis still won't open, and have noticed hair algae starting to grow on some rocks. Something still isn't right. (No algae in 6 years.)
So, I decided to test calcium today knowing that's probably the biggest parameter that's off given alk remains stable despite the reduction of salinity. If calcium or MG were low I would expect alk to be tough to keep up.
So, I tested calcium today with Nyos low range test kit. It came in at between 800 and 820 ppm.
This would explain my goni's complaining about water. Not sure why calcium would be fueling hair algae or briopsis. But, can I let the system ride it out. Not replenishing any calcium for a couple months? Or do I need to do a major 50-75% (150-200 gallon) water change? Knowing that the new water is going to be around 400-500 with reef crystals.
I've of a mindset to let it decrease over time. Maybe retest in 2-3 months. I also didn't think calcium could get that high without precipitation occurring? Will enough calcium per week be consumed by stony corals to reduce it to safe levels without hurting anything or do I need to force it down more?
I was thinking if it naturally consumes around 20 ppm per week that's 5 weeks to get it down to the low 700s. 2 - 3 months it would be much safer in the 600s and hopefully gradual enough that the corals wouldn't notice it decreasing?
I don't believe in knee jerk reactions. Things must have grown accustomed to the high calcium.
Mg is usually in the 1400-1600 range when I test.
