Calcium doing things it shouldnt

[SaltwaterandLime]

Both logically and scientifically I realize that that calcium levels in my tank should not be rising unless I'm physically adding calcium to my tank.

According to my Trident (recently calibrated), a hanna checker, an aquaforest test kit, and my LFS.... my calcium levels are continuing to rise, even though I turned off my calcium dosing over a week ago.

So.......where am I adding it from?

I admit I have always struggled with finding a reliable way to test my calcium, I know that I have continued to have "user error" for years with calcium specifically and it is part of what drove me to finally invest in an Apex and Trident.

When trident confirmed my manual test of calcium around 500ppm I turned off the calcium dosing channel entirely with the plan of just letting it fall back down naturally.

This is a somewhat new tank (6 months) and only has a few small frags so I know my calcium usage is very low so I expected it to take a long time to come back down, but what I didn't expect was to see it continue to rise.

I have hit a max calcium reading of 566ppm, did a water change as well as calibrated the trident, readings came down to 525 and then have begun rising again over the last two days and I am now back up to 540ppm.

My alkalinity and magnesium have stayed stable with minimal dosing of red sea foundation parts B and C. It's only my calcium that changes. If I stop dosing alkalinity it falls a natural amount daily with no change to the calcium level.

60ish gallon total water volume, sps frags, 5 small fish, feeding mostly frozen mysis and nori, only doing red sea foundation and nopox. Roller mat and skimmer, ato with RODI water, never tap. Use red sea blue bucket salt (regular reef salt, NOT the coral pro)

Fresh made salt water mixes to about 450ppm calcium.

Salinity 1.026
pH 7.7-7.9
Alk 8.4-8.5
Mag 1400ish
Calcium what the heck
PO4 0.03ppm
NO3 30-35ppm

 

[homer1475]

Are you 100% sure the dosing head is off? Perhaps it's dripping(siphon)?

The large drop in the last graph, was that fron the water change? Then it started rising again on it's own?

 

[SaltwaterandLime]

Are you 100% sure the dosing head is off? Perhaps it's dripping(siphon)?

The large drop in the last graph, was that fron the water change? Then it started rising again on it's own?

That was the day I calibrated the trident, so it logs a reading from the calibration solution which is way lower than my tank. That was also the day I did the water chage.....so theoretically it should have either stayed stable from that first test after the calibration or slowly started to come down

 

[homer1475]

After looking at your dosing, your dosing about .1DKH of alkalinity, and about 1ppm mag. I would just shut everything off for a couple days(you have plenty of ALK and CAL to let them drop for a few days). Then test and see where things are.

 

[Pod_01]

Silly suggestion but double check your Doser to ensure correct head is connected to correct liquid. If all is good I would turn all automated additions off and see what happens over a week+.

 

[Timfish]

What they said. But there is biology and dissolution processes in our systems that will change parameters without input from us.

 

[JimWelsh]

Salinity 1.026

Are you really sure that salinity isn't creeping up?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Are you really sure that salinity isn't creeping up?

+1.

Check Salinity measurement against a reference

 

[SaltwaterandLime]

+1.

Check Salinity measurement against a reference

Just recalibrated, checked, confirmed and remeasured. It's a good thought though. I was hoping it was going to be that easy.

I did go ahead and turn off all of my dosing completely and disconnected to be sure none of the tunes are leaking. I'll continue to monitor it over the next few days.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Just recalibrated, checked, confirmed and remeasured. It's a good thought though. I was hoping it was going to be that easy.

I did go ahead and turn off all of my dosing completely and disconnected to be sure none of the tunes are leaking. I'll continue to monitor it over the next few days.

Probably a good idea to check that the correct solutions are connected to the correct dosing heads too.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW,folks sometimes have issues with trident accuracy, especially when reagent is getting low.

The current calcium level, if accurate, is fine.

Do you have a calcium test kit?

FWIW, calcium is not going to rise on its own from in tank processes unless alk is also rising at a rate of about 2.8 dKH for reach 20 ppm of calcium.

Topping off with tap water can also boost calcium.

 

[JimWelsh]

Do you have a calcium test kit?

According to my Trident (recently calibrated), a hanna checker, an aquaforest test kit, and my LFS.... my calcium levels are continuing to rise

It sounds like she verified that the rise the Trident reports is a real thing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I see. lol

Then I'd use one of those kits to test your new salt water.

 

[biom]

Fresh made salt water mixes to about 450ppm calcium.

I see. lol

Then I'd use one of those kits to test your new salt water.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

lol

OK, again.

Maybe salintiy is higher than expectrd.

There's really not any way for calcium to rise 100 ppm without adding it somehow. Any in tank addition would have added 14 dKh of alk. Maybe some of that got depleted by nitrate rising, but hard to explain it all.

 

[biom]

lol

OK, again.

Maybe salintiy is higher than expectrd.

Are you really sure that salinity isn't creeping up?

Just recalibrated, checked, confirmed and remeasured. It's a good thought though. I was hoping it was going to be that easy.

lol
I think the only explanation left is problems with dosing. Waiting for the results from dosing off.

 

[SaltwaterandLime]

Lol.... thanks everyone.

So yes, everything except NoPoX has been off since Thursday (and disconnected from the dosing containers JUST to be certain). Obviously I need to wait longer to really get a better idea.

But, FWIW...

alk has dropped 0.1dKH
Calcium has risen 1ppm
Magnesium has risen 1ppm

Since those changes are all way within margin of error of testing, I'm going to assume that technically nothing has changed at all. I'll give it longer before I decide for certain, but maybe yall were right and I just don't really need to be dosing yet even with my few frags.

 

[biom]

Which calcium / Alk supplements you are using?

 

[SaltwaterandLime]

Which calcium / Alk supplements you are using?

RedSea foundation liquid

 

[biom]

RedSea foundation liquid

How much you were dosing from the Calcium supplement daily?