There's your excess bacteria food source.

.

I was wondering about that. I haven't increased the dosage even though my Ca level is at 360. I think I will stop dosing this calcium. Later on, I will buy a different brand of Calcium.

AquaAddict

Yeah, use a calcium supplement that is Calcium chloride! I would suggest you start raising calcium right away and get it up around 440 ppm in the next week to balance with the 11 dKH. I imagine your critters are mad about the very large alkalinity swing.

My alk had risen to almost 16 by Friday! I think this is because of low oxygen levels so I added an air stone. I tested again Saturday and alk had dropped to 15. I just put in 3 more air stones today. I try to be very consistent with my testing so I think it probably did drop.

Yes, I have a few mad corals. I want to do a 30% water change but I would like to use Chemiclean first. Hence the 4 airstones.

I will try a wait another day or two to see if my alk drops. If not, I will have to do a water change anyway. I will have to do another one anyway in a week or so as well as it takes a few water changes to get the protein skimmer working again after a Chemiclean treatment. This is why I would like to start with a Chemiclean treatment first if possible.

I have some Turbo calcium. Should I start dosing with it right away? I stopped the Calcium Gluconate dosing completely. I was thinking the corals are probably too unhappy to continue their regular metabolism.

Aquaddict

I do not recommend adding ChemiClean.
Yes start adding the Turbo Calcium. You can use the BRS calculator to calculate how much to add.http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-c...97MBoC9mzw_wcB Check off the calcium chloride option.

By adding calcium, that will help bring down your alk.

By adding the calcium gluconate, you were effectively carbon dosing your tank with sugar. Once that food supply goes away, the excess bacteria will die back to normal levels so make sure your skimmer and filtration is working properly.
How much of a change this is going to be for your corals depends on how much calcium gluconate you were dosing and for how long.

After you add the turbo calcium, check the calcium and alk levels again in 24 hours.

You could do a water change, but that would be introducing even more chemistry changes which could irritate your corals further.
Stopping the calcium gluconate and adding the calcium chloride are the 2 most important things to do right now. Don't raise the calcium more than 50 ppm per day.

You can read up here for more about calcium and alkalinity: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/11/chemistry

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice everybody,

MitchM, I was hoping the Chemiclean would eradicate all this bacterial slime within a few days. I could wait a while after my Ca levels rise, but don't you think Chemiclean would work at all?

BRS calculator is great; I bookmarked it.

AquaAddict

It's not known if the erythromycin cetyl sulphate that's in Chemiclean will or won't work with the bacteria you have, so I wouldn't advise it.

I wouldn't use ChemiClean either.

When nitrification takes place (ammonia to nitrate), alkalinity is bound up. When denitrification takes place (bacteria eating a carbon source and reducing nitrate and phosphate) they release that alkalinity that was bound up. A sudden drop in nutrients from the bacteria bloom could be the reason why you're seeing this increase in alkalinity. As the alkalinity increases you're going to get calcium precipitation which will lower the calcium even more, and cause the alkalinity to go up further. I would suggest a waterchange with a lower alkalinity salt mix such as Aquaforest. I would add extra calcium to the saltwater while doing the waterchange. IME, calcium can increase by about 50 ppm per day without irritating anything. Alkalinity swings are a real problem though. In your case, the damage has probably already been done. Instant Ocean or Reef Crystals isn't going to help you out much here.

Cause and effect, I have never heard of anyone using calcium glucomate as a calcium dosing source.

Definately stop dosing the alk and perform a couple larger waterchanges to bring the alk down to 9, and in future use calcium chloride for dosing calcium. If you want to dose a bacteria source use vinegar in really small amounts but generally I've tried to stay away from carbon dosing because it brings some weird strains of bacteria out.

Aquavitro Calcification is calcium gluconate

http://www.aquavitro.com/products/calcification.html