Calcium levels over 600.......what is best to do?
 

So my calcium test kit must have been hooped when I first tested my calcium levels. It read 380 so I added some more & picked up a new Red Sea Pro kit for Cal, Mag & Alk yesterday while I was in Calgary. I tested my levels again last night, mag was 1400, Alk was 10.4 but my calcium was 600+.

What is the best coarse of action now? There is nothing in the tank yet but rock & sand. I am hoping to be able to move all my fish over to the new tank next weekend as long as I don't have an ammonia spike.

Any advise would be helpful.

Add more corals they will gobble that up.

Stir your sand 2x a day otherwise it will turn to concrete-ish if your Ca is really 600+

Big water change. Before you need to take Tyler's advice :)

Are you saying Wes not to worry about it & to just let it go down naturally buy consumption?

My cal is really that high and it has not affected the sand one bit

Not an overnight thing, but will eventually happen if left too long. I know, I pulled a sand bed out of my 90 in three large pieces :)

Other than that, not a huge problem, minus potential damage to pumps in the long term, but if you add a lot of coral, it will eventually go down.
But, a water change is a quick and easy fix.

Going to try a water rotation with my other tank as I know the calcium level is low in it.

Wait!!

Do a Google search for red sea pro calcium text kit recall.

I bought the same kit a month back and got the bad calcium reagent ( as per the recall)
It read from 50-75 high.
I have since got a new red sea reagent.
I still find that it reads about 20 higher then salient fyi
Hope that's your issue

Not the issue, checked the lot # and it is not in the list of recalled regents. Also tested with an API & Elos kits.

Did a water relocation between my big tanks and got it down to 500 now.

Awe shucks.

I just went through the same thing with my Red Sea Test Kit. My readings were 380 and I was increasing my dosing. In the end I was well over 500 and my kit still read 380. I stopped dosing and it took over 2 weeks for the level to drop to 400. New Red Sea Test kit compares to my Salifert one now. Mine was not in the recall range as well.

I would suspect the Red Sea kit if my other kits readings where different but they where exactly the same.

Tested again after my water swap with all 3 kits, all read 500.

Also checked the expire date on all the kits as well, not even close to the date of expire.

Will do another water swap tomorrow night.

What salt brand are you using?

I am setting up a new system using IO and have high readings.

From my understanding, high levels of calcium do not cause adverse effects on anything except on inverts. Corals can only absorb so much. With a high alkalinity, it can be a problem - but if your alkalinity is fine, I don't think there is much to worry about, except for calcification doing damage to pumps and equipment.

If you do a dramatic decline in calcium, you would also see a decline in alk.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

You are much more educated on the subject than I am. However; the article above might help your mind ease regarding the increase.

Using Reef Crystals as always :biggrin: