What a difference 3 months make

[StirCrazy]

Well it was 3 months ago when I final figured out I had a problem the woulden't be fixed by my Ca reactor or by dripping Kalk.

several people said "give it time, it will come back up.. well it didn't..

what I am talking about is my Ca level.

First a little background.. I set the tank up in late June of 2002
the rock went in the middle of Julyand nitrates were 5 to 10 ppm at that point.. by the 3rd of sept my sand bed and rock were doing there job and my nitrates were undetectable (and still are to this day) My Ca level at this point was between 260 and 280 and byu the 3rd of sept was at 210. all along I was adding different Ca suplements with no luck.. levels would not come back up.. and all along I was dosing Kalk at a high rate also.

well thinking I must do something I got a rushed Ca reactor online on the 5th of sept. with this I was able to raise my alk fro 7 or 8dkh to over 12, so I thought it must be doing something, but the Ca tests had showen that somethign was wrong.. my max Ca was still 260ish ppm. at this point despread for ideas I went back to the books and learned about the relationship between Ca and Mg. Having no better idea's as to what has been causing this I got a Mg test kit and discovered my Mg level was below 800 ppm and recomended was 1200 to 1400 ppm. I now suspect that it was lower than this just befor my Ca reactor was brought online as at 800 ppm my Ca level was 265 ppm and for a while my levels was 180ppm so I suspect I had a Mg/Ca crash and when I started measuring Mg I was on the way back up.

seing this I decided to get a Mh suplement and bring my Mg up.. so what I did was bring it up about 100 ppm / week so I could test after it was stable for a few days.

so with a 860 ppm Mg level my Ca was 210 ppm
next week Mg 930 ppm my Ca was 225 ppm
two weeks later Mg 1050 ppm, Ca 300 ppm
and with another week at the same Mg level my Ca got to 325 ppm for a highest value.
this was at the beginning of November.. Now here is whare another problem comes into play.. because of the low Mg levels My Ca int he tank had been pertisipated out of solution and such so after I got my Mg levels b ack up to 1200 even I still could not raise my Ca over 350 with out driving my Alk up to 20 dkh, so now I hade a stable system that was out of ballance..

so to fix this problem I bought some turbo calciumand started dosing it in large daily doses..

I desolved 8 tsp in 3 cups of ro and added it one day.. then I did the same the next day.

the result now is everything is sitting whare it should be now for 4 days and showing no sign of droppign as of yet.

my test results as of 1 hour ago were
Ca 450PPM
Alk 13.6 dkh
Mg 1170 ppm (could be a little higher but I have to get soem more Mg suplement to finnishe raising it to 1300)
Nitrate 0
PH 8.1
Temp 82.22 F

what was the purpose of this.. well I am just showing that the saying "let it be it will come around" isn't always true, and not to go a unreasionable amount of time befor you start looking for reasons as to why this is happening. My problem was simple.. something in the tank was consuming Mg (maby the sand bed) and it was throwing everything out of wack.. If I would have bought a Test kit for Mg earlyer then I would have had this fixed a long time ago.. now I am not saying to run out and buy Mg test kits but if you are having problems with your Ca levels maby get it tested.. if it is fine then you have peace of mind.. if not you have found a possable contriubitor to your problems. I spent over 120.00 in ca suplements that could have easyaly been avoided if I would have spent 35.00 on a Mg test kit and suplement sooner.

Steve