Interesting Case

[cathyg_99]

maybe his RO unit isnt filtering enough out of the water? thats why hes getting a build up... as for the dosing that seems really high, id have someone else do my testing for me

[Aquaria]

It's got nothing to do with the rodi I know people who use tap water and if that's the case should they not have the same problems?

[Delphinus]

My guess is low magnesium. Before I would track magnesium, I noticed calcium buildup on many of my pump's magnets and shafts. Powerheads .. skimmer pumps .. etc. Calcium precipitates easily when Mg is low. This effect has been profoundly reduced since keepng Mg where it should be. Now I still notice some buildup on the Tunze magnets but nothing that needs to be removed more than say once every 6 months or so.

[Red Coral Aquariums]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

My guess is low magnesium. Before I would track magnesium, I noticed calcium buildup on many of my pump's magnets and shafts. Powerheads .. skimmer pumps .. etc. Calcium precipitates easily when Mg is low. This effect has been profoundly reduced since keepng Mg where it should be. Now I still notice some buildup on the Tunze magnets but nothing that needs to be removed more than say once every 6 months or so.

I have seen this before. Interested to see the mg levels.
Kevin

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

My guess is low magnesium. Before I would track magnesium, I noticed calcium buildup on many of my pump's magnets and shafts. Powerheads .. skimmer pumps .. etc. Calcium precipitates easily when Mg is low. This effect has been profoundly reduced since keepng Mg where it should be. Now I still notice some buildup on the Tunze magnets but nothing that needs to be removed more than say once every 6 months or so.

He doses magnesium weekly to maintain it at 1500

[trilinearmipmap]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

My guess is low magnesium. Before I would track magnesium, I noticed calcium buildup on many of my pump's magnets and shafts. Powerheads .. skimmer pumps .. etc. Calcium precipitates easily when Mg is low. This effect has been profoundly reduced since keepng Mg where it should be. Now I still notice some buildup on the Tunze magnets but nothing that needs to be removed more than say once every 6 months or so.

+1

[sphelps]

I've got him to cut back on dosing to 100mL/day of each and stop the kalk altogether. I wanted him to stop all dosing for a bit so see how things balance out but he wasn't that comfortable with that so we settled on a much lower and balanced dosing schedule. I will be maintaining his tank for 9 weeks this summer so I guess we'll see if I can sort things out a little for him.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by sphelps

I've got him to cut back on dosing to 100mL/day of each and stop the kalk altogether. I wanted him to stop all dosing for a bit so see how things balance out but he wasn't that comfortable with that so we settled on a much lower and balanced dosing schedule. I will be maintaining his tank for 9 weeks this summer so I guess we'll see if I can sort things out a little for him.

did you find out if he is dosing all at once.. if so I am willing to bet this is the problem. he needs to spread his dosing out though the day. some in the am, some at lunch, some after work some befor he goes to bed.

my guess is that when he doeses he creats a temporary high concentrating in the sump which will percipitate easily then as it is mixed it is dropped back down to a normal level.

I had the same problem befor I put my Ca reactor online. actualy that was the reason I went to a Ca reactor and a Kalk reactor.

Steve

[sphelps]

The alk was dosed automatically throughout the day and the Ca was dosed all at once each day. While I agree dosing this much at once is a problem the main issue is the amount. Any tank should be able to handle a daily dose all at once provided it's not an overdose.

[Lance]

Does the sump chamber where he doses have fairly low flow, or is he dosing the calcium and alk too soon to each other? I had the same problem for awhile in the 90g, (though not as extreme). I use the same recipe, and found if I dose the calcium and the alk into the same chamber I have to make sure there is at least 6 hours between the dosing times or I get calcification. In fact the water in that chamber was even a little milky from the two reacting together. I eventually moved the calcium dosing line to a different part of the sump that has more flow and that helped a lot. Within days after doing this the volume of calcium and alk I needed to dose to keep parameters in line dropped considerably.