weird readings on tank

[nitro069]

I am doing my tests on the tank and got some really weird readings. My mag is 1400, my alk is high at 10.4 and my cal is less than 280(lowest reading red sea kit gives me). they were wacked out like that two days ago also. my mag was 1500 and alk was 10.6 with cal below 280 again. i was slowly raising my levels when my timer failed and o/d my tank and now this is  i'm getting.
my test before that were normal that i was raising from were 6.7/400/1200.
the one thing that i did notice was that my calcium jug had mor in it that my alk and the are both on the same schedule. i ran my pump and it seemed to dose fine. checked my settings and all times match and on/off are accurate.

all corals look good. how fast can i raise my cal daily to bring it back to normal parameters.

 

[reeffreak]

I am doing my tests on the tank and got some really weird readings. My mag is 1400, my alk is high at 10.4 and my cal is less than 280(lowest reading red sea kit gives me). they were wacked out like that two days ago also. my mag was 1500 and alk was 10.6 with cal below 280 again. i was slowly raising my levels when my timer failed and o/d my tank and now this is  i'm getting.
my test before that were normal that i was raising from were 6.7/400/1200.
the one thing that i did notice was that my calcium jug had mor in it that my alk and the are both on the same schedule. i ran my pump and it seemed to dose fine. checked my settings and all times match and on/off are accurate.

all corals look good. how fast can i raise my cal daily to bring it back to normal parameters.

Do you have any other kits you can compare the red seas too ? I would start doing a few bigger water changes that should get levels closer to normal , then tweak them from there.  You could raise you calcuim 100ppm daily, but not all at once.

 

[nitro069]

I had one test remaining in my salifert kit and it read about the same. it was old but still read low. getting ready to do a water change now. just need to make some water. a little behind on my water.

 

[spyd]

High ALK levels will lead to low calcium and vise versa. I would get your ALK down through water changes and, like Reefreak mentioned, raise your calcium up by 100ppm a day, max. Sounds like your timer was stuck on for a while and dumped a lot of ALK in the tank.

 

[Darryl_V]

High ALK levels will lead to low calcium and vise versa. I would get your ALK down through water changes and, like Reefreak mentioned, raise your calcium up by 100ppm a day, max. Sounds like your timer was stuck on for a while and dumped a lot of ALK in the tank.

Thats not necessarily true Derek.  That is only true if you are pushing the alk to the saturation point which does depend on how much calcium and magnesium there is too but you are looking at very very very high alk to do this.  Surely 10.6 is not nearly high enough to precipitate calcium carbonate and drive calcium down.

Nitro....did you say that your calcium jug looks to be more full as in your doser is dosing more alk than calcium?  if that is true than its pretty obvious the problem.  Start hand dosing the calcium till they are even and test again.  Find out what is up with your doser.

I always considered it safe to add 50ppm of calcium a day.

 

[nitro069]

Nitro....did you say that your calcium jug looks to be more full as in your doser is dosing more alk than calcium?  if that is true than its pretty obvious the problem.  Start hand dosing the calcium till they are even and test again.  Find out what is up with your doser.

I always considered it safe to add 50ppm of calcium a day.

Yeah, my cal jug was fuller than alk. i think i bumped one of the buttons on the timer and it didn't run for 2-3 days. i have been keeping an eye on it and it seems to be running as programed now. stupid sump area is so tight.

I have tested daily and dosed to bring cal up. must have been really low. it is now up to 320 and alk is down to 9.6.

i'm worried that when i bring my cal back to normal levels that i am going to lose my alk. any suggestion on how to keep my alk where it is while raising cal.

I will be performing a 18 gallon/20% wc tomorrow.