Calcium fluctuations!

I'm sure your tank is just really consuming the calcium. Have you heard of those calcium blocks? Should try them out I've heard they are good specially when you have calcium problems because of corals.

 

It did precipitate out but not as much as you are describing I was hoping that if I did it spread out of the course of 16 hours I would get away with it because a standard dose takes 2 hours for the aquarium to clear. If you payed closer attention to my post you would see that my alk and magnesium are at good levels, dkh 11 and mag was 1500.

It is, I have monitored the levels very closely the past few days and I have targeted that my need is for going to the calcium reactor system instead of dosing.

The only change in todays test were my magnesium finally started dropping as anticipated and is now 1350. My dkh is still at 11 but my calcium has dropped another 20ppm since last night which was not a surprise.

 

Explains why I had differenent calcium readings. I had 2 vials that were incorrect.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/water-chemistry/interesting-api-test-kit-issue-found-133617.html

 

I don't mean to get into an argument about this, but what you describe initially is impossible under normal circumstances.

16 frags are not taking up that much calcium. A drop of 60ppm of calcium in a 200g tank means your corals took up (this is an outrageously ballpark calculation) about 48 ml in volume of calcium. Do you see that much more coral in a day?

Please trust me on this. Stop dosing anything, then test your numbers at the same time each day for 3 days and come post the results here. That information, if based on quality test kits performed carefully, is what you need to start analyzing your circumstances.

My guess is your corals, if they are in fact still small frags, will take up very little alk and calcium. They will do so in a known proportion. If you give it time to settle, you will start seeing a pattern of slow, consistent, small drops in calcium level and larger drops in alkalinity.

 

^ Completely agree here. You're overdosing and precipitating your Alk/Ca out of the water column. This is why your seeing large fluctuations.

I speak from experience here; I was once guilty of it myself.