Louie, did you dose 8 tsp of baking soda in a 55 gallon tank? That sounds like quite a lot. If your calcium is really high, dosing that much baking soda would probably cause a snowstorm of calcium carbonate, so maybe your calcium isn't that high.

Here's why Liquid Reactor is such a bad idea. Alk test kits work by using acids and an indicator to show how much acid is needed to drop the ph of the sample. The liquid reactor stuff is just ground up calcium carbonate, and those tiny particles stay in suspension where they are not usable by your corals, but will cause an Alk test kit (maybe Calcium too, I don;t know) to give you a false reading because it takes excess acid to dissolve the calcium carbonate in your sample. Don't believe me? Try taking a sample of aquarium water, testing for Alk, then take another sample, stir in some sand like SD, and test the cloudy water. You'll find the Alk off the chart, even though obviously there are not more carbonate ions in solution. People sometimes say they add stuff like that and their Ca and Alk is much more "stable" That's because the stuff is not usuable by corals, and consequently stays in the water, ready to fool the test kits.

Back to Louie's tank...get a Salifert Alkalinity and Calcium test kit from Premium Aquatics. They're not that expensive and just think of the money you're going to save using household products instead the absurdly marked up aquarium products to get your tank chemistry together. Okay, once you have the kits, you could do a big water change as everyone else is sayng with IO, but you should probably measure the Ca and Alk of the new water before you add it to your tank. Usually IO mixes to about 350 PPM Calcium and about 9.5 DKH Alk. If you want to lower your Calcium, fine, add it as is, but ultimately to use IO you need to add some calcium chloride to new water to bring it to 400 PPM.

Somehow, you have to get your tank water so that Ca is about 400, and Alk is about 8-10 dkh, using the SALIFERT KITS. Once that's done, you can dissolve baking soda in fresh water in one container, dowflake or dupont calcium hardness increaser or even kent turbo calcium (if you can get a deal or just enjoy spending lots of money) in water in other container, and then there's your ultra cheap and ultra effective two part supplement. This is "Randy's recipe" for a two part additive; you'll probably use recipe 1 to get and keep your ph up. Here's a link for the recipe:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

Okay, so your tank levels are in balance and you have the home made two part supplement. Now you test your alkalinity at a certain time of day, right down the number, don't add anything to your tank (except fresh water top off) for 24 hrs, and test alkalinity again. Don't worry about Calcium. Then compare the second day number with the first. No difference? Fine, do the same thing again 24 hrs later. Make sure you do the test at the same time every day. BTW, this won't work with testing for Ca everyday; that level drops and raises much more slowly. Use the Salifert Alk test kit.

Okay, so eventually you will find, by comparing the numbers, a daily (or weekly if it's slow) drop in Alk. Then you go to the reef chemistry calculator that I posted for you last time, plug in the numbers, and you'll see how much of Randy's recipe 1 (or 2 if you're using it) you need to increase the Alk to the first day's level. That's how much of each part you dose on a daily (or weekly, depending on your drop rate) basis. You don't have to worry about the Ca level, just does the two parts, monitor the Alk level, and if it's okay your Ca will also be okay.

For a comparison, my 60 gal corner tank needs 1 gallon of KW per day and 2 ozs ( big shot) of recipe 2 everyday to maintain Alk levels at 8-10 dkh. That's a high demand for such a small tank, and it's going up fast as my corals and clams grow. If I were buying aquarium products like Kent KW mix, and B-ionic 2 part, I'd be spending a significant amount on this stuff. Instead, I can get a year's supply of KW for $1.50 (pickling lime) a year's supply of Alk supplement for $1 (baking soda) and a year's supply of Ca supplement cheap by using dowflake....I have not actually done that yet because I was able to trade Ace a couple of becketts for a big tub of turbo calcium, but when it runs out I'll get the dowflake.

Man what a long post...sorry, but if you follow this method you'll take care of all your Ca and Alk problems. Without the right test kit you're out of luck, so start with that.