brad
Active member
I've been in this hobby 12 years. Over that time, my greatest success with Acropora has been when I was using kalkwasser only (no 2 part, no calcium reactor, etc). This seems to be the best indication of my success, regardless of actual calcium/alk parameters, and regardless of what lights I use, and regardless of how much flow I have in my tank.
In 2002, I had tremendous success with whatever Acropora I tried, when everyone was telling me not to try Acropora because I only had power compacts and no flow other than my return. My Calcium was around 300 (replacing all evaporation with fully saturated limewater and manually adding as much cloudy limewater as I could while keeping pH under 8.4). Growth was fantastic, and I was making money selling frags and even thinking seriously about earning a living doing it.
I moved around a lot until 2005 (no small feat with a 120 gallon). I lost most of my Acropora and blamed the moves, but by this time I was using lots of 2 part. I switched to a calcium reactor, halides, Tunze streams, a bigger tank, etc. My tanks had ups and downs, I never had the same phenomenal growth rate.
The cost of MH got to me (Ohio has very expensive power too) so I stopped adding SPS, eventually losing all of them. When LED came out, I realized I could 'blast' my tank with light cheaply, and tried SPS again. I had some real success, I remember an Oregon tort really taking off with growth (typically not the fastest grower) and awesome color. By this time, my Ca reactor had been shut down do to a pump malfunction and it not really being needed without SPS in the tank. Since I added SPS back, I was adding limewater again and measuring with the plan of adding the reactor back or using 2 part when levels dropped. My main concern with the tank at the time was Nitrate (60ppm) so Calcium got very little attention. I was also getting married, and doing a lot of home improvement projects to make the house nice for my wife.
Unfortunately, one home improvement project involved getting the electrical in the basement to code, and I quickly moved all my aquarium stuff to a different outlet, realized I wouldn't finish this project before the wedding, grabbed my tux and went away for 5 days. I came back to find the outlet I moved everything to was GFCI protected upstream, and it tripped, killing all my fish, anemones and most of my coral on my wedding night.
I have since moved the tank and done a 100% water change. Nitrate is low (water change + fewer fish to feed). I added a few SPS frags and a clam, and assumed I didn't even need to test Ca and Alk until I saw growth. Nothing grew. So I tested Ca and Alk and saw it was low, fixed it with 2 part, and still nothing grew.
Today I set up a kalkwasser drip, since that is the only variable I can correlate with success (except maybe HIGH nitrates). If this fixes my problem, everyone will tell me I just needed to wait for Acropora to adjust to more stable conditions. But I wonder if kalkwasser is somehow working much better than just keeping my testable Ca and Alk levels where they need to be. I know most tanks of the month, especially SPS heavy ones are using Ca reactors, but I wondered if anyone else here had experiences with kalkwasser similar to mine.
In 2002, I had tremendous success with whatever Acropora I tried, when everyone was telling me not to try Acropora because I only had power compacts and no flow other than my return. My Calcium was around 300 (replacing all evaporation with fully saturated limewater and manually adding as much cloudy limewater as I could while keeping pH under 8.4). Growth was fantastic, and I was making money selling frags and even thinking seriously about earning a living doing it.
I moved around a lot until 2005 (no small feat with a 120 gallon). I lost most of my Acropora and blamed the moves, but by this time I was using lots of 2 part. I switched to a calcium reactor, halides, Tunze streams, a bigger tank, etc. My tanks had ups and downs, I never had the same phenomenal growth rate.
The cost of MH got to me (Ohio has very expensive power too) so I stopped adding SPS, eventually losing all of them. When LED came out, I realized I could 'blast' my tank with light cheaply, and tried SPS again. I had some real success, I remember an Oregon tort really taking off with growth (typically not the fastest grower) and awesome color. By this time, my Ca reactor had been shut down do to a pump malfunction and it not really being needed without SPS in the tank. Since I added SPS back, I was adding limewater again and measuring with the plan of adding the reactor back or using 2 part when levels dropped. My main concern with the tank at the time was Nitrate (60ppm) so Calcium got very little attention. I was also getting married, and doing a lot of home improvement projects to make the house nice for my wife.
Unfortunately, one home improvement project involved getting the electrical in the basement to code, and I quickly moved all my aquarium stuff to a different outlet, realized I wouldn't finish this project before the wedding, grabbed my tux and went away for 5 days. I came back to find the outlet I moved everything to was GFCI protected upstream, and it tripped, killing all my fish, anemones and most of my coral on my wedding night.
I have since moved the tank and done a 100% water change. Nitrate is low (water change + fewer fish to feed). I added a few SPS frags and a clam, and assumed I didn't even need to test Ca and Alk until I saw growth. Nothing grew. So I tested Ca and Alk and saw it was low, fixed it with 2 part, and still nothing grew.
Today I set up a kalkwasser drip, since that is the only variable I can correlate with success (except maybe HIGH nitrates). If this fixes my problem, everyone will tell me I just needed to wait for Acropora to adjust to more stable conditions. But I wonder if kalkwasser is somehow working much better than just keeping my testable Ca and Alk levels where they need to be. I know most tanks of the month, especially SPS heavy ones are using Ca reactors, but I wondered if anyone else here had experiences with kalkwasser similar to mine.
