Kalkwasser

[Zentoolie]

Hi,
I've been reading a lot about adding kalkwasser dripped as top-off and was considering adding it to my system but have a couple of questions. Firstly my parameters

Sg: 1.024
dKh: 10
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8
Cal: 400

The tank is a 34 gallon with a hood and there is about 500ml of evaporation per day. There are only a few corals, 4 fish, a few snails, a couple of hermits and a coral banded shrimp. I am currently adding SeaChem Reef Builder twice a week to keep the Alk at 10.

The questions are should I drip 500ml of kalkwasser each and every night or would once every two days be enough, or even less?

Should I add anything else as I've read magnesium and strontium will be depleted by adding kalk. I have a product called Calcium +3 by Red Sea would this be needed or should I use something else.

And lastly I suppose do I even need to add kalkwasser or should I wait till the tank demands more calcium etc..

Thanks in advance.

Zen

 

[jansenwrasse]

Kalkwassar is a balanced additive it will raise Calcium and Alkalinity equally. It does not add Mg or Sr. How much and how often you will need to add Kalkwassar will depend on your water testing. Monitor your pH when adding Kalk as the pH will rise.

Hope this helps

 

[Sk8r]

You may need to increase your evaporation by a third, say with a fan. No lid and it's only that?
You don't say how much you're dosing. I'd say when you get to a teaspoon a day of calcium, you could be helped out by kalk.
Imho, it's not so much that it depletes mg and strontium, but that those are 2 elements not replaced by kalk. You will have to hand-dose mg, (test and keep it 3x the desired cal reading)---and just let water changes 10% weekly handle your strontium.

Do you have an autotopoff? An autotopoff reservoir? Get a piece of grid or a plastic container and put your topoff pump on it (to keep it out of the soup at the bottom.) Add a couple teaspoons of calcium a gallon in your reservoir: you don't have to be precise: ro/di water---Use ro/di water only!---dissolves a precise amount of kalk every time. The rest will dissolve at next water addition.

 

[Playa-1]

Kalk will work better if you dose daily as opposed to every other day. I would just set it up so that it slow drips enough to replace your evaporation over a 24 hr period. It looks like your current evaporation rate is around 16oz per day. I would set it up to drip that 16oz over a 24 hour period. Then keep tabs of your Calcium and ALK and if it's keeping up with the demand then your all set. If it's not keeping up in your situation then you could increase the evaporation rate like SK8r said, by using a fan. I usually evaporate about a gallon per day and I replace it with kalk. The kalk easily takes care of my Calcium and ALK requirements. With regular water changes and an rare dose of Magnesium my parameters stay inline.

And lastly I suppose do I even need to add kalkwasser or should I wait till the tank demands more calcium etc..
At this point what your doing appears to be working ok for now, however, Dripping kalk would replace the need for ReefBuilder and likely save you money. The added benefits would be your Calcium and Ph would increase a bit, which would be a good thing.

 

[sl-atl]

Re: Kalkwasser

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13073421#post13073421 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Zentoolie

...And lastly I suppose do I even need to add kalkwasser or should I wait till the tank demands more calcium etc...

In my opinion, I'm not sure you necessarily need to use kalkwasser for your particular system. I started using kalkwasser as makeup water in my 29gal, and found that while Ca and Alk. levels were very good, it was raising my pH too much. The reason for this was the large amount of topoff water my system needs versus the total water volume (in other words I was dosing too much kalkwasser.)

Right now, I use regular RO for topoff, and dose Randy's 2-part additive system daily. It is very inexpensive, and easy to do. There is a link at the top level of the Reef Chemistry Forum if you're interested in checking it out. Good luck!

 

[Zentoolie]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13073928#post13073928 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
You may need to increase your evaporation by a third, say with a fan. No lid and it's only that?
You don't say how much you're dosing. I'd say when you get to a teaspoon a day of calcium, you could be helped out by kalk.
Imho, it's not so much that it depletes mg and strontium, but that those are 2 elements not replaced by kalk. You will have to hand-dose mg, (test and keep it 3x the desired cal reading)---and just let water changes 10% weekly handle your strontium.

It has a hood/lid and it's winter here so less evaporation at the moment.

I'm only dosing the reef builder at the moment the rest is being left up to the 10% weekly water change. I'm using Coral Pro Salt.

If kalk is used every day is it likely that too much calcium will build up and pH will rise too high. If so then would there be any benefit in just using it every other day. Someone has mentioned that it's more beneficial each day but my concern would be parameters rising too much. Would smaller doses every day say 250 ml and then ro/di water for the balance be better, or less dosage of kalk say 1/4 teaspoon in a gallon delivered each day?

Zen

 

[Playa-1]

If it were to become a problem then you just dilute the kalk solution more. You should be able to find a solution that works for you. It's not all that complicated. A few link to take a look at when you get a chance.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.php

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

 

[Esquare]

Saturation is 2 tsp per gallon of water I believe so you can't really do more but you can do less. A lower ratio of kalk to water as part of your ATO may work for your needs. FWIW, I have just finished my DIY Kalk Reactor and put it online with my ATO. Prior to that, I was dripping kalk based on ph levels. The article that Playa suggested are very helpful in understanding what Kalk will do to a reef tank and will help you customize a plan for your system.

 

[SkyPapa]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13077016#post13077016 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Zentoolie

If kalk is used every day is it likely that too much calcium will build up and pH will rise too high.

Zen

IME it is really difficult to get the pH too high.

I use a saturated kalk mix for autotop off and I still have to add alk ocassionally.
My pH runs 8.2 and alk 10-11 and Ca 420.
Per RH-F (chem wizard) 8.6 pH is tolerable and will help with some nuisance algae.