Maintaining High Alk Levels ...

[oneradtek202]

in a mature system seems to be my struggle right now. ive been good around 8-9 but tonight it dropped to 7 . This is the MOST stressful part of maintaining my reef tank. My mag is 1400, any other tips on keepin it above 9! id be keeping my pump on 24-7 if i wanted that at the rate im going

oh yea, STN has started coming back too. GREAT

 

[Capt_Cully]

Drip kalk.

 

[oneradtek202]

damn man, up late? sent ya a text

 

[Capt_Cully]

Babies can't tell time.

I know you've used it in the past and had trouble with pumps seizing. Maybe drip it into a different high flow area?

 

[pascal32]

Congrats, you must have some good growth! You decide on kalk or 2 part? How many dosing pumps and what kind do you have?

Also saliferts kit was update sometime last year/this year and the new kit has different directions and reads lower. You might want to check your kits directions to make sure you have a good number

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I do regular water changes, run a calcium reactor, use kalk for topoff and supplement with liquid two parts and I still can't keep alkalinity up where I want it.

I suppose it's a good problem to have but what a PITA.

FWIW I know my alkalinity is dropping into the critical low zone when one of my Acros starts developing a white spot (tissue necrosis). Bumping alkalinity up to NSW range (8-9dKH) usually results in this Acro quickly repairing itself.

 

[Paradiddle7]

I think my Salifert kits were running 1.5 to 2.0 dkh high. I'm using the HannaChecker now.

Congrats, you must have some good growth! You decide on kalk or 2 part? How many dosing pumps and what kind do you have?

Also saliferts kit was update sometime last year/this year and the new kit has different directions and reads lower. You might want to check your kits directions to make sure you have a good number

 

[diverdick]

in a mature system seems to be my struggle right now. ive been good around 8-9 but tonight it dropped to 7 . This is the MOST stressful part of maintaining my reef tank. My mag is 1400, any other tips on keepin it above 9! id be keeping my pump on 24-7 if i wanted that at the rate im going

oh yea, STN has started coming back too. GREAT

Brandon,

The last time we talked, you were using 2 part. Are you still?

For my system (works for me), I run 2 part from BRS solely delivering with metering pumps (pulsafeder PD pumps). The pumps have variable speed and stroke to nicely define addition rates. I connect them to consumer grade digital timers that dose 8 x (evenly spaced) daily ea., offset by an hour from each other. I test levels every three days and only make tweaks to the stroke if needed. The system trend ranges from 8.8 to 9.5 over two weeks (for ex.). Calcium seems way better behaved for sure in terms of variation.

I recently moved to the B system using Sodium Bicarbonate since my pH climbed during alk additions using soda ash. The pH shifting high happened immediately after I upgraded the skimmer to the ETSS2000 configuration. The added sparging from the skimmer eliminated any CO2 influences to pH (regardless of winter conditions - closed home).



Good Luck!

 

[oneradtek202]

hmm im thinking i over did it last night. i dumped a little bit of baking soda in my top off water and today my alk was 11.....ut oh.....ca 420

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

fwiw

fwiw

I never add dry baking soda directly to any reef aquarium because pH and alkalinity can rise rapidly.

Make a liquid supplement with it!

 

[Capt_Cully]

Getting over this hump us one thing, how do you guys feel about kalk reactors? Too much automation can lead to complacency, but, as a delivery system, perhaps this would help streamline things. I had various drip set ups in the past, most were jimmy-rigged contraptions. Inevitably they'd clog up causing further issues.

Any of you running a reactor for kalk?

 

[pascal32]

Getting over this hump us one thing, how do you guys feel about kalk reactors? Too much automation can lead to complacency, but, as a delivery system, perhaps this would help streamline things. I had various drip set ups in the past, most were jimmy-rigged contraptions. Inevitably they'd clog up causing further issues.

Any of you running a reactor for kalk?

Personally I likethe Kalk stirrers that are out there. A lot of folks say get a big bin, which is fine, but all these bins take space. I would shy away from pump based ones for maintenance reasons. You do need amcontroller to run these and and a pump (i would go dosing pump), so the bill adds up fast.

I looked at this for the 72 and couldn't justify the expense since I already have 2 part running for the other system and spare dosing pump heads on the BM doser

 

[oneradtek202]

hmm this seems to be a more popular issue than i imagined lol

 

[GMaquarium]

I have personally just switched back to a bucket on a magnetic stir plate. Something I have used for many years. The reactor it was a huge pita to open up and clean. I often neglected adding new kalk because of it. Aside from looking cool I see no benefit to using a kalk stir reactor. Well, maybe one benefit, I ran it in line with ato and the pump would run clean water into reactor. Now the pump runs kalk water, no big deal.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Any of you running a reactor for kalk?

this is probably one piece of equipment that I'll never purchase.

It's just too darn easy to make 30 gallons of kalkwasser in a Brute.

 

[Capt_Cully]

What brand did you have?

 

[Capt_Cully]

this is probably one piece of equipment that I'll never purchase.

It's just too darn easy to make 30 gallons of kalkwasser in a Brute.

Not using the basement set up this time, limits space. My ATO bucket is a 33 gallon brute, but its stuffed in a closet. Cleaning it out wont be an easy task. I'm investigating possibilities but don't have any experience with kalk reactors.

I've run a homemade drip bucket, which clogged frequently. I've used an aqualifter, whichever worked better, but still had clogging issues in the air line.

Sorry if I'm hijacking Brando, but you had issues in the past with pumps seizing while dripping kalk right?

I will say that when I had issues with maintaining alk, kalkwasser saved the day.

 

[Gravesj1s]

I ve went from dripping manually to a magnetic stir plate (alf nilsens method),then switched to a modern kalkreactor after the stir plate finally burntout.
Finally ,settled on using a still reservoir with tmz's persistient and detailed posts.Thankfull for that, I almost gave up on it.

Personally ,I found using a kalkreactor difficult.That likely stems from having built a fireplace that causes the evaporation to flunctuate wildly.This became a problem with adding the correct amount of kalk to the reactor.My tanks evaporation varied anywhere from 3/4 of a gal to over 2 gal in a single day.
Ultimately the consequences seen were not adding enough to adding twice the amount and overdosing.

I may someday go back to using one but, only if the demand for caco3 exceeded what I could get from the still resirvor.

I still have the kalkreactor and Ill kindly offer it up to any of you that are local if you wanted to try it out for the summer,,its the 1000 model brs sells.Good demo on that site to check out as well.
-Steve

 

[pascal32]

Steve- you touched on my big gripe with kalk- using it as topoff. With topoff varied through days and seasons it seems somewhat uncontrolled. Using kalk via a dozing pump in addition to an ATO sounds great. The ato will self regulate against the amount of mall added. If the water level rises then you exceeded evap (float switch warning)

 

[block head]

friend uses a geo reactor/ato set up. the tube clogs,but seems ok for the most part. i'd take it or leave it.