Water Top-off and ???

[jadendo]

Everyday, I am adding half a gallon of RODI water to replace the evaporated amount. Question is: What else should I add along with this half gallon of replacement water? Kalk for PH? Magnesium?

Please help.

Thanks,

 

[mick243]

nothing at all if there are no deficiencies in the tank.

test your tank for things like Ca, Mg, Alk etc.

Kalc isnt directly for pH - it is for supporting Ca and Alk (if you keep your Alk right, the pH will look after itsself) but if you put kalk in your RODI you probably wont be able to put anything else in it. (good question for the reef chem guys)

 

[droth335]

nothing at all if there are no deficiencies in the tank.

test your tank for things like Ca, Mg, Alk etc.

Kalc isnt directly for pH - it is for supporting Ca and Alk (if you keep your Alk right, the pH will look after itsself) but if you put kalk in your RODI you probably wont be able to put anything else in it. (good question for the reef chem guys)

For the most part, I agree. One exception is that you can add vinegar (I beileve 45ml/US gallon) to kalc to increase the amount of saturation of kalc in water by I think about 1/3. As Mick243 noted, the decision to do this should be driven by your tank needs (e.g. Ca is low)...

 

[waterman78]

jadendo:

My suggestion is to add a ATO - auto top off tank which you can fill with Kalkwasser and RO/DI water. If you have the means to do so, it will save you a lot of time and efforts. And btw, what size tank do you have that evaporates that much water? I use a glass 10gallon tank from Wal-Mart and one of SpectraPure's ATO system with an aqualift pump. That's all...I love this ATO. I would recommend this to any reefer in this situation. Good luck.

Larry

 

[OwenInAZ]

Half gallon isn't unheard of. My 90 chews through about a half-3/4 gallon a day during the winter, and pushes a full gallon per day during the summer.

An ATO could definitely help, but doesn't really address the initial question. As was stated above, unless your tank is lacking in some component of reef chemistry that we commonly test for (alk, Ca, etc) then it should simply be fresh water.

 

[travis32]

To dose something or not, is driven by the tank needs as everyone else has said. What your tank needs is driven by what you stock, how often you do water changes, and the like. If you're doing 10-15% water changes weekly, then you may not need to dose anything. If you have a large amount of corals consuming a lot of mg, ca, alk, daily, then you should probably be dripping something.

Generally you don't want to just be throwing in a gallon of kalk at once. That could throw your PH off, and could make for some unhappy inhabitants with the sudden influx of ca and alk as well.

This probably would get more response from the chemistry guys in the reef chemistry section. Chemistry is what coral care really is all about.

And my 125g goes through a 5 gallon bucket of kalk water (with ATO) in approximately 3.5 days. Which is a little over a gallon a day! Half a gallon is nothing.... It's a lot for someone manually doing it, but, I have to fill a 5 gallon pale every 2 -3 days! (I don't like it getting too low...)

 

[DustinB]

For the most part, I agree. One exception is that you can add vinegar (I beileve 45ml/US gallon) to kalc to increase the amount of saturation of kalc in water by I think about 1/3. As Mick243 noted, the decision to do this should be driven by your tank needs (e.g. Ca is low)...

Wouldn't this cause an insane bacterial bloom in the tank? Is it not a very large carbon dose even when mixed with alk?