Kalkwasser Usage

[Ace25]

So I was doing my weekly tank chores and in the process I needed to make a new batch of kalkwasser top off. I was quite amazed how little Kalkwasser I have used. This container is over 5 years old! I have only used maybe 1/3 of it and I use it all the time in my top off water. I go through 5G of top off water every 4 days and always use kalkwasser. I stopped for a few months just to see if using 2 part was cheaper/better than using Kalkwasser for maintaining Alk/Ca.. bottom line, not even close. Nothing too exciting.. I just wanted to share how long a bottle of kalkwasser has lasted me (looks like it will last me 15 years at the rate I use it, which is 30grams per 5G of water and 80ml of vinegar.)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8065/8176194626_b99ae6df22_o.jpg

[Garf]

I agree Ace, cheap, simple, balanced and effective

[rleahaines]

With my 30 tank I add calcuim supplements [purple up and other mixed additives which contain CA] when I add top off water. Seems to work, but I wonder if the ALK/CA varies that much from day to day.

I don't have a lot of corals in the tank right now, do I need to do something more?

[kerry]

I agree, its cheap and easy. The vinegar is also cheap too, like less then a buck and a half per gallon. I mix up three gallons at at time and put that in a five gallon bucket with a little spigot I made into it. From there I fill my drip top-off containers. I normally use a gallon a day.

[Woody Gap]

Ace25
Any problem with too much bacteria build up from carbon dosing? I am having a problem with unsighly bacteria build up from vinagar dosing on rock in my display. When I back off the vinegar my nitrates creap up a little (currently at 5ppm). Right now just running a tas. Any suggestions?

[mess7777]

I like the idea of kalkwasser as well, but I just installed a Tunze ATO and am apprehensive to run kalk through it as it could reduce the useful life of the pump.

[kaskiles]

I think you can pump through a closed bottle. Pump -> tube to bottom of bottle, just above kalk layer -> tube with inlet up high -> sump. It might be a pain to get it not to dust cloud up the bottom layer if the topoff water speed is high with respect to the bottle size.

[kerry]

I dose the vinegar a bit heavy and dont have any bacteria that you can see. I am about 200ml per 3 gallons instead of 150ml like most do.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I have a client that is heavy into carbon dosing and his L2 gets really excellent growth. I have to check with him again but I believe he is dosing a Bio-Activ product in conjunction with another product. His results were actually pretty surprising even for me. Goes against what we follow as the standard expectation for scrubber and carbon dosing. But, that is only one system.

[Woody Gap]

Ok this is where I could use some help I have growth on my rocks, brown mat very slow growing that started when I started dosing vinagar. Small dosing 60 ml in every 5 gallons of kalk top of water. Have read that a skimmer will help remove bacteria but currently do not run one. When I remove vinagar my nitrates creep up a bit. I was thinking of adding a small skimmer but really like not having one. Filling tank with lsp and softies. Any thoughts?

[SantaMonica]

You can dose without the skimmer if you want; simply converts inorganics to organics. Will have to experiment to see how much causes bacterial blooms.

[Ace25]

I agree, if you start to see bacteria blooms simply back off on the amount of vinegar used. On my system, 80ml of vinegar per 5G seems to be the limit, anything more and I get bacteria blooms even using a skimmer. Without a skimmer I would probably start off at 20ml per 5G and slowly move up (+5ml a week) until you see the first signs of a bacteria bloom which is usually a white sticky coating on glass or for ATS users the algae on the screen gets very weak and starts turning to mush. Liquid carbon dosing (vinegar/vodka/vitamin C/etc) is much easier to control and fine tune than solid carbon dosing so I can see how it could be possible to carbon dose that way and still have success with an ATS. Always error on the side of caution, start slowly, and wait at least a week before increasing dosage to give the tank time to adjust.

[kerry]

Even when I dosed 100ml vinegar per gallon I never really had a bloom. A month ago my water had a slight white haze to it for a few hours and I wondered if it was the bacteria but it was before I started the kalk/vinegar drip for that day.
The least I dose is 50ml vinegar per gallon (with 2 tsp lime powder per gallon). This is all on a 40G that gets a gallon of this a day.