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Thread: KALK question

  1. #11
    kerry's Avatar
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    I thought that to Floyd (I do not disagree with you at all but, I would like to share my findings. I was even afraid to use the lime water AKA KALK. I happen to hold your advice in very HIGH regard Floyd.), so, I did some investigating. Granted it was not super duper thorough but, this is what I found. Take this place for instance http://www.gettankedaquariums.com/in...Main.Page..htm . They have calcium chloride that is only 94-97% pure. The stuff I got at my local pool supply was only .05% impurity which was labeled as chloride??? I figured it had to be OK. Its so concentrated in the first place that you do not need much. I mixed 1.25 cups to a gallon. Approximately One Liter of this mix raised my 40g Ca a lot, it was around 200PPM increase or so. I didn't get a 100% check on the first test as it was in the area of 150PPM, yes very low. After 1L of Ca mix dripped in it went to 350PPM. I figured most of the time I will be using the KALK and only using the Ca chloride for adjustments when the ALK is to high to dose KALK. Any other experience or data on this would be very appreciated as in the past I have always bought the bottled pre-packaged dosing stuff from the SW supply outlets. So please any input would be great.
    150G. Reef/Mix
    125G. 3 Regular Oscars/1 Jack Dempsey
    75G. 20+ Africans
    40G. Fish/Reef. Algae Scrubbers on ALL my SW
    10G. SW Fish/Reef.
    10G. SW Hospital/new fish quarantine/pod breeder tank
    6 stage RO/DI system 200 GPD.

  2. #12
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    I know many people that use "pool supply" stores or grocery stores to buy kalk and Ca. As long as it is pure calcium hydroxide it is safe to use. After all, it is just a chemical compound, not some secret formula.

    For mixing/dosing Calcium Chloride your mix ratio sounds about right. I use the Bulk Reef Supply pouches which contain about 2 cups worth and mix that in with 1G of RO/DI water.

  3. #13
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    I thought that 1.25 cup was a bit much but this was the only recipe I could find on the net. I added 2G to it to cut it back some. For the KALK I use about two rounded teaspoons per gallon. My ALK is coming down slowly it was about 15-16-ish now its 1350 or so. My Mg is still over 1500 after about 10 days or so.

    Thanks to all for the advice on this as its helped me a lot.

    I was a water change baby for decades and did them once a week so I never got into the dosing thing since this stuff was in the salt mix. Now with the scrubber the WC's have been eliminated so this dosing deal is a little bit of a learning curve. I am very glad for this opportunity to learn new knowledge on this hobby that I love so much.
    I think we need to start a thread about dosing for these folks that are new to not doing water changes. I think this info is very important so others that are accustomed to doing water changes does not get burned by not dosing and loose corals. I was fortunate and only lost one but, I am pretty observant about what goes on in my tanks and seen a problem so I started taking 25% water changes at it daily after the first 60% change but, this was little to late to save my plate coral.
    150G. Reef/Mix
    125G. 3 Regular Oscars/1 Jack Dempsey
    75G. 20+ Africans
    40G. Fish/Reef. Algae Scrubbers on ALL my SW
    10G. SW Fish/Reef.
    10G. SW Hospital/new fish quarantine/pod breeder tank
    6 stage RO/DI system 200 GPD.

  4. #14
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    I wouldn't worry about Mag, 1500 is actually ok. There is a "theory" that has been going around for years that if you keep your Mg above 1500 then hair algae does not grow well in the display. Personally I have never found that to be true, actually would cause issues with an ATS if it were true, but still people keep spreading that one over the years, so if you see someone mention that theory just take it with a huge grain of salt. Normally 1350 would be considered "safe middle ground" for Mg but I have seen people push it to over 2000 without problems, although I wouldn't recommend it.

    Alkalinity is the biggest killer of tanks. Calcium and Magnesium levels have swing quite a bit without any issues as long as the swing is within the "safe zone". Unfortunately the same can not be said for Alk. While it also has a large "safe zone", Alk 7-12, if you get large swings that go over 1 full point in 48 hours (like going from 9-10 on Alk), even if it is in the safe zone, it could cause a lot of problems in the tank. Alk is the one you have to be super careful about, which means be super careful with Kalk, especially when first starting out. Your 2 teaspoons per gallon sounds good, just make sure it doesn't go into the tank to quickly. If your using it with ATO water and have a lot of evaporation you may want to "cut" the kalk to 1/2 strength. Easiest way is to mix full strength kalk and then take a scoop of water out of the Kalk water, then 1 scoop out of RO/DI water into your ATO container in order to make the Kalk 50% strength.

  5. #15
    kerry's Avatar
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    I have a DIY 1L dosing device that I let drip no more then a drop per second. This seems to work well. All this dosing advice has been a huge help to me and I am sure others that have read it to.
    We need to get a sticky thread going with dosing and testing for folks new to scrubber use and unfamiliar with dosing supplements. The scrubber is a great tool for SW keeping but can be trouble if one is not familiar with dosing supplements if they are use to doing WC's every or every other week. One should be made aware that if they stop water changes then they need to dose to keep certain levels up for their fish and or corals to survive.
    150G. Reef/Mix
    125G. 3 Regular Oscars/1 Jack Dempsey
    75G. 20+ Africans
    40G. Fish/Reef. Algae Scrubbers on ALL my SW
    10G. SW Fish/Reef.
    10G. SW Hospital/new fish quarantine/pod breeder tank
    6 stage RO/DI system 200 GPD.

  6. #16
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    I seem to recall that you're not supposed to raise Calcium more than 50 points/day and Magnesium no more than 100. A raise of 200 points in one hours seems like it's way over the top. Just saying...

  7. #17
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    Ya, I wouldn't recommend doing more than what you said, it is always best to raise or lower any parameter as slowly as possible in this hobby. But the chances of causing a major problem by accidentally adding 80 CA at once isn't the end of the world if it falls within the safe range... adding 2 points of Alk at once on the other hand can cause serious problems. Adding both at once in large amounts will also lead to serious problems, major precipitates, in turn sucking all the alk and ca out of the water.

    I was assuming he was testing on sample water to figure out correct dosage, I hope that wasn't 200 at once on his display.

  8. #18
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    Ace , can you please give a list of possible problems (symptoms) caused by alc swings ? I feel like I have something wrong in my tank, just havent figured what it is yet.

  9. #19
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    Easiest/most common symptom to see is burnt tips on SPS corals or weak/tearing flesh on some types of LPS. Every tip will be white/dead and the flesh will look like it has been sunburned, all crackly looking.

    In most tank crash cases that are not equipment related, it is usually over reaction by the owners to a perceived problem that is the demise of the tank. I just witnessed it over the last month.. a friends tank was crashing, he couldn't find the cause but the he tried to fix the problem he thought he was seeing. Turns out the tests were bad and the controller was faulty, so he was reading low pH and big alk swings and he kept adding alk and buffers to try and control it, only ended up making things 10x worse. He finally figured out his problems but he lost 90% of his corals before that.

    One of the best motto's for our hobby I think is "SPS = Stability Promotes Success". The goal is to keep everything as stable as possible, even if something is out of whack. If you react slowly to a bad parameter to get it back into proper levels your corals will love you for it, react quickly thinking you must get a parameter back at a certain level ASAP, then the whole tank will start fighting you and you will never win that battle.

  10. #20
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    I have some zoas (not all) and some shrooms(not all) looking really bad. At the same time all sps look good, polyps extracted all the time and nice growth. But this seems not similar to your described symptoms. My Ca is very hard to keep up. Its falling
    schockingly fast all the time.

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