rose bulb anemone having adverse affects to kalkawasser...

[sophie]

I am noticing that my anemone starts off beautiful in the morning. Later, when I add my top off water with Kalkawasser in it, it shrivels up to an ugly squirmy mess then comes back later. Any thoughts?

 

Let me guess, stop dosing with kalkawasser?

[DudE31]

bingo

[sophie]

bingo

 

 

At first I thought my cleaner shrimp was ticking it off. Low and behold it was me. He is coming around now...What would be a better method of getting more coraline algae to grow? Any thougths?

[DudE31]

purple up and time .. or if your live rock does not have a substantial amount on it now go and buy a really nice coraline covered piece and put it in your tank .,... as it matures it will spread ... or if you have some now take a razor and scrape it off the rocks or some of it ... it is supposed to release spores into the water that can regenerate on other spots of the tank

[RayWhisperer]

Purple up is garbage, it throws things way out of balance. Especially alkalinity.

 

You can continue with the kalk dosing, as it is much better. Before you do though, are you dosing as recommended? Also, are you sure you even need it? Last, when you do dose with kalk to top off. You don't add it all at once, you set it on a drip.

 

Allow me to explain... Your tank may not have enough calcium using organisms to require kalk, or any other dosing. Testing your water several times a week will give you a better understanding of uptake. Once you figure out how quickly cal/alk is being used up, you adjust accordingly. Once you have it down, testing will not need to be done so often. As you add more cal using organisms, you have to re adjust. However, simple weekly water changes may be enough. Next, play with the dosage a bit. If you are using 2 tbl spoons per gallon, try doing one, then maybe 1/2. Testing your water will tell you when you have found the right amount. Last, kalk will significantly raise your PH, along with other parameters. Dosing it on a drip will slowly change params. Within a short amount of time, your system stablizes. Adding it all at once will shock your system, and will do more harm than good.

[CoolGuy77]

Are you sure it's not the top off water itself. You might want to try adding top off water a few times with no Kalkawasser in it. Just a thought, it might be the sudden salinity change thats causing the problem.

 

I have a bubble tip anemone that shrivels up at random times during the day, but then goes back to normal within a short period of time. As long as you anemone goes back to normal size it might not be something to worry about too much.

[Uhuru]

I think the problem is you are adding the kalk all at once. You have to do a drip like Ray said. Once you get it dialed in it's pretty fantastic stuff. I started getting purple and pink coralline all over my rocks and now it's spreading to the bottom. If you're going to dose all at once you're better off doing a 2 part system.