Dingo Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 It has been said already, but... Get your ca over 400 ppm and your alk up to 11 dKH . The proper ca/alk will fix your PH and the coraline will grow like a weed. Link to comment
MakoMan36 Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 my calcium drop from 440 to 360 in two days is this normal?i dose liquid calcium every 2 days ans getting tired of it . i thinking of can i dose the calcium in the freshwater top off and let it go to the tank with my auto top off? Link to comment
MrKrispy Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 gOT reef is your tank cycling? No, lots of stony corals??? Link to comment
MakoMan36 Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 my tank is 4 months old . i got SPS ,LPS, Zoos .i got alot of caroline alges growing on the glass .this last 2 weeks the caroline algea is dying off about 50% and the xenias is shrinking slowly to nothing .so i bought the calcium tester .i first time i test it was at 320 ,now i keep it up at 440. my water are : AM-0 , Trite-0,Trate-0, PH-8.1-8.4,Alk 12 Link to comment
Masoch Posted December 19, 2003 Share Posted December 19, 2003 Hiya, Ditch the Aragamilk, it's a waste of money. If you're feeling advanced, try limewater / kalkwasser. It's really, really cheap (as pickling lime) and boosts alk and calcium. If you drip it at night, it'll boost your pH by binding with carbon dioxide to make calcium carbonate. Carbon dioxide depresses pH in water by forming (if I remember rightly from my homebrewing days) carbolic acid. Otherwise, try a two part calcium additive like B-Ionic or Kent's two parter. One part is calcium the other is buffer. I prefer kalk, mostly 'cause it's cheaper and has side benefits. FWIW, I have an urchin that eats pretty much only coralline in a 20 ... and I still have the damn stuff taking over my glass. The little bastard actually spreads it; the spores get released in his turds ... and the spores end up everywhere. I put some frags on base rock a couple weeks ago, and the rock's already getting covered in coralline. Coralline looks perty, but it's a freakin' PITA to clean. If you asked me, I'd say that tanks look better covered in frags than algae anyways. I'm done rambling now. Link to comment
Whitten Posted December 19, 2003 Author Share Posted December 19, 2003 Masoch, that was no ramble. What you just said provided me with a good laugh, and great info. I really appreciate the help on the 2 part vs. the Kalk. I have gone ahead and started adding kalk to my tank by way of gently stirring it into my distilled top off water. However, since I don't have an auto top off I just do it the old fashioned way of pouring it in very slowly. I am hoping to get one, but I have little to no money right now with it being Christmas, and I have no clue where to get one. I had thought about doing a diy project, but I just have no clue where to start or even what to buy. Until I get it figured, I guess I will continue just putting 2 table spoons into my gallon jug and mixing them slowly. By the way does anyone have a better way to mix the water and kalk? Link to comment
Dingo Posted December 19, 2003 Share Posted December 19, 2003 GotReef, my tank does the same thing. You have a few choices to stop adding every day. One is to use Kalk in your topoff, but you have to be very careful not to add it quickly. Search on kalkwasser or kalk. You could also spend the bucks or make some kind of calcium reactor. What I am doing currently is dropping Seachem #28 blocks in the tank which maintain your ca levels for about 4 days, and adding Reefbuilder carbonate alkalinity builder to my topoff for alk. I may switch to kalk when I use up my supply of blocks to see what happens. Link to comment
MakoMan36 Posted December 19, 2003 Share Posted December 19, 2003 i went to the LFS the other day and ask then about my situation and this what they come up with , they said the salt im using (instant ocean) dont have enough calcium for the reef system and the calcium that im using(kent liqiud calcium) are the worst calcium brand out there . they told me to switch to carollife salt and seachem product. is this another BS ? Link to comment
Masoch Posted December 20, 2003 Share Posted December 20, 2003 they said the salt im using (instant ocean) dont have enough calcium for the reef system and the calcium that im using(kent liqiud calcium) are the worst calcium brand out there . they told me to switch to carollife salt and seachem product. is this another BS ? IO does have low calcium, that's why Aquarium Systems has Reef Crystals ... that said, bumping up calcium is easy. Kalk and two-part systems do a great job, and the one-part calcium supplements can rais calcium levels in a hurry. According to Randy at ReefCentral (the resident chemistry guru), there's no real functional difference between any of the calcium additives -- be they one-part or two-part. The one caveat is that Aragamilk sucks. Just one thing to add... the one-part additives can knock your chemistry out of whack -- they aren't balanced. You can muck up your calcium levels (way to hight) and screw up your hardness. I don't really understand the chemistry of it, but what the hell. Link to comment
Whitten Posted December 20, 2003 Author Share Posted December 20, 2003 Well I get some answers today that preatty much put an end to my questions above. Being the curious soul that I am I bought my CA/Alk tester today finally. My Ca was at 390 ppm, and my Alk was at 13. My PH was at 8.0, and my nitrate.....well lets just say that for the first time my tank spiked. I am thinking that all of this time, and the tank had never really cycled. My LR that I put in the tank was almost completely dead so there was no bacteria to start the tank going when I did. So when I went back to the store and bought more rock that was encrusted(3 weeks ago) I believe that is when the tank started to run it's course. I did a water change after my test, and will only be dripping kalk now. On a side note, I added calurpa to the tank for some color, and some extra safe guards agains a crash. Now that all of that is settled I believe that my tank will get under way with becoming very preatty. I am planning on changing the HOB that I am using to an Aqua clear mini, and getting a 25 what Hagen thermal heater eventually, as well as running purigen in the filter chamber. Until then I bought my G/f one of those cutesy little Red Sea Deco-Art 3 Gallon deals, and I am gonna get her a little mini reef setup with a Nemo, and Jocque. Link to comment
MrKrispy Posted December 20, 2003 Share Posted December 20, 2003 aw sheesh, get that calurpa outta there. You are gonna slit your wrists in a few months if you don't. Don't worry about color now, it will get added as corals and coralline. IO salt is low in calcium, I use to add some B-ionic Ca++ to my water as it was mixing to bump it up to 450ppm. Even the NSW I get is low, so I do the same. Kalk rules make sure you do a lot of reading on it before you start dripping. Link to comment
birdman204 Posted February 1, 2004 Share Posted February 1, 2004 Just a bit of info masoch. The reason that 1 part additives are hard... You can't mix the chemicals in a 2 part solution together, They will become inert and bond with eachother. Ca and ALK are directly related. Your CA goes up, your Alk goes down. Respectivley. You can only have so much of these dissovled solids in any given space. With that said, the benefits of kalkwasser are that you can use it as one part. Not only does it help maintain CA, and PH, but if dosed properly, your alk will stay in line. Some people experience ALK drops when using kalk, But i am sure that most of those cases, the CA is going way up. Just a little info for me to add On a side note. You can mix in a max of .6 gallons of full strength kalk into a 10G tank over the course of a day, but you shouldn't add more than a half a cup at a time, or you will get an alkalinity and PH spike that is too drastic for your corals to handle over time/ So whitten, if you can ,get an auto top off, or get a drip container, those kents ones are fine, and have the gallon of kalk run out in sayyyy, 4 days, do some tests , see where you are at and adust from there the amount of kalk drip. HTH Link to comment
MrKrispy Posted February 1, 2004 Share Posted February 1, 2004 i added 1 tsp of kalk to one gallon of highly pure water. Let it settle overnight. I added 3/4 of that gallon to 3.5 gallons of my highly pure topoff water, and mixed. I have a ton of white sediment at the bottom of the container now, not really sure if that is supposed to be normal. I don't know what could have precipitated to that degree. Link to comment
Whitten Posted February 2, 2004 Author Share Posted February 2, 2004 See that was going to be next question, since I get the same thing. What is the best way to mix the kalk, since when it comes in contact with air and water it turns to calcium carbonate. Experts let me know, because if it is safe to do it in my top off then I will begin the use of kalk again, only this time doing it properly. On a side note aswell, my tank seems to have so much light that my softies are getting angry at me. In an attempt to make them feel better I have moved them all to the bottom, however my plate coral hitchhiker is doing wonderfully. I am hoping that if I can introduce a correct ammount of calcium to my water then things will really tanke off. I have yet to see any coraline growth all over my tank, but then again after my last little bout with parameters in my tank I can see why. Link to comment
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