Should I use kalkwasser?

[PeTe PoLyP]

I know there is no other method better than using kalk. But I have been told "If you are getting growth its better not to mess with it." I only have a few corals in my tank, no sps or anyhting spectacular. I am using kent liquid calcium currently, and i am impressed with the results. I Wouldnt want to go overboard on it and cause more harm than its worth. Should i stick with whats working, or try to improve?

[Ike]

Have you tested you Ca/Alk levels? I wouldn't go adding anything, including the Kent Liquid Calcium unless I knew I needed it.

 

Test first, dose later.

[Korbin]

1. a caclium reactor is better than kalk

 

2. yes, there is a benefit to using it even if you don't NEED it. If dosed correctly, it adds stability to the water chemistry which goes a long way in making your corals healthy. My corals are looking better than ever since I gave them a halide and started pumping them with calcium.

[Jeff D2]

Pete,

 

I don't know what size tank you have but the smaller the harder it is to use Kalk. Even then if your evaporation is low, you might not get enough Ca , ALK out of th drip even if you supercharge it with vinagar you might still have to use a balanced additive like B-Ionic. If your not using a balanced Ca/ALK scheme you might end up with some Ionic imbalance problems. Also the other post already stated you need to test these two levels before you start dosing anything, I agree.

 

What are your tanks current Ca / ALK levels at now?

 

Jeff

[HuBu]

and tank size.

[Ike]

What benefit could there possibly be in dosing anything that you don't need? If you've tested & found that your parameters are good using just water changes then how can you determine how much of the Kalk, that you don't need, to dose?

 

Generally you should be dosing Kalk in order to maintain calcium and alkalinity levels that are being depleted by calcacerous algae and/or stony corals creating their skeletal materials. You determine this by testing. If you're testing & finding that your levels arer OK then you shouldn't be adding anything. If you are attempting to raising stony coral & not testing your Ca/Alk levels then you shouldn't be raising those corals in the first place.

 

Don't dose anything if you don't need it. More is definately NOT better.

[birdman204]

are you using an Alk buffer, if you are just dosing the kents, yuor alk is most likely low.

[Crakeur]

I'm with Ike. If everything is fine, the corals are growing and all is happy in reefland, don't change a damned thing.

 

upset the equilibrium and all hell breaks loose. I do it every morning by waking up.

[newbyreef]

If it ain't broke don't fix it. However it really depends on what you are keeping in your tank, if your tank is full of SPS corals and some clams, you will mostly likely need to start dosing to control your Ca/Alk levels. a Nilsen reactor connected to a peristalic pump that tops off your sump or tank works great. I use one on my 90 gallon and am getting a nano reactor built for my 7 gallon minibow.

 

Oh and one question for Jeff. Since when does Vinegar "supercharge" Kalkwasser?? in my years of keeping large reefs, we only EVER use vinegar as a counteracting agent against too much buffer. I've never heard of it as being able to supercharge a Kalk mixture. What exactly do you mean by that?

 

Dan:o

[Dingo]

The acid in vinegar makes the lime more soluble in water. Therefore, adding vinegar makes your limewater more concentrated than possible with water alone.

[reefermadness]

about 30% more is dissolved with vinegar...and it lowers the extremely high pH of the solution and makes it a bit safer to handle. It's still pretty dangerous stuff, so I wouldn't use it as a cocktail mixer or anything. Do a search here on vinegar and kalk, or google it. There's tons of info here and out there on the subject.

 

It will take longer than you might think to deplete Ca levels in a tank with few corals, even with lots of coralline growth. If you have no sps or lps (unless you have a tank full of snails) it will take months and you can easily overdose if you are following instructions on the bottle.

 

BTW, JEFF...Kalkwasser is inherently balanced, ionically speaking and has a few other advantages over two-part additives. I've done some posts on this recently and Dingo has good sources of info, too.

[MrKrispy]

One point people are failing to mention is 2 part additives have....other additives. B ionic (popular here) has many other trace elements found in seawater. Let's not forget kalk is really just calcium. It is great, but as pointed out there are many factors, tank size and coral load being too biggies.

 

Get a calcium test, let us know your tank size and coral stock, and everyone can give better advice.

[reefermadness]

Most lime contains traces of strontium and magnesium.... Copper, and the rest of the unwanted heavy metal impurities that ARE present in lime settle to the bottom of the mixing container (the reason you let it settle for hours before dosing). Iodine is easily added to the batch and is more likely to retain its value when not exposed to the lighting (high sources like that of our tanks tend to break down iodine quickly). Dumping iodine is less likely to produce long-term stable sources of it....

 

The tank size really has no relevance if careful testing is done and the mixture is adjusted accordingly. What is important for anyone dosing kalk is their own tanks calcium usage and how to deal with it in the next batch.

[Dingo]

MrKrispy,

 

In a nano, with regular water changes, I rely upon the salt mix to provide "other additives". In this case, I strongly believe that less is better. In most cases, there is not a clear benefit to adding anything extra to a tank other then ca/alk that gets consumed by calcifiers. Because of that, I would not use 'other ingredients' as a strong reason to use a two part over limewater.

 

I started out using the Kent-CB two part. It worked well, is safe to use, and is great for beginners and advanced users alike. I just got tired of adding the stuff manually every day, thats all.

[MrKrispy]

If you see the reports on salt mixes (not just the S11) many elements considered essential are in amounts under or far under NSW. Does that mean your corals will die or suffer? Who knows, people still argue on the toxicty of adding strontium.

 

My point was that without testing for any of this stuff you don't know the biological uptake. If these elements are being depleted significantly they can be increased (slightly) with B-ionic easily.

I use both methods and I have yet to notice an increase in strontium or magnesium from kalk, and my levels decreased after a water change.

 

Of course the strontium test isn't so accurate so....

[reefermadness]

Most of the reports I have seen, including this one clearly show that the major elements contained in salt mixes are equal to or greater than their concentrations in NSW.

 

Iodine is not represented in this particular study, and IMO is an important additive that is consumed readily by the organisms in an artificial reef. It is the only chemical that I add and test (tests for Iodine are easy and accurate), other than Kalkwasser solution (which contains only small amounts of Sr and Mg). Most notably, strontium is in abundance in most salt mixes and would make a good argument for not dosing a tank with Sr that sees regular water changes. If you are dosing some of these elements too heavily (B-Ionic seems safe, but adding the elements independently could be dangerous), and they appear in great concentrations, then it only makes sense that they would drop after a water change. This would tell me that the concentrations in your tank were higher than that of NSW if you were able to read losses with the test.

 

Is this bad? It's certainly not the same as NSW, but I wouldn't use any additive for which I cannot accurately test. I think most, if not all of the kits on the market for Strontium and Magnesium are difficult to use and are off the mark. A colorimeter or liquid chromatograph would work well, but the can be a bit pricey for the average reefkeeper. Krispy is right in that if you can't test for it, don't dump it in your tank....

[birdman204]

go on a trip or leave for 5 days, and your levels will be out of line. WC are always the best option. If you don't like synthetic , get natural

[reefermadness]

Using a refractometer that has automatic temperature correction, my salinity has only decreased in my larger tanks in the past two years, probably due to salt creep. I only dose Kalk made with RO water and iodine, nothing else. The water changes made biweekly are the exact salinity and temp of the show tanks.

 

BTW- with a good kalk top-off system with a medical dosing pump, you could leave for weeks with someone to feed the tank if you trust our neighbor not to overfeed (which I dont). My Ca levels have not changed in several months, and then only due to laziness in mixing the Kalk solution.

[birdman204]

reefermadness, I was referring to the use of b-ionic and c-balance and the such.

[reefermadness]

I'm with you now...sorry

[MrKrispy]

my memory failed, I was referring to calcium, strontium, and magnesium, and thought they were sub-par (except stronitum in IO, I remembered reading that).

 

FWIW, I tend not to actually dose, I add my supplements to my makeup water (NSW) and try to add kalk when I calcium has been staying under ~430ppm for over a week. Since I use NSW I have to add the strontium since it tends to be low (but I mentioned the test accuracy and take that in to account).

 

I can't stick with kalk because I have yet to determine a good amount of the supernatant to add to my topoff water to keep a stable Ca level.

 

Maybe someone can help me and Petey Polyp out with that one.

[reefermadness]

There are several recipes out there from one tsp/Gallon to one tbs/gallon. Only a certain amount will dissolve and the rest will settle out. Lime is cheap and you can safely dump in far more than you can dissolve. I had trouble maintaining levels with lime only, since my evaporation rate was very low. I added vinegar and have been maintaining levels at 430ppm for months.

 

No one can tell you exactly what will work for your tank. There are just too many variables to give an accurate answer. You can start off with a tsp/gallon and see where it takes you (testing for Ca at the same time each day). If levels drop from there you can add more lime, or just mix in some vinegar (in appropriate amounts). You will most likely burn through a whole test kit before you get everything right and weekly testing (when you mix the new solution) will tell you what's going on. It's actually pretty easy to "guesstimate" once you have an idea how your tank is reacting. You must continue to test because the conditions will change as things grow, and new things are added/removed. Just for example, my makeup water vessel is four gallons....I add a cup of white vinegar, then dissolve a 1/4 cup of lime, then top off with RO and mix again. I found that my tank evaporates at a rate of 160-165 ml/hour (depending on the season) by trial and error with a medical dosing pump. I think an accurate pump is indispensible for dosing kalk and is relatively inexpensive...You can do a nightly drip, but that seems like a hassle to me and it makes things more difficult when trying to get the solution right. It is difficult but not impossible to overdose. Care should be taken at first to determine if everything is going in the right direction (ideally staying stable every week between 400 and 450ppm) and the infusion method is reliable.

 

Kalkwasser MUST be dripped, not dumped and you should always wait an hour after mixing to get a clearer, cleaner solution (Lime contains several impurities you don't want in the tank, especially if you use builder's lime).... For more info on the available dosing pumps out there and/or modifying them for aquarium use, e-mail me and I'll be glad to help.

[MrKrispy]

I use a peristaltic pump to add top off water 3 times (timer) over a 24 hour period at a rate of..... 2 drips per second. I add my iodide to topoff water as needed. I have a 3 gallon container, and add about half of my kalk supernatant to it when my Ca is very low. I try to not let it get below 430ppm, but sometimes I forget or don't get around to making the kalk. This method has resulted in my Ca getting a little too high so I am working on reducing the amount of kalk supernatant.

 

Oh, I do the standard 1 tsp/gallon water.

[birdman204]

Krispy , you are on the right track. another few values you should be tracking as well as Ca are dKH and PH as well. I have gone from 5 ML ( inknow that is a wet measurement) to 4 ML of Kalk per gallon, That is about .8 of a teaspoon. and my levels are stable. With your system Krispy, is all water that is replaced kalkwasser? I spanned my testing over 8 weeks, and found with 1 full tsp my CA increased approx. 30 points , so I have cut back the kalk and am getting thru the first week now. testing tommorrow...

[reefermadness]

If you've got the pump, why not drip constantly without the timer? It sounds like you have a lot of evap, or few Ca consumers. Are you using a fan?