Using kalk water only for topoff?
 

Hi everyone. I just started using kalk yesterday, and I'm wondering how people can get away with only using kalk water for topoff. With my system dripping once every 2-3 seconds, it's not even close to keeping up with my evaporation. I know I should drip any faster for pH reasons, but how do people do it? Am I being conservative with my drip? My pH stands at 8.4 right now (10:00pm). Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!


120gal
27gal sump

hello we to just started using a top off and we go through 2 and half gallons a day we have not put kalk in it yet, but soon . and we are using a calcium buffer too and alkline buffer solution to go with that the more the merryier .
Thanks, Andy (BC_Grl's husband)

Personally, my sumpless 90 gal system evaporates less than 3/4 of a gallon per day. I drip half of that at night after lights out and the other half in the morning. With a full container I get a thin stream that tapers off to drops about half-way through. I mix up 4 day supplies of saturated solution at a time and have never had any pH probs this way.

If your calcium consumption rate does not require using saturated kalk solution you could always drop the kalk concentration and up the delivery rate.

HTH

Re: Using kalk water only for topoff?
 

you will be able if you stop any other buffer and calcium addition. then add the more kalk you can without never get you ph more then 8,5 if you are not able to replace all the top off cause the PH climb to hight you have not enought calcium consumtion for your evaporation rate if the PH go to low then you will have to add buffer and calcium two part to help

A good way is to add a kalkwasser reactor all your water top off pass trought it and you adjust you stiring pump start to go match you consumption with the help of you PH the more you need the more you stir that way you could find tune you sistem to use only kalk realy easy witout any test of calcium and alkalinity but you need a PH meter and keep PH between 8.1 -8.5

Thanks everyone. I don't think my tank has a very high calcium consumption, since the tank is pretty new and most of my corals are smal/med sized frags. I guess I'll just slow down on the kalk and use regular topoff water as well. Or more likely I'll take Ron's advice and mix a weaker kalk solution so I can drip faster.

I'm assuming you aren't testing for Ca, you should, the calcium test kit isn't expensive and it can give you an idea of where your calcium levels are at. Remember too that live rock will use some calcium, actually the coraline algae will use it, and if you use strong actinic light you may be surprised by how much coraline algae growth you get.

BC I found that with kalk use you dont realy need to test calcium and mostly only PH tell me how well my calcium

as long as you start with a balance calcium and alkalinity level and dont add any buffer or calcium additive the kalk will keep in target you could even just look at the alkalinity if the alkalinty is on the right level
you are ok cause kalk add 100% the popper depletion rate it is good to test it 4 time a years for calcium but not realy more and other time PH will tell and once a month alkalinity will confirm

when you well know kalk use you just dont need to do any calcium and alkinity test and only read PH but at first you could do some to understand how it work

be shure to never cross over 8.6 PH as you will have precipitation and break the balance if you do, balance back you tank adding buffer or calcium supplement to get the balance and then start over with the


here is realy good tread anyone new should read and realy read it until you 100% understand how calcium alkalinity work with each other in balance

good read!

keep use update

Stephane, I have to disagree with that. Calcium can be depleted at different rates that alk. If someone regularly adds anything, they need to regularly test for that substance.

Mason, test your alk and Ca and then we can determine what, if anything, you need to add. If your levels are way off, kalk will only keep them way off; remember, kalk maintains levels, it doesn't change them. There is a formula to match alkalinity consumption to strength of kalk, I'll see if I can dig it up.
Do not blindly add things to your tank without knowing you need it and knowing how much you need. If your tank is new (how old is new?) and you only have small frags (of what?) you may not need anything more than a water change schedule and the small size bottles of your favorite 2 part mix.

Stephane, this may be working for you but it is how I got in trouble.. I had everything ballanced then I started dosing Kalk, I ended up with a serious Mg and Ca deficiencys. In my opinion if you are dosing anything with out testing you are playing with fire..

Like some one once said on this board.. you spend over 5000.00 on the stuff in your tank.. why cheep out on a 20.00 part?

well not exactly what he said but along the same context.

also another problem/reason in which you shoudl be testing when ysing kalk is "dosing limewater causes the loss of significant amounts of magnesium ions from reef aquaria."
this was the cause of my Mg/Ca crash and hence the reason for me switching to a Ca reactor. I am still going to put a Kalk reactor on line soon but I will not run Kalk with out a Ca reactor anymore on a regular basis.

Steve

There goes Steve with his magnesium again!! :P

Brad it realy work I do it for a long time europeen people either and it work

most europeen tank have those kalk reactore they are a way more popular then in north america and they know them well I do either as I have it for long time and use it alone do dose my calcium and buffer it is not blind dosing when you know how it work and realy do it the right way

Stephane, perhaps it works with the reactor, but Mason doesn't have a reactor. He is mixing kalk and putting it in his sump, and I'm not sure he knows why he's doing it. Maybe 'cause it's the popular thing to do.
I dosed kalk for the first year of my tank and if I didn't test regularly, I ended up with problems. I had to always balance the levels with Kent A + B .

Steve IMO you got this problem cause you didn't monitor well you ph and add to much kalk at each time kalk need to be drip and alway monitor with PH

the magnesium pricipitate when the ph is to hight if you add one liter in the sump the ph will climb up to 9 and then go down there you will have precipitation

Kalk is good but if you mess you will crash calcium reactor will crash a tank either but there more documentaion to know how to not mess with it than kalk

I read on farming and there a lot of coral farmer use only kalk for many reason

Stephane, can you point us to that reading? I'd be interested in it. Reading a lot of Eric's stuff, he maintains that sleletal density is affected by using only kalk (incomplete calcification?). I haven't read enough though, so if you have some links, that would be great!

I have not include the link I was talking on the calcim balance on the previous tread sorry here it is read it before to do any dosage http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

yes brad you are right that why I give this link and tell to study this well before to do it and tell him to not test only when he know wath he do

it dosnt realy matter if you have a kalk reactore or not as long as you use fresh kalk and dont cross the PH warning maybe you have and that why I said you NEED a ph meter to do it

if people dont do it the same way I said you will have problem
before to use any methode you need to read the instruction if one dont and have problem it's not the fault of the product :D

who is the coral farmer in US? Antony Carlfo simply ask him he said in is book a lot of coral farm do it and he does but he dont use reactor only drop milky stuff in is tank but dont do it at home until you realy know wath you doing!
BC and Son before to kalk addition as people have warn you you should realy know wath you do before to add it in you tank

Hmm, I read that book and didn't see that part. I'll re-read it today. :?

page 181 to 186

Wouldn't adding all these additives also depend on what kind of corals (and other co-habitants) one would want to keep? :?

Not to pick nits, but I beleive "he" was actually a "she", who said it first here ... :P

Tony, now that you're singling out a sex, do you have an idea of whom said this "famous" quote? :?:

jeana all reef need calcium and carbonate no matter wath you keep in it
the only difference is the amount to add but those are the basic two that all reef need first

Duh! I was thinking of the other thread, the Calcium Reactor & Kalk one, when I wrote this post.... Sorry. :oops:

:lol: :lol: :lol: confusing hein!

well your wrong.. that will teach you for having a opinion :wink:

the only things I didn't monitor was Mg as I didn;t have a Mg test kit untill I started suspecting it as part of the problem. my PH was 8.1 steady.. same as it is now.. so that theory was no good also.

one thing I have notices sence I stoped using kalk is the growth or real fine short turf algae.. it is a maroon color and looks quite nice... still it is there..


yup I agree it is cheep and they use something else to balance there alkalinity, a Ca reactor maintains the alkalinity and other desolved minerals in a tank and at the same time provides a good enuf level of Ca. in my opinion using both is the best way to go.

Delphinus, Unless Darren used to be a girl, then no it was a guy :wink:

it was Darren that said it to me when I was concidering using dolomite for a substrate.. and I am now glad I took that bit of advice and threw the dolomite on the Lawn.. whare it belongs and not in my tank.

Steve

[quote="StirCrazy"]Steve kalk to both in balance I do it for 2-3 years and never break the balance read that link http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

I dont dose anyting more than kalk, vinegar,and food the only additive that go in my reef that it that all :D see the result http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3683
I dont do any test of magnesium and only do my water change each month

I dose 3.5 gallon a day of the most saturate kalk 365 day a years and dont ever have any magnesium précipitation and a lot of people I know do it and never ger any problem :wink:

if you break the balance you did someting rong or use bad lime or wath ever I dont know. have you buy that cheap pic lime from Mr wagie? wath kind of lime you were using?

vinegar... instead of CO2?

yes it help expand the quantity of kalk you use lower the PH of the solution when I forget to refil the reactor for two day the calcium and alk get to low so I do a mixture of 30 ml of vinergar in on teaspoon of kalk mix it in a glass and put that ting in the tank

Dont do it at home until you realy know what you doing

Stephane, the biggest problem, and what I think mine was, comes from dosing kalk by evaperation make up and not having enuf of a calcium demand in your tank.. ie.. dosing kalk throught make up water on new tanks..

I have no fear that I could go back to Kalk now with no problems as the calcium demand in my tank is much larger than what it was back then.

did you dose Kalk in the first 3 to 5 months of your tank being up?

Oh Stephane.. also how big is your kalk reactor?

Steve

I have setup that tank ten years ago :D I have move it several time and even upgrade the tank from a 5 foot to a 6 but never restart the tank

maybe a real new tank dont react the same on PH as I have not realy experiment on new tank and calcium should be monitor beter but IMO
it is not a good id to dose any supplement on a new tank cause it take IMO more than 3-5 month to set up a reef and add coral to be safe and they dont realy grow fast at first

in a new reef PH never go down realy as well as calcium so addition should only begin when ph go down IMO and strart realy slowly
cause it is very easy to overdose

a new reef should last 1 years at lest on a kilos of kalk I dose it in 2 month

Wow...didn't expect this thread to blow up! Sorry everybody, I should have been more clear about what I was doing. I do test for Ca and alk. Currently in the evening my tank is at:


pH 8.4
Ca 425ppm
Alk 3.2 meq/L


The main reason I started dosing kalk was in an attempt to stabilize my alk, which has been dropping at an average rate of 0.17 meq/L per day, unless I toss in baking soda (i keep a detailed record of everything that happens in my tank).

Since I started the kalk...which is just a couple days, everything has stayed stable when tested at the same time of day, but my concern was whether or not I could dose limewater at a faster rate since I can't keep up with evap at 2 drops per second. My solution is 1tspn per gallon.

I'm afraid that if I drip any faster, my pH is going to shoot past 8.4, so if I use my current kalk solution, I'll have to topoff regular water as well. Ideally, I'd like to use kalk water ONLY for topoff, which is why I thought the suggestion about using a weaker kalk solution may be my answer.

Thoughts?

Mason, the way I add kalk is with a float valve. All my makeup water was full strength kalk. When I used only kalk on my 75g, I would go thru about a gallon per day. Never had a pH problem. Your levels are fine now, so dosing full strength would probably be fine. Do you have a float valve setup? Or how do you normally add top off water?

I think this is a great thread, tons of good information. As far as a float valve, I have recently purchased the Kent and now I'm not really sure how to set it up. I am going to be using a refugium above the tank and I want to keep as much crap out side of the tank. I probably will set up a 45 gallon sump in the near future.... if I have a pump driving water to the refugium (40 gallon) and draining by gravity back into the tank, and a over flow to drain the tank into a sump, will the float valve work in the sump? I've been trying to picture where the water loss to evap will show and I figure it would be in the main tank until I install the sump then the water loss should be seen in the sump... right??

Right. Your lowest point will show the drop in water. I think Steve posted pics of his setup not too long ago. Pretty easy to set up.

Thanks I was really racking my brain over that, I didn't want to have that big thing in my tank.

yup if you find a post of mine that the pics are not working let me know and I will fix it.. I re organized all my directories..

Steve

Whoops, pardon my bad memory, I beleive that does predate the time I remember someone else admonishing some for considering using Arm&Hammer washing soda using the same line. All's I know, both events are beyond two weeks ago, so both are ancient events in my memory.