Kalkwasser

Andrew_bram

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
So who around here uses it? In what way do you implement it? What do you see as pros and cons.


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TheRealChrisBrown

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
ex-officio
#2
I had a bad experience with it, completely my fault - made a dumb decision. I had a "Kalk Stirrer" by Two Little Fishies, with my ato line feeding it and then just gravity fed to the tank. I refilled the kalk and stirred it all up really well, then decided to do a water change. My mistake was not shutting off the ato pump. As the water change was going on the water level in my sump dropped, I failed to see that all of the fresh mixed kalk was pouring into the sump. I still didn't see it when I put the system back on line. My pH shot up over 20 (I think the Apex was reading in the 20's but at some point the hobby grade pH probe has to exceede it's limitations and just reads random gibberish values?) & Alk was through the roof. And I did this at night, once the WC was complete I went to bed. Next day I woke up to an essentially nuked tank. I think a lot of the fish were ok...but none of the corals survived, and this whole thing was the day after Denver MACNA so I had spent a lot of money on corals.

I think in my case it was just a combination of stupidity on my part. If I waited to mix the kalk until after the WC, probably wouldn't have been as bad. It I remembered to shut off ATO, wouldn't have even happened. If I looked in the sump during or after the WC and saw a white blizzard of kalk, I wouldn't have turned on the return pump, crash wouldn't have happened.

I think my story is just a cautionary tale though, the same thing might be able to happen if a dosing pump gets stuck "on" or heater sticks or shorts out. There is probably a million things that *could* go wrong....I'm trying to see how many of them I can check off :laughing::tired:
 
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Andrew_bram

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
I had a bad experience with it, completely my fault - made a dumb decision. I had a "Kalk Stirrer" by Two Little Fishies, with my ato line feeding it and then just gravity fed to the tank. I refilled the kalk and stirred it all up really well, then decided to do a water change. My mistake was not shutting off the ato pump. As the water change was going on the water level in my sump dropped, I failed to see that all of the fresh mixed kalk was pouring into the sump. I still didn't see it when I put the system back on line. My pH shot up over 20 (I think the Apex was reading in the 20's but at some point the hobby grade pH probe has to exceede it's limitations and just reads random gibberish values?) & Alk was through the roof. And I did this at night, once the WC was complete I went to bed. Next day I woke up to an essentially nuked tank. I think a lot of the fish were ok...but none of the corals survived, and this whole thing was the day after Denver MACNA so I had spent a lot of money on corals.

I think in my case it was just a combination of stupidity on my part. If I waited to mix the kalk until after the WC, probably wouldn't have been as bad. It I remembered to shut off ATO, wouldn't have even happened. If I looked in the sump during or after the WC and saw a white blizzard of kalk, I wouldn't have turned on the return pump, crash wouldn't have happened.

I think my story is just a cautionary tale though, the same thing might be able to happen if a dosing pump gets stuck "on" or heater sticks or shorts out. There is probably a million things that *could* go wrong....I'm trying to see how many of them I can check off :laughing::tired:
Ya I have been considering a reactor but would want to use apex dos to draw the reactor. Thank you for your input.

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flagg37

Anthias
M.A.S.C Club Member
#4
I’ve never been a fan of dosing it with the ato since evaporation isn’t consistent. I took a more controlled approach and dosed it just like two part with a DOS. I wasn’t sure how much I would like it so I started out low tech with just a 5 gallon bucket (food grade with lid). I had good results and was planning on getting a “real” reactor with the stirrer when we moved.

There are some concerns that are brought up with Kalkwasser but I think they can be easily overcome. First people talk about the safety (like the above post), but I’ve only seen issues when using it in conjunction with the ato. If you dose it you can still have problems with over/under dosing but those are the same problems that you have with anything you dose. You could argue that there’s 1/2 the potential for dosing problems since you’re dosing both alk and ca at the same time.

That brings me to the second problem. People say they don’t like it because it raises both alk and ca together and you can’t control them individually. That’s true but I don’t recall having a problem with this and if I did I have two part that I could always mix up and manually dose until it got back on track. If it’s a long term problem, there’s another problem going on that needs to be addressed.

The biggest drawback I see with Kalkwasser is that you’re limited by how much you can potentially use. Depending on the demand of your tank in relationship to your evaporation you may have to supplement with additional dosing methods (2 part, or carx).

I think pairing a carx with Kalkwasser is a great method. The carx gives great stability and the Kalkwasser gives you increased pH.
 

SynDen

Administrator
Staff member
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#5
I've been using it my top of for many years now. Never had an issue with it that way.

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Andrew_bram

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
I enjoy the feedback and discussion. I am considering adding due to the fact that I have seen an increase in growth with my ph being elevated. I have never really monitored ph until recently. Hands down I noticed that corals and coraline were growing and alk demand increases. I have such a large water volume that I think a kalk reactor would be my only choice. I gravity feed ato into the sump. I would be worried that 30 gallons of top of sitting there would be disaster waiting to happen. I have a very large calcium reactor that I feel will have to be turned back on over 2 part because my demand is up to 220 ml pr day. Dosing 2 part is not cost prohibitive as I buy in bulk. But there will be a point that I can not dose enough. With already having lower ph due to sump in basement the addition of ca reactor will continue lower my ph.

I have a lead on a very nice kalk reactor and trying to talk myself into or out of it lol.

If I connect kalk reactor it would fill up from my ato and I would use dos to draw out the solution.

Have you guys seen positive results from using kalk. As in if you take kalk offline you notice big difference in your aquarium.

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JuanGutz

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
I used it with my ATO and it only became in issues when I switched to MH because that messed with my evaporation a lot. I used my apex ph probe to shut it off if my ph rose to high and only had a few issues that were because I messed up. Over dosed twice but both times never lost any corals.
 

Andrew_bram

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
I probably still have a 3/4 5g bucket still.
Is that 5 gal bucket pre mixed with water or dry. How long does it last you. My thought with using a 5 gal bucket is that I would have to make it up weekly which really becomes a pain when I travel.

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JuanGutz

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#10
It’s dry so I mix it with fresh water. Since I used it with my ATO I had to make make a 5g bucket every week as that was my evaporation rate. If you’re going to use the reactor it depends on how much you’re going to dose and how large it is. From what I understand with a reactor, how much you dose/size of reactor correlates to how often you add more kalk. I’d need to research again but you just add more kalk throughout the month and every month or something you clean it out. So if you have a large reactor and don’t plan on dosing a lot you won’t have to top off the reactor as often. If you’re using an apex dos I wouldn’t be concerned about over dosing as they are reliable. You can also just set your apex to turn it off if your ph raises over 8.5 or whatever you want as you’re using it to supplement. If your trident is controlling the dosing to your tank with two part you could use the trident to keep your alk and Calc consistent with the addition of the kalk. So you have redundancy to avoid over overdosing the kalk, trident keeps params consistent and kalk will help lower 2 part. If you do go the route of calcium reactor you’d just have to factor out what you need to dose, lower it a little and supplement with kalk on dos controlled by trident to keep params consistent? I’m tired as heck and this is one long running sentence soo ask away with what I messed up haha.
 

Andrew_bram

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
It’s dry so I mix it with fresh water. Since I used it with my ATO I had to make make a 5g bucket every week as that was my evaporation rate. If you’re going to use the reactor it depends on how much you’re going to dose and how large it is. From what I understand with a reactor, how much you dose/size of reactor correlates to how often you add more kalk. I’d need to research again but you just add more kalk throughout the month and every month or something you clean it out. So if you have a large reactor and don’t plan on dosing a lot you won’t have to top off the reactor as often. If you’re using an apex dos I wouldn’t be concerned about over dosing as they are reliable. You can also just set your apex to turn it off if your ph raises over 8.5 or whatever you want as you’re using it to supplement. If your trident is controlling the dosing to your tank with two part you could use the trident to keep your alk and Calc consistent with the addition of the kalk. So you have redundancy to avoid over overdosing the kalk, trident keeps params consistent and kalk will help lower 2 part. If you do go the route of calcium reactor you’d just have to factor out what you need to dose, lower it a little and supplement with kalk on dos controlled by trident to keep params consistent? I’m tired as heck and this is one long running sentence soo ask away with what I messed up haha.
I just got done writing a report totally makes sense to me.

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