KalkWasser and phosphates

[aidos]

Was wondering if any of u guys have an ingenous way of adding kalkwasser to a tank with out a sump. the only real place i can put somethin is on my protein skimmer cup lid.
anyway just hopeing someone else has a good idea of how to do this.
im having phosphate problems so hope this will solve my problems.
Also i use rain water as my top up water which is about 2 gallon every 2 days and i think this may be a source of my phosphates. we use this water for drinking aswell though so i was wondering if there is something i can add to the rainwater tank thats cheap and effective to remove the posphates.
cheers for all the ideas.

 

[thegrog]

I would go with a phosban reactor rather than kalkwasser. That will target your phosphates directly.

 

[db]

I would agree that the rain water is part of your problem. I only use R/O water in my reef, but it sounds like you don't have access to purified water. You can drip Kalkwasser by suspending a home made dripper above your tank. You don't have to have a sump to do this.

 

[aidos]

i do have an RO unit but i only use this for my water changes other wise i would need to run the RO unit 24/7 due to my evaporation rate (the pain of open top tanks). it is alot easier 4 me to use the rain water to top it up, plus i live in the driest state of the driest country and i dont wanna waste 3 litres of bad water to get 1 litre of good.
i guess i would love some sorta additive that could remove phosphate from the rain water, aside from that the rain water is perfect once the pH is buffered up.
i once heard some one speak of builders lime??? how would this work. is it the same stuff as Kalkwasser and if i added it to the rain water how could it affect it? could i still drink the water?

 

[thegrog]

Given your situation, perhaps kalswasser would work for you.
Just use the rainwater for your kalkwasser mix. Put it into a jug with a homemade drip and set it up to run every night. The kalkwasser will cause the phosphates to precipitate out. Tey and mix everything 24h in advance so everything has a chance to settle out. Keep a close eye on your ph and Ca levels.

 

[jasenhicks]

I want to enlighten everyone on the phosphate / calcium relationship. When you put phosphates into water that has calcium in it, the calcium will precipitate out and no longer be useful for the corals, etc. that use it. If you have water with phosphates in it, and add calcium nothing happens, the calcium wont dissolve in the water properly because the phosphates prevent it from happening. Its a proven theory, and i see it at work everyday because we purposely add phosphates to solution to drive calcium out because it causes scale where we dont want it.
Id get a phosban reactor or some phosban and put it in a high flow area to bring the phosphates down. That will work, attacking the issue with more calcium will just cause you to lose money and the battle.