Ok all you Kalkwasser users

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thomas712

Guest
For weeks now I have been adding 40 mils of Bionic alk, and 60 mils of calcium just to keep my readings up to fair levels.
3.2 alk
420 cal
about 1275 mag
7.8 on the ph.
1.025 salinity according to the refractometer
I will start my first Kalk dripping tonight, I have mixed up the EVS kalk, 1 teaspoon to 1 gallon of fresh RO water. I will keep testing for alk,cal,ph, and mag.
My question is will I need to stop my additions of alk, and cal as soon as tomorrow or will it take a few days. Then only adding a maintanance dose now and again.
What's your experience? Oh Kip where are you? Broomer?
Just checking for any last minute advice
Thomas
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
You can stop adding the B-Ionic now. Test periodically and if Ca and Alk start to drop you can bump up the dosage of kalk powder to 2 tsp/gallon.
 
T

thomas712

Guest
Thanks guys, another question. I let this mix settle for a few hours and started it at 9:30 pm. I noticed a film that has developed on the surface. Is this any type of problem? Could this film clog my drip tube?
Thomas
 
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thomas712

Guest
Set my jug up and drilled the hole about 2 inches from the bottom, inserted the air tubing and siliconed it. Been warned about the sediment, but thanks. Never know what I missed. ;)
Thomas
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
The film on the surface is pure Calcium carbonate that has formed on contact with CO2. It's not terrible but try to avoid sucking it into your tank. Cleaning the lines periodically with white vinegar will prevent them from clogging.
 
bigmac

bigmac

Member
IMO, kalk is just about the best thing we can add to our reefs. The cost is next to nothing and the benifits are huge, BUT, when I used B-ionic along with kalk in my old 55 lps tank there was no way I could have gotten by using just kalk as top off and B-ionic as a " maintanance dose"...I still had to add huge amounts of it 4-6 times a week.
I'm sure others have different experiences...Its all about what your tanks needs..
 
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thomas712

Guest
Bigmac - My tank seems to need alot, like I said I have been adding those doses of 40 alk and 60 calc every day for weeks now only to get those same test scores, have not tested yet today. Making me a bit frustrated at times.
This morinig the corals kinda looked like "what did you do to us"? but by after noon they looked alright. It took from 9:30pm to sometime before 1:00 pm the next day for it to finish dripping so about 15 1/2 hours. Will start the next batch again at 9:30pm.
Thanks for everyones replys.
Thomas
 
tiffster

tiffster

Member
Thanks for posting the article. I LOVE getting down to the chemical basis of things, I guess it's my nosey nature. :D :D Still a little aprehensive about vinegar in my tank! How long have you been dripping with the vinegar? Any problems so far?
Thanks for this thread Thomas, it's helping me out a lot too.
( just drilled and siliconed my doser today BTW )
Tiff
 
broncofish

broncofish

Active Member

Originally posted by Kipass4130
i dont think you need vinegar until you get into the 2-3 tspn per 1gal of water range.... doesnt vinegar just allow more kalk to be absorbed by the water?
It does not really matter about the quanity as much as the quality of the drip. With out enough C02 in your tank for the Kalk, you'll get calcium carbonate(the white filmy stuff) I mix like I said above and have virtually no film almost every time I mix my kalk. I will have to borrow the the digital from work to take pictures of my kalk mixing.
Tiffster, I have been mixing my Kalk in vinegar then adding the water as stated in that article for about a 4 months now(thanks to my LFS owner) and have seen no ill effects, actually I've seen nothing but good.
Kipass here is exact quotes from that article about mixing with vinegar, mentions nothing about volume.
First, it will get more Calcium ions (Ca++) into the solution because you are dissolving the Ca(OH)2 in an acid instead of water, and forming Calcium Acetate, which exists as a dissociated equilibrium of free Calcium ions and Acetate ions.
Second, the Acetic Acid (Vinegar) provides an equivalent of all the CO2 you need to avoid precipitating the newly-added Calcium ions as useless white Calcium Carbonate powder.
Third, after all the cool Calcium ion chemistry is over, the leftover Acetate ions from the broken-down Vinegar leaves you with free organic Carbon in the water that feeds the bacteria in your tank so that it converts more poisonous Nitrates to NO2 gas (a very good thing).
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
Vinegar can be a really good addition. I use it in the summer months when it's humid and my evap rate is lower. The on;y downside is that Acetate is like bacterial candy and it can cause Cyano or algae blooms if you don't have your nutrients under control.
 
lurch694u

lurch694u

Member
The article said to add 15ml of vinegar per liter of water. I'm lazy, so does anybody know how much vinegar to put into a gallon of water. Plus you add 1 tsp of kalkwasser per gallon right?
:confused:
 
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thomas712

Guest
Lurch694u - A good starting point for someone first starting with kalk is 1 teaspoon per gallon, then test to see where your at. Then you can go up to 2 teaspoons per gallon. Adding more than that and it will precipitate out of solution I believe.
Thomas
 
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thomas712

Guest
Ok..two treatments with kalk drip have given me the following results.
Alk 3.2
Cal 420
ph 7.83
On the first day I did add half what I normally added of the b ionic so 20ml of alk and 30ml of cal.
So seems to be working and stable so far. I'll ween myslef of off the b ionic yet.
Thomas
 
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thomas712

Guest
You mean whats down with it. I took a sample down to the LFS, they have one of the blue gizmo ph meters and thats what they come up with, don't have my own (yet). could be false if theres needs to be calibrated and that is what I suspect.
Thomas
 
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thomas712

Guest
No on the vinegar, one thing at a time.
Water samples are put in a zip lock bag, then a 5 min drive to the LFS for that which I do not test myself or for confirmation tests.
Todays sample was at around 12:00 noon, 1 hour before my lights go on, kalk was dripping since 9:30 pm the night before.
Then I had a return pump stop today sometime between 8:30 and 10:30 this morning. Damn that thing got hot. Had to take external pump off and found some calcium deposits, this is the third time, and 5 small snails in there between the, what I would call a fly wheel and the propelling disk. The snails were of the Astrea or Macarene type about 1/8 inch each. Thankful the Velocity pump has a auto heat and dry shut off. Whew! everything is back on.
Thomas
 
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thomas712

Guest
Day three same alk,calc, but the ph is now 8.0. Ph was tested at 5:30 pm 4 1/2 hours after lights on.
Now I am finding that I am adding to much kalk water and the level of my sump is growing. So do I back off and go to the b ionic again or just slow the drip down?
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
Slow the drip & increase kalk to 1.5 tsp/gallon.
Do you have a skimmer? If so can you drip the limewater into the intake to the skimmer?
 
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thomas712

Guest
Bang Guy, yes Berlin Classic, but ah :confused: why would I want to drip it into the intake of the skimmer?. First of all my pump for the skimmer is underneath my bio ball area, kinda hard to get to. Second if the kalk mix precipitates by being exposed to air then why would I want to do that in my skimmer or is it going to be sufficiantly dissolved when it contacts with the water so that I do not wind up with that film or clotting.
Thomas
I appriciate the education here guys :D
 
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