Originally Posted by wbradenpt
that's funny. i see you've noticed by massive collection of 2 frags of sps!
yeah, i'm not even sure why i have both (the calcium and kalkwasser reactor)! it does seem kind of redundant. the only thing that i've observed is that once i added the kalk reactor that the pH increased from approx 7.8 up to 8.2. there was no change when i installed the calcium reactor, but the change occurred very soon after adding the kalk reactor, so i assume that it affects the pH. if that's the case then i'm glad i have it, since on my old setup i always had low pH. it seemed to continue to rise as more kalk was dosed, as it was connected to a dosing pump and was being used to top off tank. so once it reached 8.4 after having the lights on all day i greatly reduced the dosing to one 15 minute interval per day. the pH seems to have stabilized at 8.2 for the low and 8.4 max by the end of the day.
so then i added a level controller to automatically top off the water. as a safety measure, i have the pump inside of a 5 gallon bucket which is then inside of a huge 44 gallon trash can brute bucket. so if there were to be a failure, the most that would add to the tank is 5 gallons. every day or so i just push the inside bucket down a bit to refill. beats carrying water all over the place.
and thanks for input regarding macro algae. i think i'll take you up on that advice.
the refugium is a very interesting part of the tank. always seem to be finding something new crawling around in there that i didn't buy.
so far i've seen what looks to be a baby chocolate chip starfish, a pointy urchin that came out of nowhere, and tons of copepods, amphipods, and feather dusters.
by the way, who's murph?
Kalkwasser will have an impact on the PH of your tank. I dose my Kalkwasser (limewater) at night to help it stabalize at night since it drops at night. I have my reactor connected to a 5 gallon reservoir. To answer your question about mixing the kalkwasser, you don't need to mix the kalkwasser. When you add it to your reactor, you can mix it for a few minutes, preferably 30 secs. and leave it. Once the water is saturated the stuff that flow to the bottom is like inorganics. I only mix mine when the ph level inside the reactor drops from 12.0. Then the next weekend I will add new kalkwasser. Good luck and your tank looks really good.