Ca and Kh Question

[FinalPhaze987]

I have a fairly new 150 gal reef tank set up..less than 6 mo. Its fully cycled and im trying to stabilize the calcium and alkalinity levels in the tank...im not running a ca reactor and using ESV's B-Ionic at the moment...also dripping some kalk at night..my question is do supps like kents pro buffer lower alkalinity levels or raise it? Our calcium is at about 400-420...and our alkalinity is at 13-14 dKh which tends to keep the pH pretty high...Im trying to drop the alk to about 10-11 which is best from what ive read, but im not sure go about in doing this safely...should i add more calcium? add the kent pro buffer? Thanks for any help..

 

[Anonymous]

No, buffer raises the alkalinity. I think your levels are good. As the coraline and your hard corals start to grow, they will use up both the calcium and the alkalinity. But, you could probably hold off on the Bionic for a while 'till both Ca and alk go down. And, hold the kalwasser till something starts using it up.

 

[ChrisRD]

Dripping kalk is what's most likely keeping your pH high. Drip less, or a less saturated solution and your pH should drop down a bit.

Your alk is more than high enough right now, so the last thing you'd want to do is add buffer (which will raise it more).

If you stop dosing the alk part of your 2-part additive for a while the alk will drop on it's own. Once it hits the target level (personally, I like anything in the 7-10 dKH range) just resume dosing the alk part.

HTH

 

[FinalPhaze987]

cool....thanks for the advise....i think i may be putting to much kalk in at night....have you guys heard anything about adding vinigar to the solution? from what i hear it makes more usable calcium out of the kalk...

 

[IslandCrow]

I've used vinegar in my kalkwasser before and it works very well. There seems to be some info out there that suggests it could lead to algae blooms, but I never had an issue with that. I'd start off with 5-10 ml per gallon of kalkwasser and go up from there as necessary. 20ml per gallon is what I've heard as the max recommended amount. Keep in mind that it will also allow you to dissolve more kalk into the solution, so if you're using something like a kalk stirrer that always has residual kalk on the bottom and keeps the solution saturated, the increased PH from more kalk dissolving will probably offset the PH lowering effect of the vinegar. If you're just mixing up a 1-2 tsp/gallon solution, however, you won't have any problems, and the vinegar will work like a charm.

 

[FinalPhaze987]

I've used vinegar in my kalkwasser before and it works very well. There seems to be some info out there that suggests it could lead to algae blooms, but I never had an issue with that. I'd start off with 5-10 ml per gallon of kalkwasser and go up from there as necessary. 20ml per gallon is what I've heard as the max recommended amount. Keep in mind that it will also allow you to dissolve more kalk into the solution, so if you're using something like a kalk stirrer that always has residual kalk on the bottom and keeps the solution saturated, the increased PH from more kalk dissolving will probably offset the PH lowering effect of the vinegar. If you're just mixing up a 1-2 tsp/gallon solution, however, you won't have any problems, and the vinegar will work like a charm.

ahh i see...so the vinigar is added to lower the pH of the kalk? makes sense now...im currently dosing about 1 1/2 tsp. of kalk w/ 10 ml of vinegar diluted in about 3/4 gal of ro/di water...i think i might have been overdoing the solution before with 3 tsp.

how fast of a drip would you guys recommend? i have it set to about 1 drop every 30 seconds (20 drops per ml) ...thanks

 

[IslandCrow]

I couldn't tell you exactly how much I'm dripping at the moment since I'm using a peristaltic pump (Reefdoser) set to run 30s each 4min. I go through a 5 gallon bucket in about as many days, so I'd guess I'm dripping a total of about 1 gallon in a 24 hour period. I don't know how many ml are in a gallon off the top of my head, but I'm guessing you're dripping quite a bit less than that. It's a 46g tank, but with the connected sump and frag tank, it's about 100g total system volume. If I were you, I'd slowly up the rate and pay close attention to the PH. Before I got my Reefdoser, I think I was dripping at an approximate rate of 1 drip every 2-3 seconds. At that time, I was also dripping only at night. . that will also help prevent PH spikes, so that's good.

The good news about kalkwasser is that since we tend to use it at or near its saturation point, if you add too much kalk, it simply won't dissolve, so as long as your PH is OK, I wouldn't worry about adding too much kalk. Dosing only at night, I'm betting you can even forego the vinegar unless you want to get more of the kalk into solution.