38 gallon system- kalkwasser or two part?

[excell007]

Since you're doing weekly water change, is it possible to get to the alk level you want by just changing salt or mixing salt? For example if you mix red sea blue and black bucket at a ratio of 5:1 you will get approximately 8.6 DKH on your saltwater mix. You can play with the ratio to get to the level you want. I am not suggesting you do this, I am asking the forum if it is possible to do this instead of dosing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Since you're doing weekly water change, is it possible to get to the alk level you want by just changing salt or mixing salt? For example if you mix red sea blue and black bucket at a ratio of 5:1 you will get approximately 8.6 DKH on your saltwater mix. You can play with the ratio to get to the level you want. I am not suggesting you do this, I am asking the forum if it is possible to do this instead of dosing.

Depends on the alk demand. It needs to be very low for this to work, and it also leads to a sudden jump in alk on water change day.

If the tank is 7 dKH and the new salt water is, say, 9 dKH, then the rise is only 0.2 dKH with a 10% change. Thus the demand would need to be only 0.03 dKH per day.

 

[stanlalee]

Done both. Kalk is just too messy. Builds up residue and deposits in the ato reservoir, mixing it 5 gallons at a time got old (worse than hand dosing liquid 2 part). Only plus was non manual dosing. Now I do one part. Doesn't have the limitation of kalk (can't add but so much although my tank evaporated a ton) and can just dose one thing daily. Much less amount than 2 part too. As a plus it carbon doses impeccably. From day ONE the glass stayed cleaner and water clearer with no side effects or guess work dosing. I don't have the room or desire for more complexity and equipment of adding auto dosing pumps and reservoirs on a 30g which is already cramped underneath..

 

[Trever]

Done both. Kalk is just too messy. Builds up residue and deposits in the ato reservoir, mixing it 5 gallons at a time got old (worse than hand dosing liquid 2 part). Only plus was non manual dosing. Now I do one part. Doesn't have the limitation of kalk (can't add but so much although my tank evaporated a ton) and can just dose one thing daily. Much less amount than 2 part too. As a plus it carbon doses impeccably. From day ONE the glass stayed cleaner and water clearer with no side effects or guess work dosing. I don't have the room or desire for more complexity and equipment of adding auto dosing pumps and reservoirs on a 30g which is already cramped underneath..

That sounds good. I haven't given up on trying kalk myself, we'll see. I'd probably do it via the Tunzie reactor, which would solve (I suspect) the mess problems, and limit how much I have to add. Apparently the BRS 2019 and on kalk is also less messy of a powder to deal with (no "poof" they claim in their video). I feel like I need to get on this weekend though, so gonna try something soon.