Alk & CA rising with Kalkwasser alone??

cracker · Jan 6, 2018

Hello, My alk& Ca seem to be rising with kalkwasser alone. This has perked my curiosity .
A brief history..
For the better part of a year. I have been working on stability & getting No3& Po4 levels right. I was dosing Kalkwasser & it wasn't enough. So I started dosing also. After a few months I stopped the kalkwasser & just dosed. I was surprised to learn that after stopping the K/Wasser I didn't have to dose more. No biggy for me. So recently I started using the kalkwasser again & not only do not have to dose but the Alk & Ca levels are rising!? 4 nights ago 7.8 3, 8.2 2 8.6 just tonight 8.9! Ca is rising also. 415 to 430.
I'm using a Hanna for alk & RedSea pro for the Ca. I'm not worried about it just curious as to the hows & why's. So I have been dosing No3 & Po4 and it's been colder than Frosty's tail feathers so the house has been closed up with the heater running for a week now. So Is it cause the house is closed up? The No3/Po4 dosing maybe.. Also I have been evaporating more. I was under the belief that Kalkwasser won't raise levels ,just keep them the same. could it be test results? Like I said I'm not panicking, just wondering why. Now I could do a W/T but that wouldn't be good for stability.

The corals are looking really good lately so all is good I suppose. Thanks for any insight.

P.s. One thing I have learned about this aquatic endeavor is What You read and how it turns out can be two very different things !

saltyfilmfolks · Jan 7, 2018

How much of the kalwasser are you using and how is it being dosed?

Yep, with enough of the product it will raise you cal and alk.

Because it has a lower amount of effectiveness(concentration) VS other alk and cal methods , folks tend to think it doesn’t do much.

So if you are using a lot , and doing more reagular water changes , perhaps with a higher alk salt, the levels will rise.

Flippers4pups · Jan 7, 2018

@cracker, how much calcium hydroxide are you adding? 1 1/2 -2 teaspoons is Max. Try reducing the amount you dose.

cracker · Jan 7, 2018

Thanks for the reply Gents , I'm using 5 tbls of Mrs Wages Pickling lime in a 7 gl ATO. Lately I evap right at a gallon a day .Doing the math, at 2 teaspoons per gallon it came to 4.6 table spoons. I added the extra to see if it would keep up ! I figured any excess would just settle out and end up at the bottom.There is more than a little dust at the bottom now. So Kalk wasser can increase alk & Ca. I didn't know that.
I haven't tested yet but about to. So I assume if it's even higher tonight, I need to decrease the amount of Mrs Wages ! I think I'll add a couple of gallons to the ato & see how that works?
Like I said everybody looks just fine in the tank.I just don't want that high of levels. I'm trying to match the levels of the regular RedSea salt I use .
Let's see, without dosing in 24 hours, I would drop from 8 to 7. With dosing which was around 25 to 30 mls ,the tank would drop between .4 to .6 . Hope that info doesn't confuse.

cil311 · Jan 7, 2018

I use kalk to raise my alk & calcium. It absolutely works for me.

cracker · Jan 7, 2018

So alk was up .2 points from 8.9 to 9.1 I diluted the K wasser by 25%. will see if alk falls, stays or keeps rising. If another rise I'll add another gallon of rodi. I just way overshot the mark, Gotta love it ! LOL

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 8, 2018

cracker said:
So Kalk wasser can increase alk & Ca. I didn't know that.
.

You can use this calculator to determine the boost of saturated limewater in different amounts.

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chem_calc3.html

Adding 1.25% of the tank volume will boost calcium by 10 ppm and alkalinity by 1 meq/L (1.4 dKH).

Whether that raises values will depend on whether that is above or below the daily demand.

Note the daily demand for both rises as the alkalinity and pH rises.

cracker · Jan 8, 2018

Thanks Randy, Been using this for some time now Great help & very accurate !

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 8, 2018

cracker said:
Thanks Randy, Been using this for some time now Great help & very accurate !

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing.

cracker · Jan 8, 2018

Ok Dkh Stayed at 9.1 . at least it's not rising any more. Not Sure if I'll add another gl of rodi or wait until tomorrow . Depends on how Georgia does ! Go Dawgs !

cracker · Jan 18, 2018

Good Evening, It's been a while so I'm checking in. So as stated before, before I ended up with real high dkh levels. I think there were several reasons. 1 We had a real dry cold spell & the tank was evaporating double than usual went from 1/2 gl to 1 gl per day. Also I wasn't paying attention & let the ato get low on water, the pump wasn't high enough off the bottom & shot some of the sediment at the bottom into the tank. I diluted this & waited. Then It warmed up & rained for 3 days straight & no evaporation. dkh levels were slowly dropping .Then I let it get too low & bam! Shot the levels up again ! When am I gonna learn to pay attention?
Any way it's cold& dry again so evap is up again ! So thing I have learned roughly speaking, 1/2 gal per day isn't enough to meet demands. 1 gal is too much ! Also it's also time for a dosser !
Thanks again for the earlier insight !

saltyfilmfolks · Jan 18, 2018

Lol. Yea , I had to buy a new ato pump cuz of that.

I wound up just mixing the kalk in a container of rodi , letting it settle out and just using the liquid.

cracker · Jan 24, 2018

I'm dumbfounded ! (hope I didn't set myself here) So for the past week everything has leveled out. Same dose 6 in a row. Hey it's working, but Oh how I wish I understood it ! LOL

Dennis Cartier · Jan 25, 2018

What I have found is that dosing Kalk independent of ATO with a fixed dose per day works pretty good, and keeps your alk stable. In my case I use an Avast kalk stirrer and a 6 rpm masterflex pump along with a timer to add doses throughout the day. The amount added is lower than my daily evaporation, and my ATO makes up the rest of the evaporation. However for this technique to work, you have to have the saturation of your Kalk be stable. In my case the kalk stirrer is used to keep my kalk fully saturated.

I tried putting 100% of the ATO through the stirrer, but like you found that this both raised the Alk too high, and bounced around a lot with changes to evaporation rates. Decoupling it from evaporation and using fully saturated kalk has simplified this for me.

Dennis

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 25, 2018

cracker said:
Good Evening, It's been a while so I'm checking in. So as stated before, before I ended up with real high dkh levels. I think there were several reasons. 1 We had a real dry cold spell & the tank was evaporating double than usual went from 1/2 gl to 1 gl per day. Also I wasn't paying attention & let the ato get low on water, the pump wasn't high enough off the bottom & shot some of the sediment at the bottom into the tank. I diluted this & waited. Then It warmed up & rained for 3 days straight & no evaporation. dkh levels were slowly dropping .Then I let it get too low & bam! Shot the levels up again ! When am I gonna learn to pay attention?
Any way it's cold& dry again so evap is up again ! So thing I have learned roughly speaking, 1/2 gal per day isn't enough to meet demands. 1 gal is too much ! Also it's also time for a dosser !
Thanks again for the earlier insight !

Definitely the sediment is a big effect. The few times I turned my tank white with precipitation were from letting the ATO begin to suck in the mud.

cracker · Feb 18, 2018

If I may change this up a bit. So I have levels back to usual. I don't use kalkwasser in the top off any more .My query concerns levels after a water change . After a water change , dkh levels go from 8 to 7 . It only takes a day to dose back up. This no problem for me but wonder if the 24 hour drop messes with the corals desire for stability. If so I'll dose the new water before a water change. Any opinions? Thanks

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 19, 2018

What alk do you normally maintain?

piranhaman00 · Feb 22, 2022

Bump

I was looking into using kalk for ph bumps, according to the calculator I would have to add 7L of limewater to a 605 liter tank to raise ph 0.6 and 1.4 dkh approx, that is insane! Is there a more potent option?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 22, 2022

piranhaman00 said:
Bump

I was looking into using kalk for ph bumps, according to the calculator I would have to add 7L of limewater to a 605 liter tank to raise ph 0.6 and 1.4 dkh approx, that is insane! Is there a more potent option?

Sodium hydroxide.

Second New DIY Two Part Recipe with Higher pH Boost

In a previous thread, I posted a true two part DIY recipe: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-diy-two-part-recipes-with-higher-ph-boost.344500/ But some folks may want to just swap the new ingredient into my 2/3 part recipe (as used by BRS, for example). Here's the original recipe link...

www.reef2reef.com