Kalkwasser Help!!!

[bkhunt]

I am trying to raise my tanks ph. I already ran a line from my skimmer to my attached garage (no vehicle’s run or park in garage). Seen minimal increase in ph. (PH2 probe)

A few days ago I started dosing 5ml kalk over night ever hour. Did see a decrease in ph so I thought I did not dose enough. Last night I upped dose to 10ml per hour and ph dropped even faster. BRS non-pharm kalk mixed 1.5tsp per gallon. What am I doing wrong?

 

[homer1475]

Whats the PH probe that reading 6.49? Calcium reactor I'm assuming?

When was the last time you calibrated the probe?

If your adding kalk, it should not be decreasing.

 

[metzer]

What size is your tank?

How much water do you typically evaporate a day?

Where are you dripping the kalk in at?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Unless this is a super small tank, the effect is undetectable at those doses.

If you want to see a pH boost, you need to be adding at least 0.5% of the tank water volume.

In a 100 gallon tank, adding 1.25 gallons all at once will boost pH by about 0.6-0.7 pH units. Spread it out and the boost will be lower.

 

[bkhunt]

Whats the PH probe that reading 6.49? Calcium reactor I'm assuming?

When was the last time you calibrated the probe?

If your adding kalk, it should not be decreasing.

PH probe 6.49 is calcium reactor

Calibrate 3 times in past 3 days - probe is 1 month old

 

[bkhunt]

Unless this is a super small tank, the effect is undetectable at those doses.

If you want to see a pH boost, you need to be adding at least 0.5% of the tank water volume.

In a 100 gallon tank, adding 1.25 gallons all at once will boost pH by about 0.6-0.7 pH units. Spread it out and the boost will be lower.

Total volume is about 200g.

Wow going by you number I am dosing WAY WAY WAY to little. I am just going with the standard reefing slower is better.

 

[bkhunt]

What size is your tank?

How much water do you typically evaporate a day?

Where are you dripping the kalk in at?

Roughly 200g total

probably about 1.5g-2g a day. Never really kept track.

Dosing into return pump chamber

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Most people add all or a large fraction of the total daily evaporation when using kalkwasser, but don't add so much that alk rises higher than you want.

 

[bkhunt]

Most people add all or a large fraction of the total daily evaporation when using kalkwasser, but don't add so much that alk rises higher than you want.

I tried to do my research and seen the dosing at night. I also seen that not having it in an air tight container would make it no good after several days. I have a 10g aquarium as my ATO container and a brute can as my storage container. There is so much confusion out there.
When I come back from vacation I will try using it as my ATO water. Any other tips that I need to know? I did test my alkalinity daily so far so I will keep that up until I get stable once I add to ATO container.

 

[metzer]

Go at the pace you feel comfortable with and your daily demands are very different than mine. I dose at nearly full daily evaporation with kalk with 75% of it during the night time hours. Noting that it took me a while to get comfortable with those values and as my corals have grown over time.

Start at less than full evaporation and work your way into it, making sure to keep track of your alkalinity.

There are multiple methods to dose kalk, but i use the avast kalk stirrer connected to a DOS. With a kalk stirrer, you can keep at full saturated which helps with a more constant PH dose amounts. The incoming water to the avast kalk stirrer is from my ATO container and I have the output in the middle chamber of my sump.

Anything Randy says should override what I say ;p.

 

[zpete3323]

As a baseline, here are some of my numbers and dosing schedules for my ~400g frag system. I keep alk around 8.3 and ph around 8.3 and it requires about 3.5-4L per day of output through my icecap kalk reactor (not sure the model but the biggest one). The rest of the evap is taken care of by my ato pulling from a brute trash can of rodi water.

I let the Apex adjust dosing throughout the day by up to 15% to help as alk needs grow and have the reactor mix for 2 minutes each hour on the lowest speed (otherwise the magnet spinner flies off).

I don't dose anything else besides 10ml of acropower/day.

Hope this helps

 

[bkhunt]

Go at the pace you feel comfortable with and your daily demands are very different than mine. I dose at nearly full daily evaporation with kalk with 75% of it during the night time hours. Noting that it took me a while to get comfortable with those values and as my corals have grown over time.

Start at less than full evaporation and work your way into it, making sure to keep track of your alkalinity.

There are multiple methods to dose kalk, but i use the avast kalk stirrer connected to a DOS. With a kalk stirrer, you can keep at full saturated which helps with a more constant PH dose amounts. The incoming water to the avast kalk stirrer is from my ATO container and I have the output in the middle chamber of my sump.

Anything Randy says should override what I say ;p.

thanks for advise i am also new to this apex game also so this is another learning curve also. have only had it a months or so. Have never had any controller in all my years of reefing. I always used the KISS method. Until I got my calcium reactor a year ago i was old school DIY 2 part - baked baking soda and peladow.

i have been trying to go slow doing one step at a time - outside air line to skimmer - now dosing with kalk to try and elevate ph.

 

[bkhunt]

As a baseline, here are some of my numbers and dosing schedules for my ~400g frag system. I keep alk around 8.3 and ph around 8.3 and it requires about 3.5-4L per day of output through my icecap kalk reactor (not sure the model but the biggest one). The rest of the evap is taken care of by my ato pulling from a brute trash can of rodi water.

I let the Apex adjust dosing throughout the day by up to 15% to help as alk needs grow and have the reactor mix for 2 minutes each hour on the lowest speed (otherwise the magnet spinner flies off).

I don't dose anything else besides 10ml of acropower/day.

Hope this helps

I am learning that i am WAY under dosing the kalk now. I would love to get my ph up to 8.3. I generally run my alkalinity 9.6-10 a little higher than you. I did slow down the Kamoer pump and alkalinity is about 8.6-9 currently because i read that the alkalinity would go up.

i am new to the whole apex thing in the past month so i do not have the bells and whistles yet.

thanks