KH and Ca

[thenewguy19]

Trying to better understand this , I have been playing around with dosing kalwasser (with a dosing pump) in a cycled tank with snails only and good flow for a few weeks.


Magnesium seem stable to my desired level after I dosed it and it doesn’t really Fluctuate. 1360
KH and Ca seem to always be going down till I got to the correct dose more or less Kh8.1- 8.4 Ca 400-410

But without dosing they slowly drop.
Just wondering does this sound normal , where is the Ca and KH going if not being used?

 

[Iván Olalla]

Snails use carbonate to grow the shells, coralline algae uses it too, so yeah, normal

 

[Roy Arena]

Your numbers look good. What salt are you using?

 

[thenewguy19]

Neo marine , Yea I know the number are ok has I am dosing and I have been playing with the ml dosed , But I like to understand where the Ca and ALK that I am adding per day are going , I am not buying 4 tiny snails are using it all maybe some but not all and I don't have any coralline algae. I would like to understand more about what is going on or if there is a lost /transfer from aeration & evaporation etc..

 

[Iván Olalla]

No, evap is only water, salts remain. Also there's the issue that your heather and pumps have carbonate cristals growing in them or on your substrate as a form of precipitation. Also the nitrogen cycle uses carbonate in the last part converting nitrate to nitrogen, and then releases the carbonate back, but if you do a water change those carbonates never come back....

 

[W1ngz]

Something new I learned this week:

If it's a recently cycled tank, the break down of ammonia consumes carbonate. Going from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate is only 3/4 of the nitrogen cycle. A mature tank eventually develops the bacteria that converts nitrate to nitrogen gas, which then leaves behind the carbonate that was lost in the beginning.

 

[thenewguy19]

No, evap is only water, salts remain. Also there's the issue that your heather and pumps have carbonate cristals growing in them or on your substrate as a form of precipitation. Also the nitrogen cycle uses carbonate in the last part converting nitrate to nitrogen, and then releases the carbonate back, but if you do a water change those carbonates never come back....

Thank you for the info , do you know if is there any exchange made from the air or co2 in the room as well?

 

[Iván Olalla]

T

Thank you for the info , do you know if is there any exchange made from the air or co2 in the room as well?

The only thing that comes to my mind un that regard is ph related. Co2 lowers ph and in it's abscence raises.... Nitryfing bacteria struggles in low ph environments, so there's that...also high ph promotes calcification, so there's that too,sorry for the broken english, not native speaker here, hope i helped!

 

[BeejReef]

Your numbers look solid.

Kalkwasser doesn't contain magnesium, so that's why that level isn't rising.
No one is really totally sure what is going on in a young tank. The levels fluctuate a lot. You really don't need to concern yourself much with alk or calc until you're adding corals.

Sounds like you've got it dialed in pretty well though, so you've got a headstart. I use the same method, dosing pump from kalk reservoir. Aside from a few dips in alkalinity, I never saw a discernible demand for alkalinity and calcium until the third or fourth month, and I had some fish, a handful of corals, and a little coraline.

What is your average dkh drop per day if you don't dose?

 

[thenewguy19]

Yeah I have had fish only tank for a while and I am test around with a newly cycled tank to see if I can get my numbers to be stable and learn whats going on first.

on avg around .25kh or less but it seem the use slows down once tank Alk is around 7.6kh.