My Kalkwasser Journey Ep. 4: 18 Month Update

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[@vincentlong6254]

Been dosing kalk for over 20 years and love it,

[@TrevorHiller]

Re: the sodium hydroxide. Yes you can use balling part c to cancel out the salinity increase. That’s what I’m dosing. Kalk, NaOH, BRS CaCl & Balling C. Works nicely and pH runs 8.3-8.5

[@mikkostenberg1740]

The tank that is slightly low in Ca and Mg might like All for Reef. The powder does not really cost much and the rest in it should work in your favour too.

[@tompage8674]

I started dosing kalk thsnks to your video. Raised by ph from 7.9 to 8.3 and my alk from 8.7 to 10. Working well so far though it's early days.

[@ReefDork]

Careful with the alk level

[@paulmuadib8955]

Thanks fir making a long video. Ill watch later... but seriously thanks.... i like kalkwasser

[@johncornwall1]

Great vid, many thanks. I’m a week into my Kalkwasser journey and wouldn’t have had the courage (hubris?) to begin of it weren’t for your content 😊

[@josephposada1830]

I trust your healing is progressing well good Sir. I wish to add a warning about Sea lab 28. It will shoot your Calc level off the charts. My Calc level is now dropping down slowly pH is 7.8

[@shabbir78]

Hi Alex in reefing terms I am your colonial cousin from India, I have a 75 gallon SPS dominated mixed reef and my tank's evaporation rate is around 2 liters per day I test my tank's alkalinity at least 3 times a week and try to keep the alk around 8.5 dKH so I mix 25 grams kalkwasser per 15 liters of RO water and dose it via auto top off (I don't use ATO pump instead I use peristatic dosing pump which sits outside my ATO) I also dose 40 ml each of the Aquaforest Components Pro balling method. Several times out of curiosity I tried reducing the kalkwasser to 18 grams per 15 litre of RO water but end up with low alk reading of 7.2 to 7.5 dKH hence I had to dose more of Component Pro and vice versa if I increase kalk to around 30 mg in my 15 liter auto top-off mix I end up with slightly higher alk reading of around 9 to 9.5 dKH and dose less of the balling method so I guess kalk works quite well.

[@P3rchAddict]

To the question in the stream: The number of dKH one liter of Kalkwasser increases depends on the amount of CO2 dissolved in the tank water. So it is different for every tank. High CO2 value, big KH increase; low CO2 value, low KH increase. If I recall correctly, one liter of saturated Kalkwasser contains 900 mg of calcium. So, one liter of Kalkwasser increases the Ca of a 500l tank by about 1.8 mg/l.

[@vincentlong6254]

Don't forget the other benefit of its ability to bond phosphates,

[@jules2545]

I am not sure of the validity of a pH probe in seawater that uses 4 and 7 calibration solutions. I have spent a fair few hours with two different probes testing each probes, one calibrates at 4 and 7 and the other at 7 and 10. One probe reads high and the other low (IMO). I have graphed the probes and find that they both follow the same trends but there seems to be a systematic difference between the two probes. An interesting issue with the Reeffactory ph probe is that when calibrated and then plonked into a pH 10 standard, the highest reading I get is a round 9.0. Its interesting to purchase some calibration fluids and place your probe in each fluid to see how well it reads with those standards.

[@ReefDork]

Yeah, I'm sure there's a reason but it's odd that they use 4 and 7.

[@pault9287]

For me, I don't want to spend loads of money on lots of dosers, so a limited dosing option is attractive. It looks to be between Kalk and AllForReef. If I look at it like top trumps, Kalk gives me the PH boost as it's main appeal and being very cheap but A4R seems to win out with it giving me Alk, Calc & Mag, trace elements plus less fussy to make up. There's less of a risk of adding wear to equipment & I won't need a stirrer or larger reservoir in the long run. The powder form of A4R seems at least cheaper than most options and I have a refugium which balances out PH to a degree. It would be great if you went a different route with your new Cade system and tried something like A4R with a refugium, to get your thoughts on it as a rival to Kalk!... :P

[@ReefDork]

Nope, kalk all the way 🤓

[@JoeKoors]

I am the same way. Started with all for reef powder.... then i wanted to raise pH so i switched to kalk. What kalk cant handle i augment now with allforreef. I blow a giant fan on my sump to increase evaporation so i can use more kalk(about 1.5 gallons a day) without the sump evaporation was about half

[@ReneReef]

1 gram of Ca(OH)2 contains 75.69 KH. So, 1 Liter of kalkwasser (saturated at 1.4 grams/L) would contain 106 KH and 1 Liter of that solution then increases the KH of 100 Liters by 1.06 KH.

[@ReefDork]

I think that's quite a long way off...

[@ReneReef]

@@ReefDork Only found a rounding error. Still 75,69 KH/gram Ca(OH)2. Don't forget, each molecule of calcium hydroxide contains 2 hydroxide ions, each resulting in one bicarbonate ion. The math: 1 KH equals 0.000357 mole/L bicarbonate. 1 mole of Ca(OH)2 weighs 74.093 grams. In 1 mole Ca(OH)2 there is 2 moles of OH-. Those react with 2 moles of CO2 to produce 2 moles of bicarbonate = 5607.9 KH. 5607.9 KH/mole of Ca(OH)2) / 74.093 grams/mole = 75.69 KH/gram. For reference, sodium bicarbonate contains 33.4 KH/gram, sodium carbonate 52.9 and sodium hydroxide 70.1 KH/gram. Another comparison: ATI essentials+ contains about 10000 KH/L, making it over 89 times stronger a KH solution than kalkwasser. I used to dose KW, but after figuring out the above, I switched to sodium hydroxide and sodium bicarbonate. My Profilux doses NaOH when the pH is below 8.3, and NaHCO3 when the pH rises above 8.3. Also, regarding the imbalance between Calcium and alkalinity usage. That is caused by exces CO2. Running a CO2 scrubber along side kalkwasser will actually help balancing out the calcium and alkalinity consumption.

[@ReneReef]

Oh, and thanks for the great video! Missed the stream, but it was short enough to be a good watch afterwards.

[@kahldrogo8657]

Greetings from Tampa Florida. great job congratulations Might you help me. I'm adding 20ml of kalkwasser every hour but I don't see my ph going up for almost a week. A week ago I was adding 30 ml per hour but my kh goes up very quickly and I had to lower the dose to 20 ml per hour. the question would be do I have to add more ml per hour or does the kalkwasser take time to take effect. my systems is 100 gallon. kalkwasser preparation is 1/2 tablespoon per 1 gallon RODI WATER. my ph is 7.83 at night and during the day using Co2 scrubber on my skimmer 7.98-8.0. I am desperate for my low ph I would appreciate your help. Thank you and congratulations for what you do

[@ReefDork]

Kalkwasser's main purpose is to increase calcium and alkalinity rather than just pH. So you should only dose as much as you need to maintain your alkalinity level. If that's not enough to increase your pH then kalkwasser isn't the solution.

[@mordecai0815]

Hey Al, what do you think about the stirrer long term now? Mine(Deltec) keeps clogging up on the exit side. Also I'm not quite sure if adding fresh kalk every x weeks is much less of a hassle than refilling a larger container. Hope your arm is going well..

[@ReefDork]

It's much less hassle in my opinion - only takes a few seconds. I like the stirrer, not much to add to my review. Good bit of kit

[@ChadLower]

I added my coral colors to the Kalk last night then after I did it, I thought maybe it wasn't a good idea. Anyone know if adding trace elements to Kalk has any negetive effects?

[@andrew5762]

Hi Alex, my tank evaporates around 3 1/2 litres , I was thinking of dosing the same amount in kalc from a drum so I don’t have to top up with R/o ,🤷🏻‍♂️any thoughts please

[@ReefDork]

You'll never quite get it exact as evap fluctuates so you should always have an ATO as well.

[@andrew5762]

🎉

[@andrew5762]

Thanks for quick reply, Alex 👍😀

[@krijnstaylow]

How would you implement kalkwasser in your cade with the gravity fed ato?

[@ReefDork]

I just dose it into the return pump section

[@krijnstaylow]

@@ReefDork yeah great. Difficult to use a kalk stirrer.

[@lovermansmith9082]

Maybe one day you can condense your kalk experience . I'll look for that 8 min vid . Thanks

[@scottdixon6995]

My tank also runs with a PH of 9

[@kengilmore4384]

My tank runs an 8.6 ph