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sohal1025
11/12/2007, 02:12 PM
Do I need to use a kalk additive along with my usual calcium and akl. dosing? I was told to add it to my topoff water. Is it a necessity?

Blindmelonbob
11/12/2007, 02:30 PM
Not necessarily. Are you testing for calcium and alkalinity? There's a rule of thumb on this..."Don't add it, if you're not testing for it." You'll also want to check your pH, because kalk can raise it significantly. HTH!

sohal1025
11/12/2007, 03:09 PM
I do test for cal&alk but not for kalk.

mg426
11/12/2007, 03:16 PM
No you do not (need ) Kalkwasser if you are currently using a two part additive to maintain Ca/Alk. Kalkwasser is used to maintain your ca/ alk as it add both in balanced proportions. Kalk can make your make rise in a hurry.

mg426
11/12/2007, 03:18 PM
Try reading this article http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2003/chem.htm

Sk8r
11/12/2007, 05:27 PM
Kalk is a substitute for dosing alk and cal.
There is no test for it: it's just powdered lime [Mrs. Wages' Pickling Lime is what I use] mixed with ro/di water.
The trick is, ro/di will dissolve lime to a certain strength and no further. This just happens to be pretty well in line with what the ocean does---and when it gets dripped into seawater the kalkwater [ro/di mixed with lime] handles both the calcium and the alkalinity demand. Most users substitute kalkwasser [limewater] for their ro/di, or, in fact, put lime in their ro/di topoff water. A tank your size will probably evaporate somewhere around a gallon of water a day, and that would mean a gallon of kalk would go into your tank, and it would [theoretically] handle your calcium and alk dosing for the day.

A half a jar of Mrs. Wages dumped into my kalk reactor handles my tank for a month, without my having do daily dosing: that's the reason a lot of people do kalk. If you're interested in trying it, start a log and know exactly what the daily 'draw' is for your tank in terms of evaporation and dosing, to stay steady-state in all params, and that will tell you whether a kalk reactor would work well for you. It would certainly save you a certain amount of work, but as tanks get larger than 55g, they do need a certain amount of testing and additional support...ie, they're a little larger demand than their evaporation rate can keep up with ---since it's only the topoff water that's bringing in the kalk, and the kalk can only saturate ro/di to a specific extent. If you need more calcium supplementation than that, due to a lot of stony coral, you need a calcium reactor, which can add more calcium per day than kalk can.