Kalk and evaporated water

[Hanali]

I have a 55 gal. tank with 2 pepermint shrimp and a small rock of zoos.

I was wanting to see a greater growth of coaline and the zoo's before adding much more to the tank. I was told that Kalk would be the best way of doing this.

What is the best method of doing this?

I do not have a top-off system and was thinking about building a Kalk reactor because I am lazy and am not always home to be my top-off system.

Tips?

[matt]

Regardless of whether you build a kalk reactor or not, you'll need some sort of container to store the KW in (or fresh water if you're using a reactor) and some way of slowly and reliably delivering that KW to your tank or to the reactor. You don't need an auto top off system with a float switch, in fact, it's probably better to not control KW delivery with a float switch.

The simplest and cheapest thing is to suspend a large bucket somewhere above the tank or sump and have a drip valve drip the KW into the tank until the bucket's empty. There are a couple of potential problems with this; it's a pain to have to contantly mix up new KW and it very easy for the drip valve to either plug up and stop working or accidentally open and allow the KW into your tank too fast. But, it can work well, especially if you get one of the drip controllers that squeeze the feed tube, like on medical IV bags.

The next step in expense and "automation" (sort of) would be to have a sealed glass jug, like a 5 gallon glass water jug, fitted with a 2 holed stopper. Into the stopper you need 2 pyrex pipes; 1 long one that goes almost to the bottom of the jug that will be your KW output. The other one is short and only provides air to the jug so KW can flow out. On the short pipe you put some flexible tube that attaches to something that you can attach to the inside wall of your sump right at water level, like an "aspirator" without the plunger. This way, once you seal up the system and start a siphon, as long as the end of that aspirator is in the water, no air flows into the jug and no KW flows out. When your sump evaporates a little water, it lets air in the jug, KW flows out, fills the sump a little, seals itself, etc. This set up is cheap and works pretty well, but again, you have to mix up a few gallons of KW, siphon it into the glass jug every couple o days, etc. (use plastic for that jug and you'll be VERY sorry in a few months, trust me!)

The best, but most expensive method is to buy a peristaltic dosing pump, which can deliver KW to your tank or water to your reactor at a precise rate, usually adjustable from 5-10ML/hour (almost nothing) to several gallons per day. The best of these I've found are sold by innovative aquatics; he takes old medical dosing pumps which are very precise and reliable and refurbishes them for reef aquarium use. There's also the "litermeter" pump which has a great reputation but costs around $350. Aqua medic makes a cheap one that is not adjustable and has a bad rep.

The advantage to a KW reactor is that you're periodically stirring the KW in a sealed container, insuring that it's at maximum strength, you only have to put water rather than KW into your container, meaning you can hook it up to a R.O. filter if you want, and it's very convenient to just dump a little kalk into the reactor every couple of weeks and let the system do everyting else.

[SGTDirk]

What I've been told is to get a addative called "Super Perple" I think. Its like $20 a bottle. I've never used it, but everyone I've talked to that has used it swears by it.

[hammondegge]

ITS MADE FROM PEOPLEEEEEEEEEE>>>>>>>>>>>> :o

[matt]

Thousands of very successful reef tanks over many years have used KW for replenishment of calcium and carbonate. It's one of the primary elements of the "Berlin" method of reefkeeping, which is what most contemporary reef tanks are at least partially based on. How can you compare that to yet another example of the latest "snake oil"?

BTW, pouring dissolved or ground up calcium carbonate into your tank does basically nothing for the animals, but it can fool your test kit into thinking your alkalinity is alot higher than it in fact is. That's because alkalinity test kits use an acid to measure how much of the acid it takes to lower the ph of the sample. If there's granular calclium carbonate in the sample, it will take alot more acid to lower the ph, but not because there are available carbonate ions in the sample for use by corals.

[Darth-Tater]

I thought soylent Green was made from people........... :w00t

gosh I love that movie.

DT

[gjuarez]

Matt, thats some great info and it makes a lot of sense, keep it coming.

[Hanali]

Thanks

[SaltyJim]

Here's what I use. Add a little kalk and you are good for a week (well, on my 42 I am).

eBay Link (http://cgi.ebay.com/Kent-Marine-AquaDose-Aquarium-Live-Coral-Fish-Doser_W0QQitemZ7773903511QQihZ018QQcategoryZ20756Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

[Richard]

I think the theory behind the ground up aragonite is that it will settle into the pores of liverock and deep into the sandbed where ph is lower because of bacterial activity. Then it will dissolve releasing ca, carbonates, mg etc.

I have never tested using these products long term so I don't know if it works in practice. Although more than a few people claim to have had success with these types of products (aragamilk, liquid reactor, etc.). Someday I would like to run a tank using only one of these additives and see what happens long term. I do know from testing that these products do not provide an immediate increase in ca, alk at least IME.

I do know that given enough time and NOT dosing lots of chemicals (ony smaller regular water changes) that an aquarium with an aragonite sandbed will tend to stabilize and reach a balance to where corals will grow well and alkalinity and calcium levels will remain stable without the dosing of chemicals. The key here is "given enough time" and not interfering with the development of a carbon cycle and the carbonate cycle which is a subset of the carbon cycle by dosing various chemicals. So someday I hope to test the use of these types of products. This article might explain the theory a little better...
http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/1097/1097_5.html

These are the types of testing that I think would be cool to have maast do long term experiments with. I'm sure you could get people to donate to setup a test aquarium and then run it long term to see what type of results you get by strictly following a particular approach/method. It seems strange to me that in this hobby there is so little actual testing, especially long term testing, just anecdotal experiences of people who are generally combining a variety of methods and then picking which one they think gave the results positive or negative.

[blueboy]

is it okay to use an osmolator to dose KW? i thought i remembered turbobrett doing this with no problems. i would just be concerned about the pump lasting, and about the pump picking up unmixed kalk from the bottom of the resevoir. any experiences with this?

[Z4]

I thought soylent Green was made from people........... :w00t

gosh I love that movie.

DT

just some good ole saltines.....thats a good movie.