Turbo-calcium/Kalkwasser mix

[yagodajm]

I have 2 kent marine products, Turbo-calcium and Kalkwasser mix, I got them at a pet store and they mixed them together in a bag and floated it in the tank. These products seems so confussing. I have no idea how to put them in the tank safely and the amount. I have a 55 gal tank. I tested my calcium at about 300,( the test kit kinda sucks, and is hard to read). I also have a bottle of REEF calcium. Can anyone tell me what ones to use and how much of each for my tank. Is carbonate hardness something to worry about mine is greater then 214.8 according to the test kit.

Also if I have a ammonia level of 0, is it possible to have a nitrate level of 40? i do a 10 gal water change every week.

thanks for you help, Justin

[erikharrison]

did you read the products labels? You need to follow them to a tee to get anything accurate. Even if something is off, you should be able to compensate if you measure somewhat accurately. Yes it is possible to have a nitrate level of 40, as the first stage is ammonia!

[Texreefer]

kent turbo calcium and kalkwasswer mix are both good products, the instructions on the side are pretty straight forward.. you do not want to dose them at the same time, instead, we have stickied a great tool in the do it yourself forum on chemistry and how to dertiermine what to add.
what KH test kit are you using? without the unit of measure the 214.8 does not mean anything,, and yes you can have a nitrate reading of 40 with a 0 ammonia reading,, so if your trying to keep corals, which is suggested by the use of the above products, i would find the souerce of your nitrates and look into an efficient skimmer

[matt]

I have 2 kent marine products, Turbo-calcium and Kalkwasser mix, I got them at a pet store and they mixed them together in a bag and floated it in the tank.

I don't get what you're saying. But, if you want excellent answers to basic reef chemistry questons, like dealing with Calcium and Alkalinity, go to reefcentral.com, then to the reef chemistry forum, then to the sticky "reef chemistry articles" by Randy Holmes-Farley.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=102605

Turbo calcium is calcium chloride, which is used to raise your calcium level quickly. For 55 gallons of water, you need 11.5 tsp of it to raise the calcium from 300 to 400PPM. Don't add it all at once, break it up into a couple of doses.

Kalkwasser is calcium hydroxide or hydrated lime, which is great for your tank but you need to add it slowly, best with a dosing pump. Read the article on lime by Randy Holmes-Farley.

I don't know what reef calcium is, but I bet it's just calcium chloride dissolved in water.

You do have to worry about carbonate hardness in a reef tank, well actually not so much worry about it, but keep it within a certain range. I don't know what the conversion is for the figure you gave, but you want to be in the 7-11 range on the dkh scale, or somewhere around 3.0-3.5 on the meq/l scale. To get there, baking soda is a fine buffer, and it's cheap.

It's possible to have 0 ammonia and extremely high nitrates; in fact it's pretty common in high fish load tanks.

You're asking some pretty basic questions about reef chemistry, so I bet those articles on reefcentral will really help you out. Have fun!

[yagodajm]

Matt thank you so much for your help, i will take a look at he articales

[apedroza]

Those calculators are awesome, but I highly recommend a good test kit to test first.