reverse fuge lighting

[txg8gxp]

I'm curious on how important is reverse fuge lighting? I know it helps with pH swing, what else could be done to help with this? I want to put a 20L display fuge on my larger tank, but can't sleep with that much light on. What else would be good to prevent pH swing? Any advise would be great, Thanks.

[StevenSeas]

do u mean fuge? and dosing kalk at night helps, stable kh and buffers all around. it doesnt have to be much light either ....

[txg8gxp]

Yea, thats what I get for not spelling it out. Now, would you dose kalk with a ATO all the time or RO during the day and kalk at night?



do u mean fuge?

[robalv]

Different opinions on that some say only at night, think it all depends on how heavy SPS is in your tank. I only dose at night so far.

[txg8gxp]

Good point, I will not have many SPS. I'm mainly interested in stable pH.



Different opinions on that some say only at night, think it all depends on how heavy SPS is in your tank. I only dose at night so far.

[StevenSeas]

i would run ATO as normal and dose kalk at nite. it is calcium hydroxide which is very basic compared to our tanks alkalinity (not in an aquarium sense but rather like basisity if that were a word) That is why it is dosed at night b/c it drives up the pH which dips at night due to the lack of respiration either via animals, or plants. what I currently do for dosing my kalk is basically have a few 35 ml syringes that i picked up from work, a few airline valves and some airline again from work. I cut off the last 1/4 in of the syringe, insert the valve directly and then attach the airline to the other side of the valve. Remove the plunger and then you have a dripper for your kalk. you can slow the rate of addition by twisting the valve and your all good. This all cost around 5 bucks or so so not bad at all. but for your size tank you would need atleast 2 to dose 1 ml per gallon (which im doing currently cuz w/ kalk 2+ it adds 2.3 ppm calc per 1 ml per 1 gallon) If you dont want to fill these all up and dont have a spot to attach them all then there is another method that im fond of and is cheap.
Either a lil dripper or big dripper for reptiles. It is a large jug for lack of another word with a valve and airline running out of it w/ a screw top, nice squat demensions for in a stand and fitting between the sump and top of the stand. but to there you could add a very dilute solution of kalk and let it drip all night long. I say dilute solution b/c a) the container is large enough to handle it b) it will last all night long that way c) you dont have to worry as much bout calcium clogging the valve in the middle of the night so that it doesnt drip properly

[StevenSeas]

Different opinions on that some say only at night, think it all depends on how heavy SPS is in your tank. I only dose at night so far.
I am unsure as to how SPS plays into when dosing kalk should occur, plz enlighten if you can. all corals respirate during the day driving up the pH and stop at night so you get a downward fluctuation.

[StevenSeas]

ooo also you will want to buffer your ato water with something or this will bring the pH down....deffinitly forgot to do this this past time... thats what I get for being in a rush to get outta town, atleast i dechlorinated lol

[txg8gxp]

Ok, so correct me if I'm wrong. If I was running a ATO w/float switch, I wouldn't want to use that for doseing kalk.(if evap isn't high, may not get the right dosing) You would want a seperate dosing system just for kalk( to get a more accurate dosage)

[StevenSeas]

in my opinion yes this is b/c you wouldnt get the correct dosing. I recommend having your top off buffered and just do manual dosing at night unless u care to pay for a dosing pump

[StevenSeas]

well actually there would be a way to do it from an ato close enough to be right ... ill type it up after dinner

[StevenSeas]

Ok so in a prefect world and your tank being an isolated system here is how I would dose kalk via an ato.
1) start off by turning all pumps off and let the DT drain to fill the sump. Then fill the sump to the max line that you would have your water ever at. Record the time and height of the mark and then turn on all of your pumps.
2) wait 24 hrs from your first check then turn off all your pumps again, let the water drain and take a new measurement.
3) fill up to the max line again and repeat for 2+ more days.
4) take the avg change in Height and mult by the length and width of the chamber then convert to gallons. That is how much you would lose in a typical day.
Now say you lose a gallon a day to make math simple. and you have a 20 gallon ato resivor. you would need to make the concentration of the kalk in that resivor so that 1 gallon worth is the proper amt of kalk needed to be added that day. That is where it gets tricky is making a stock sol and diluting. right now I have a half gallon stock sol that I take 26 ml out to dose a night. So make your stock sol in a gallon jug. find out how much kalk you need to dose daily. say 75 ml for your 57+sump so so then for your 20 gallon ato add 75mlx20 to the ato resivor. then fill the rest with your RO/DI water. Then hope that this works. It wont work consistantly as ambient temp and humidity etc changes but it could work well enough to get by.

[BIGBIRD123]

Here is a good article to read...it may help, it may not.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_6/volume_6_2/kalkwasser.htm

I dose 1000ml overnight over a 10 hr period in 58g three times a week. (saturated solution)

[Ping]

Setting up parts of a system to moderate pH swings is fine tuning that is not a requirement. Many successful systems do not take the nightly pH change into account. However, everything we can do to help stabilize our systems will provide for healthier lovestock.

the best time to dose Kalk manually is right after lights go off or on a timed system during darkness.

Reverse or 24 hour lighting for a vegatative fuge is best, but again, not a requirement.

[Europhyllia]

My moonlights and my refugium lights come on (timer) around the time when my display lights go off. That's pretty simple. I still like to do it that way.

When I dosed kalk I had my ReefFanatic ATO on a timer as well so the ATO signaled only at night.
I set it to start at around 2AM rather than right at lights out because right before lights out the pH was high anyway and would take awhile to drop. My timer had small increment settings so it was set to go on and off several times for very short periods.
The pump I used for kalk dosing was a cheapo Tom Airlift. It uses airline tubing so it dispenses it much more slowly than a bigger pump/tubing would.

For me the ATO, cheap timer and cheap airlift pump was a well working economical alternative to snazzier set ups or the tedious process of measuring and calculating water usage.

I also run a CO2 scrubber on my skimmer.

On a side note: size matters! When I just had a 20 gallon sump under the 125g tank the reverse light cycle didn't do much and I had a swing of about 0.5 (pH) in a 24 hour period.
When I added the CO2 scrubber it helped a little but when I then upgraded my sump from a 20g to a 50g the swing became less than 0.3 in a 24 hour period.

[txg8gxp]

Thanks for all the great info everyone. Sound like no matter if I use a fuge or kalk to keep pH stable, it will all come down to testing to figure out what works best for my setup. I think I will give the night time kalk dosing a shoot, sound like it will do exactly what I want. Thank again everyone,

[txg8gxp]

How many on you guys run kalk straight versus diluted? My concerns with a diluted solution would be getting the proper dosage or salinity changes. Yea, I may be over thinking this but theres nothing wrong with that. :)

[Ping]

Do you even need to dose Kalk? Are you running a heavy load of SPS or otherwise use up a significant quantity of Ca. Water changes may meet all your Ca and Alk requirements.

Kalk, or Calcium Hydroxide is the best Ca and Alk supplement for our systems. It will not change the salinity as it can be said to be a balanced additive. Kalk can be easily dosed as a slurry, the danger is dosing too much at one time.

One could try a 1/4 teaspoon of kalk stirred in a cup or so of cold water (I used to keep a jug of R/O water in the fridge, marked aquarium) and dump this in a high flow area of the tank or sump after the lights go out. Calcium is one of the few elements that is reverse soluble.

While dosing this observe the pH for the amount of change. It should not change more than .3 points to be safe. Adjust the quantity as needed to keep the pH swing low and to meet the Ca maintenance requirement.

Many mixed systems can be chemically maintained with only water changes and Kalk dosing.

[kkiel02]

I skimmed over the thread so some of this may have already been said but if you arent carrying a large sps load I wouldnt worry about kalk. I would just reverse or 24 hour your fuge lighting. Like Ping said many very nice systems are setup without a fuge. I got burned by a kalk overdose. So I now just have my fuge light on a 24 hour cycle. I also try and keep my system simple so I do weekly water changes to help keep buffers in the system.

[ErikH]

I put kalk in a 5g bucket. I eyeball it because I can tell about the amount I need. I add it to about 2g of freshwater. Stir it up (little darlin') and then add it into my sump. I make sure that my PH does not exceed 8.40 I have a controller that tells me my PH though. What I do is not really recommended, but that's how I do it. My CA has stayed inline with just the addition of kalk. I am guessing it's all just luck :)

[Ping]

Erik, I would not advocate what you do either. However I have not tested for pH in years. I used an electronic meter and personally found it unecessary.

I dosed Kalk with the slurry method when I learned of it from Calfo's book. I measured my Ca levels and did not worry about my pH. I did start this with my old 100g, however, I believed the larger water volume allowed me to dose the slurry method w/o the worry of too large of a pH swing.

And the precipitate that forms on the top of the Kalk H2O exposed to air (I forget what the precipitate is) does not occur with the slurry method.

[Ping]

I hope my post did not come across as a slam. My intention was that I dosed in the way you do Erik, only w/o the meter.