kalkawassa

Forum:

Yesterday evening we added about a gallon of Ro/Di water to my 5 gallon bucket along with one table-spoon of Calcium Hydroxide along with a cup of vinegar to help dissolve the CA(OH)2. After awhile we added the remaining 4 gallons and added a Koralia for stirring purposes.

Our question(s) is the water looks totally clear there is no visible residue build-up of the CA since last night in our bucket is this normal? Should we stop the Koralia and let it sit?

Also should we still siphon off the water we will be adding as kalkawassa back to the DT tank?

E

 

Forum:

I will be testing my pram's later today before starting the dosing. I'm planning on starting the dosing tomorrow night and see how it goes.

E

 

The easiest way is just to use a kalk reactor running through an ato.
But to answer your question let it settle out and drip the clear portion into your tank, remember the ph is high so go slow. For 5 gals I would use closer to 2 tablespoons.

 

hi e, if you only used 2tsp of kalk for 5g of water i'm pretty sure thats not enough, it's enough for 1g i use 7 to 10 tsp for 5g and a cup of vinegar seems a little much but, i may have been doing it wrong all these years

 

Discusses Kalk. Suggest starting with .5 teaspoon per gallon.
BulkReefSupplyCom's Channel - YouTube

 

At the dosage of vinegar you are using you should be using 2 TBSP of Kalkwasser, not one, otherwise you don't need any vinegar.

You should use 1.5 tsp kalkwasser per gallon if you are using 60ml per gallon of vinegar. 1-1.25 tsp per gallon if you are using 30-45ml per gallon. Up to 1 tsp per gallon if not using vinegar. If using vinegar, you should not add any water at all until after you've dissolved the kalwasser. 1 cup of vinegar for 5 gallons of water is about 45ml per gallon (236ml in a cup), so you are ok there but are starting a little on the high side. You may not need that much vinegar, or any vinegar at all, but you won't know until you've tried dripping the kalkwasser and then testing your parameters (to see if it's keeping up with demand). Always allow the kalkwasser mix to settle for about 24hrs before carefully removing the clear portion. The white stuff at the bottom is impurities that you don't want to add to your system.

 

Forum:

Thanks again for the info all I only added one table spoon this time around just to see how the tank reacts to the dosing. We do plan to add more once we see it is stable.

However we tested our prams this morning and it seems my alk is way high and my ph is low. Do we need to bring up the alk first before starting our dose? We realize the light are off and maybe affecting the readings....

E

 

i don't think so, it's normal for the ph to be low when lights are out thats why we drip at night, the alk being high is good in my opinion

 

If you put a low Kelvin light (around 5000-6500k) on your sump/fuge it will not only start placing the algae problems in your fuge/sump instead of in your Display, it will also help control the pH swing that happens after the lights shut off.

 

Forum:

Thanks again all maybe i did not add enough this round but will add more the next batch. I am using labratory grade Calcium Hydroxide so we wanted to start slowly.

E