mikejrice's 30 Gallon Innovative Marine Nuvo Aquarium

Alkalinity: 12
Calcium: 460
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: .25
Salinity: 1.024
Temperature: 78

 

sorry to be such a pain but as you may or may not know we have the same tank and yours are sweet so I use yours as reference.

Do you remember how much kalk you put into your unit?
I have never used kalk before and have read a lot of horror stories. I know that each tank has their own usage and requirement and that I will need to carefully figure out what amount works best.

Any advice you can give on the topic?

 

I only add about a tablespoon at a time to slowly adjust the amount of calcium it's adding.

They definitely can cause some pretty major problems. I crashed one of my favorite tanks awhile back when I first started running a kalk reactor because I was trying to push it too hard. I was trying to get more calcium into the system so was continually adding kalk in greater amounts. I ended up with a lot of kalk sitting in the reactor at all times to keep up with the tanks needs, and it's just a matter of time until an ATO plays some type of trick on you. It didn't flood anything, but it did run for longer than usual which caused kalk to get pumped out of the reactor and into the system.

The key, I've found, is to only run a kalk reactor up to it's maximum safe potential, and then dose calcium if you're in need of more. The best policy is to follow directions on the kalk reactor and the kalk itself. Don't add more than it says, and don't let large amounts of unspent kalk build up in the bottom of your reactor.

 

Yessir

 

It's a "Meteor Shower" cyphastrea.

 

Alkalinity: 9
Calcium: 440
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: .25
Salinity: 1.024
Temperature: 77

 

Haven't updated this one in quite awhile. Everything still running like clockwork other than a heater failure this year.

 

This tank has been a frag tank for too long... Back into display mode.