Want to do KALK in my 125 gallon tank ... NEED HELP

i finally just set my light up for my tank .. time for some corals but i need to keep my cal mag alk up.. its going to be a sps dominated tank .. is kalk the way to go or go with a calcium reactor? seems kalk is easier to control,maintain and it looks cheaper.. what else do i need to get for the kalk ? im using and ro system but its in another room .. can i still use ato and just put a bucket under the tank and let it drip in ?


thanks

 

I am unfamilar with the lastest Ca reactors.

I will suggest that kalk is a great product when used on a slow drip and parameters monitored closely until you have an idea of your tank's individual trends.

If you are unfamilar with kalk, here is a link with some basic information.

Kalkwasser

Bumping for the inquire regarding the RO

 

Here's a good Kalk video

YouTube - How To Use the King of All Saltwater Additives Safely and Effectively

 

Yes, with a little preparation ahead of time. You don't want it to become exposed to ambient CO2 in your room because it will just precipitate in your bucket. I would drill a hole into the lid, put your tubing through that and then silicone the tubing into that hole. (This is why you'll see that Kalk dosers always have a screw on lid). You'll also have to figure out a way to raise the pump for the ATO off the bottom as you only want to introduce the fully saturated water above the remainder on the bottom.

 

the only thing about kalc is it doesn't add carbonate or alkalinity to the tank.

If you get good media for a reactor it will maintain a good balance for growth. really the only difficulty is dialing in the unit when you first get it.


personally I would run a reactor any tank over 75g that has a good amount of sps, just to reduce the amount of dosing. But kalk and alk supplements will definitely work.

maybe I am wrong about the alkalinity from the kalk if it forms from atmospheric co2.

 

Yep....you're wrong. No biggie though. I've been wrong many time before and I'll be wrong many times in the future.

That's actually how it does add alkalinity. There is dissolved CO2 in your water, the Kalk reacts with it, and the result is a balanced supplement that adds both Calcium and Alkalinity to your aquarium.

 

although it has been my experience for alkalinity to slowly drop while using kalk exclusively. it's probably why I assumed it didn't add alkalinity.


Somewhere I heard calcium reactors can have the opposite problem raising alk to high after a while.

 

All of our tanks are different. If you have a lot of stonies and a lot of coralline algae, that would make sense. Stonies and coralline algae (for the most part) can use Calcium, Magnesium, and Strontium interchangeably. If you have a lot of stonies, there are no stand-ins for Carbon (alkalinity).

When they pull elements out of the water to make their Calcium CARBONate skeletons, there can possibly be an imbalance. That's the reason that if one wants to grow SPS and LPS (and some softies), you need to be testing for a lot more things like Ca, Mg, Alk, in addition to the normal tests and have things available to "top-off" whatever is depleted.

In other words.....alkalinity is being added, it's just being depleted faster than Ca or Mg.