Kalkwasser

[reefman MC]

I hate kalkwasser is there a good alternative that works just as well?


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[Pszemol]

"reefman MC" > wrote in message ...
> I hate kalkwasser is there a good alternative that works just as well?

Interesting, why do you hate kalwasser?

[reefman MC]

It's too much trouble with that dripping crapp. I won't ever do it again
unless i have some kind of electronic dosing system, but I've been
doing it by the bucket. I don't lose but about 2 gallons per week. I've
been using Seachems reef complete for my calcium so far, but it's not
very potent.


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[Marc Levenson]

I don't use it at all. Just B-Ionic dailly, which takes about 1 minute to add to each
tank.

Marc


reefman MC wrote:

> I hate kalkwasser is there a good alternative that works just as well?
>
> --
> reefman MC
>

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[Dragon Slayer]

I use the B-Ionic on my 29, but its a little pricey for the 180 so it has a Ca reactor.

doing the "Kalk Slurry" works wonders on my 75 and when the B-Ionic runs out the 29 will get that as well. only takes a min max daily to dose.


kc

"Marc Levenson" > wrote in message ...
I don't use it at all. Just B-Ionic dailly, which takes about 1 minute to add to each tank.

Marc

reefman MC wrote:

I hate kalkwasser is there a good alternative that works just as well?
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[Richard Reynolds]

> doing the "Kalk Slurry" works wonders on my 75 and when the
> B-Ionic runs out the 29 will get that as well. only takes
> a min max daily to dose.

so how do you like this method

i started it around X-mas time, still not sure if i like it or not, but it beats fixing my
reactors :)


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Richard Reynolds

[JT]

please explain kalk slurry, never heard of that one.

[Dragon Slayer]

after reading about it with some very open ended questions I decided to take
it to the horses mouth so to speak and looked up Anthony Calfo and asked the
questions directly to him. after all he is the one who came up with the
method of the 'slurry'. for those of you who don't know Anthony, he is a
very well known and successful coral farmer and author on coral propagation.

what he suggested and I did was:

test your tank and find the levels of daily Ca demand. do this by:

testing your Ca level and record this value. then DO NOT add anything to
the tank for a length of time other then top off water (RO/DI) and after
that length of time (he suggested at least 3 days) test your Ca and see how
much it dropped. divide the drop by the number of days and this gives you
your daily demands of the system.

next you have to own a pH monitor because a test kit is not going to be fast
and accurate enough to do this part of the slurry......

after lights out take a jar (I use an old plastic peanut butter jar) and
fill it about half full of RO/DI water and add 1/16th tsp of Kalk powder (if
you have a large system with a high demand use a bit more, use common sense
to start off with) to it and slurry it around until its completely mixed.
then add it directly to the tank (not the sump) in a high flow area while
monitoring your pH with the monitor.

don't go by the initial spike, but what you get after a few hours of the
tank circulating (Anthony said "it's like when you mix new salt water, don't
go by the initial reading, wait for it to circulate and mix completely").
you don't want to add more then will give you a 0.2 pH increase after the
few hours (I have had initial spikes of 1.0+ but they quickly drop to less
then the 0.2)


testing your Ca will tell you when you find the amount of Kalk to add this
way to keep up with the demands of the system. the limit is the 0.2 pH
spike. but you'd be surprised at the amount of Ca the slurry adds that the
same amount of Kalk dripped doesn't even come close. the 55 had a demand of
40ppm per day and the slurry meet that with less then a 0.1 pH spike, so I'd
say you could slurry up to at least an 80ppm (maybe much higher) per day
demand with a single dose.

I have been doing the slurry for about 3 months now on 4 tanks and it works
great and I have better calcification then I did with the dripping. the LR
in my grow out tank was doing great and coralline was growing so fast it was
flaking off the glass right up to the point the glass got shattered last
Tuesday but that's a different story.


now for the "draw-backs" of the slurry........

if you use a low grade Kalk for this you will add all the impurities of it
to the tank when you dose meaning the Kalk no longer has a self purification
ability. using the slurry IME takes less Kalk then dripping and the price
of a good grade of Kalk is not a costly factor so get the good stuff from
the start. I did use the "Ball's Pickling Lime" on the 55 and had no
problems with it at all.

you also loose the Kalk's ability to precipitate any impurities out of the
water used to mix the drip, but using RO/DI water you shouldn't have any in
the first place and you'd be adding no more then when you top off anyways
and your using only a pint or so of water per day as is.




what I did find surprising and still confusing is that if I take the exact
same amount of Kalk and add it to a gallon of RO/DI and allow it to settle
out and take the clear part that you'd drip and add it all to the tank all
at once, the pH spike is considerably higher then the slurry.

hth
kc

[reefman MC]

What company makes b- ionic or is it just b-ionic?


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[Marc Levenson]

It is called ESV's B-Ionic. It comes in 2 bottles or 2 jugs, depending on how much you buy
at your LFS.

Marc


reefman MC wrote:

> What company makes b- ionic or is it just b-ionic?
>
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[reefman MC]

Is the b-ionic just as simple as poring it in?


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[Marc Levenson]

Yes.

You pour in Part 1 slowly in a spot of high flow. I try to pour it in very slowly over 15
seconds to get it dispersed without turning it to white flakes (precipitation). After 30
seconds or so, I pour in Part 2 the same way.

Once a day is all it takes.

Marc


reefman MC wrote:

> Is the b-ionic just as simple as poring it in?
>

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[Marc Levenson]

Do you do this method daily? In the morning or at night?

Thanks for sharing it again. I had it flagged, but lost it when the server
cleared out the old messages.

Marc


Dragon Slayer wrote:

> after reading about it with some very open ended questions I decided to take
> it to the horses mouth so to speak and looked up Anthony Calfo and asked the
> questions directly to him. after all he is the one who came up with the
> method of the 'slurry'. for those of you who don't know Anthony, he is a
> very well known and successful coral farmer and author on coral propagation.
>
> what he suggested and I did was:
>
> test your tank and find the levels of daily Ca demand. do this by:
>
> testing your Ca level and record this value. then DO NOT add anything to
> the tank for a length of time other then top off water (RO/DI) and after
> that length of time (he suggested at least 3 days) test your Ca and see how
> much it dropped. divide the drop by the number of days and this gives you
> your daily demands of the system.
>
> next you have to own a pH monitor because a test kit is not going to be fast
> and accurate enough to do this part of the slurry......
>
> after lights out take a jar (I use an old plastic peanut butter jar) and
> fill it about half full of RO/DI water and add 1/16th tsp of Kalk powder (if
> you have a large system with a high demand use a bit more, use common sense
> to start off with) to it and slurry it around until its completely mixed.
> then add it directly to the tank (not the sump) in a high flow area while
> monitoring your pH with the monitor.
>
> don't go by the initial spike, but what you get after a few hours of the
> tank circulating (Anthony said "it's like when you mix new salt water, don't
> go by the initial reading, wait for it to circulate and mix completely").
> you don't want to add more then will give you a 0.2 pH increase after the
> few hours (I have had initial spikes of 1.0+ but they quickly drop to less
> then the 0.2)
>
> testing your Ca will tell you when you find the amount of Kalk to add this
> way to keep up with the demands of the system. the limit is the 0.2 pH
> spike. but you'd be surprised at the amount of Ca the slurry adds that the
> same amount of Kalk dripped doesn't even come close. the 55 had a demand of
> 40ppm per day and the slurry meet that with less then a 0.1 pH spike, so I'd
> say you could slurry up to at least an 80ppm (maybe much higher) per day
> demand with a single dose.
>
> I have been doing the slurry for about 3 months now on 4 tanks and it works
> great and I have better calcification then I did with the dripping. the LR
> in my grow out tank was doing great and coralline was growing so fast it was
> flaking off the glass right up to the point the glass got shattered last
> Tuesday but that's a different story.
>
> now for the "draw-backs" of the slurry........
>
> if you use a low grade Kalk for this you will add all the impurities of it
> to the tank when you dose meaning the Kalk no longer has a self purification
> ability. using the slurry IME takes less Kalk then dripping and the price
> of a good grade of Kalk is not a costly factor so get the good stuff from
> the start. I did use the "Ball's Pickling Lime" on the 55 and had no
> problems with it at all.
>
> you also loose the Kalk's ability to precipitate any impurities out of the
> water used to mix the drip, but using RO/DI water you shouldn't have any in
> the first place and you'd be adding no more then when you top off anyways
> and your using only a pint or so of water per day as is.
>
> what I did find surprising and still confusing is that if I take the exact
> same amount of Kalk and add it to a gallon of RO/DI and allow it to settle
> out and take the clear part that you'd drip and add it all to the tank all
> at once, the pH spike is considerably higher then the slurry.
>
> hth
> kc

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[reefman MC]

I'll have to order it. All the lfs's around here don't sell it. They all
say,"What is that?"


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[Dragon Slayer]

every night, but to be honest I have done it during the middle of the day
when I get busy and don't have much time on hand. I don't think it makes a
difference when you spike the pH as long as you don't over spike it.

at night the natural tendency of the pH to go down is a small bit of a
safety margin.

kc

"Marc Levenson" > wrote in message
...
> Do you do this method daily? In the morning or at night?
>
> Thanks for sharing it again. I had it flagged, but lost it when the
server
> cleared out the old messages.
>
> Marc
>
>
> Dragon Slayer wrote:
>
> > after reading about it with some very open ended questions I decided to
take
> > it to the horses mouth so to speak and looked up Anthony Calfo and asked
the
> > questions directly to him. after all he is the one who came up with the
> > method of the 'slurry'. for those of you who don't know Anthony, he is
a
> > very well known and successful coral farmer and author on coral
propagation.
> >
> > what he suggested and I did was:
> >
> > test your tank and find the levels of daily Ca demand. do this by:
> >
> > testing your Ca level and record this value. then DO NOT add anything
to
> > the tank for a length of time other then top off water (RO/DI) and after
> > that length of time (he suggested at least 3 days) test your Ca and see
how
> > much it dropped. divide the drop by the number of days and this gives
you
> > your daily demands of the system.
> >
> > next you have to own a pH monitor because a test kit is not going to be
fast
> > and accurate enough to do this part of the slurry......
> >
> > after lights out take a jar (I use an old plastic peanut butter jar) and
> > fill it about half full of RO/DI water and add 1/16th tsp of Kalk powder
(if
> > you have a large system with a high demand use a bit more, use common
sense
> > to start off with) to it and slurry it around until its completely
mixed.
> > then add it directly to the tank (not the sump) in a high flow area
while
> > monitoring your pH with the monitor.
> >
> > don't go by the initial spike, but what you get after a few hours of the
> > tank circulating (Anthony said "it's like when you mix new salt water,
don't
> > go by the initial reading, wait for it to circulate and mix
completely").
> > you don't want to add more then will give you a 0.2 pH increase after
the
> > few hours (I have had initial spikes of 1.0+ but they quickly drop to
less
> > then the 0.2)
> >
> > testing your Ca will tell you when you find the amount of Kalk to add
this
> > way to keep up with the demands of the system. the limit is the 0.2 pH
> > spike. but you'd be surprised at the amount of Ca the slurry adds that
the
> > same amount of Kalk dripped doesn't even come close. the 55 had a
demand of
> > 40ppm per day and the slurry meet that with less then a 0.1 pH spike, so
I'd
> > say you could slurry up to at least an 80ppm (maybe much higher) per day
> > demand with a single dose.
> >
> > I have been doing the slurry for about 3 months now on 4 tanks and it
works
> > great and I have better calcification then I did with the dripping. the
LR
> > in my grow out tank was doing great and coralline was growing so fast it
was
> > flaking off the glass right up to the point the glass got shattered last
> > Tuesday but that's a different story.
> >
> > now for the "draw-backs" of the slurry........
> >
> > if you use a low grade Kalk for this you will add all the impurities of
it
> > to the tank when you dose meaning the Kalk no longer has a self
purification
> > ability. using the slurry IME takes less Kalk then dripping and the
price
> > of a good grade of Kalk is not a costly factor so get the good stuff
from
> > the start. I did use the "Ball's Pickling Lime" on the 55 and had no
> > problems with it at all.
> >
> > you also loose the Kalk's ability to precipitate any impurities out of
the
> > water used to mix the drip, but using RO/DI water you shouldn't have any
in
> > the first place and you'd be adding no more then when you top off
anyways
> > and your using only a pint or so of water per day as is.
> >
> > what I did find surprising and still confusing is that if I take the
exact
> > same amount of Kalk and add it to a gallon of RO/DI and allow it to
settle
> > out and take the clear part that you'd drip and add it all to the tank
all
> > at once, the pH spike is considerably higher then the slurry.
> >
> > hth
> > kc
>
> --
> Personal Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com/oanda/index.html
> Business Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com
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>
>