Dosing Kalkwasser and All for Reef

[astillwell]

I have a 60 gallon AIO. Setting up dosing of Kalkwasser and All for Reef. Has anyone had experience with this? I am having trouble finding any information on dosing amount/times when using both based on my current water parameters (mag,calc,alk,ph).

 

[CookieRdReef]

Im dosing both but not in an appropriate know my parameters all the time way. I was dosing only all 4 reef. Now I just dose a little kalk every hour and check parameters periodically.

 

[CK00020]

I dose afr and kalk in the ato, I test daily and adjust afr if I need to.

 

[Sidsreef]

I have a 60 gallon AIO. Setting up dosing of Kalkwasser and All for Reef. Has anyone had experience with this? I am having trouble finding any information on dosing amount/times when using both based on my current water parameters (mag,calc,alk,ph).

I dose AFR and kalkwasser. If I was you I would dose the kalk and AFR in two different a dosing container. If you dose kalk in ATO your gonna ruin your pump. I am currently dosing 75ml of AFR daily AND 1800ML of kalkwasser daily and I’m about to up it to 2,500ml on kalkwasser.

I test every 2 hours and maintain ALK between 8.80-9.30..calcium stays between 410-480..MAG is all ways at 1450 and my PH stays between 8.10-8.35.

 

[Sidsreef]

Be aware when you bring up your PH your levels are gonna drop faster so you gotta keep up with the levels.. meaning your CA,ALk,MAG

 

[astillwell]

I dose AFR and kalkwasser. If I was you I would dose the kalk and AFR in two different a dosing container. If you dose kalk in ATO your gonna ruin your pump. I am currently dosing 75ml of AFR daily AND 1800ML of kalkwasser daily and I’m about to up it to 2,500ml on kalkwasser.

I test every 2 hours and maintain ALK between 8.80-9.30..calcium stays between 410-480..MAG is all ways at 1450 and my PH stays between 8.10-8.35.

I will be getting 2 pumps and 2 liquid storage bins for each. Do you do anything specific about mixing the AFR and Kalk? I was reading that the AFR needs to be mixed thoroughly with a pump or magnetic stirring and the kalk is lightly mixed.

 

[areefer01]

I will be getting 2 pumps and 2 liquid storage bins for each. Do you do anything specific about mixing the AFR and Kalk? I was reading that the AFR needs to be mixed thoroughly with a pump or magnetic stirring and the kalk is lightly mixed.

TM AFR - if you are using the dry formula you make enough for your storage container. It is mixed once and then left alone. You do not need constant mixing nor periodic swirls. You mix to your storage container size and dose. It is that simple.

For reference I use the dry formula. I mix up 2 x 1800 ml batches for my storage container which is 3800 ml. I dose 90 ml TM AFR / day into my sump a tick upstream from my returns.

It is a simple product to use and dose.

 

[astillwell]

TM AFR - if you are using the dry formula you make enough for your storage container. It is mixed once and then left alone. You do not need constant mixing nor periodic swirls. You mix to your storage container size and dose. It is that simple.

For reference I use the dry formula. I mix up 2 x 1800 ml batches for my storage container which is 3800 ml. I dose 90 ml TM AFR / day into my sump a tick upstream from my returns.

It is a simple product to use and dose.

Thanks. This is just the info I needed. What about the kalk? Does that need any specific mixing or is it similar to the AFR.

 

[areefer01]

Thanks. This is just the info I needed. What about the kalk? Does that need any specific mixing or is it similar to the AFR.

I can't speak to that as I do not dose or use Kalk. I only use TM AFR.

Apologies.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

The safe way to mix Kalk, is to do 2 tbl spoons to 1 gal of RO, mix it up. THEN let it settle and only use the top clear portion. That solution is a saturated one.
ppl that use kalk mixers are a different animal and must be done properly.

 

[Sidsreef]

Thanks. This is just the info I needed. What about the kalk? Does that need any specific mixing or is it similar to the AFR.

I made a video on this on my youtube channel. i use the powder and mix it together. the liquid is only for smaller tanks unless you wanna blow your wad on pre-made AFR. check it out

For Kalkwaser.. I have a 2.5 gallon jug I place in my sump compartment. I fill that jug with RODI water and and then dump the KALK powder into that container and i place the lid on it and just give it a couple shakes. BE AWARE if you over mix kalkwasser it wont work as good as if you hand mixed it. another thing when you have kalkwasser you need to have a lid on the container. last part is that your always gonna have a powder spread across the bottom. you don't wanna dose this stuff its called slurry. only dose the clear part. so elevate the tubing that is into your container so it stays off the bottom. other than that watch your evaporation because if your dosing allot of this stuff you could dose allot of fresh water causing salinity to go down cause your exceeding evaporation demand.

Do not mix AFR with Kalkwasser they have to be separate.

if you have never dosed AFR before it takes about 2 weeks to start working because AFR uses calcium formate and not calcium acetate. so essentially bacteria eats the solution and then you'll see the calcium and Alk start to raise as bacteria grows more.

 

[Wayofthereef]

I have a 60 gallon AIO. Setting up dosing of Kalkwasser and All for Reef. Has anyone had experience with this? I am having trouble finding any information on dosing amount/times when using both based on my current water parameters (mag,calc,alk,ph).

I've been dosing kalkwasser for over a year now. I have the bag from BRS. Now all i do is fill my 10 gallon ATO tank with 9 gallons of water and that last gallon I mix 1 TBS of kalk for every gallon I added to the tank un total so 10 TBS of kalk. Mix it really good and dump the it into the tank. So 10 gallons of water with 10 TBS of kalk. Now what does mix will settle to the bottom so make sure your pump is at least one inch of the bottom of the tank as to not suck up all the undiluted kalk. Its very important that you try and clean that tank out at least every other month. Now what I also do is if it drops to lets say half-way I'll add just regular RODI water and whats on the bottom will mix up. Now keep an eye on your ph, And adjust accordingly depending on the amount of evaporation you have. I lose roughly 1 gallon a day to evaporation and this keeps my PH at a constant 8.2 - 8.3. Use a solid ATO with redundant back up sensors. It wont be the end of the world if it over doses because it will precipitate out of the water column because the water is only capable of absorbing so much kalkwasser however it will absolutely plug up every filter you have if it does that so you'll need to change out all your filtration any reactors and whatnot. But it is an absolutely solid way of maintaining your pH and calcium.

 

[dolpator]

I've been dosing kalkwasser for over a year now. I have the bag from BRS. Now all i do is fill my 10 gallon ATO tank with 9 gallons of water and that last gallon I mix 1 TBS of kalk for every gallon I added to the tank un total so 10 TBS of kalk. Mix it really good and dump the it into the tank. So 10 gallons of water with 10 TBS of kalk. Now what does mix will settle to the bottom so make sure your pump is at least one inch of the bottom of the tank as to not suck up all the undiluted kalk. Its very important that you try and clean that tank out at least every other month. Now what I also do is if it drops to lets say half-way I'll add just regular RODI water and whats on the bottom will mix up. Now keep an eye on your ph, And adjust accordingly depending on the amount of evaporation you have. I lose roughly 1 gallon a day to evaporation and this keeps my PH at a constant 8.2 - 8.3. Use a solid ATO with redundant back up sensors. It wont be the end of the world if it over doses because it will precipitate out of the water column because the water is only capable of absorbing so much kalkwasser however it will absolutely plug up every filter you have if it does that so you'll need to change out all your filtration any reactors and whatnot. But it is an absolutely solid way of maintaining your pH and calcium.

I have a question. I am using a stirrer instead of the ATO style. If I figure out my evaporation rate, and dose those ml through the stirrer it is the same thing correct. I guess my problem is, If I try to dose 1 gallon of Kalkwasser through my stirrer all my numbers go crazy and I have to turn everything off, wait for the numbers to come back down and try again. What is causing this? I see all this success stories with using Kalk over 2 part, but I cannot seem to figure it out....

 

[Seansea]

I did both afr and kalk in the ato for about 3 months. I just recently stopped. My ph has been 8.1 since the start of this tank and wanted to bump it to hopefully 8.3. After 3 months of dosing my ph went to 8.15. My ato bucket was always a mess and kalk coats eveything. I was trying to keep pump clean in between fill ups but became hopeless. I just went back to straight AFR dosing because of the simplicity of it. Maybe if i had another doser it may have been more effecient but truthfully even at 8.1 ph my corals were growing pretty good. Some too good as they required constant pruning. AFR is pricey and if you have a ph below 8.0 it probably is worth dosing kalk but IMO its just too messy to work with.

 

[dolpator]

I did both afr and kalk in the ato for about 3 months. I just recently stopped. My ph has been 8.1 since the start of this tank and wanted to bump it to hopefully 8.3. After 3 months of dosing my ph went to 8.15. My ato bucket was always a mess and kalk coats eveything. I was trying to keep pump clean in between fill ups but became hopeless. I just went back to straight AFR dosing because of the simplicity of it. Maybe if i had another doser it may have been more effecient but truthfully even at 8.1 ph my corals were growing pretty good. Some too good as they required constant pruning. AFR is pricey and if you have a ph below 8.0 it probably is worth dosing kalk but IMO its just too messy to work with.

I will be running the kalk through a avast reactor. My PH in the day time is 8.1 My PH at night has been dropping into the 7.8 range. Not ideal. I know that Kalk doesn't dose trace elements, which is why I am considering doing both. Just gathering information

 

[Wayofthereef]

I have a question. I am using a stirrer instead of the ATO style. If I figure out my evaporation rate, and dose those ml through the stirrer it is the same thing correct. I guess my problem is, If I try to dose 1 gallon of Kalkwasser through my stirrer all my numbers go crazy and I have to turn everything off, wait for the numbers to come back down and try again. What is causing this? I see all this success stories with using Kalk over 2 part, but I cannot seem to figure it out....

Ok lets start with what total size system you have, your current water parameters, what kind of equipment you are using ( stirrer and dosing pump) how old the system is and how many corals you have. If you can share a picture of your tank and equipment that will get us going in the right direction.

 

[dolpator]

I know that Calcium is elevated. per the Trident, I currently have the Kalkwassser offline, and dosing ESV Alkalinity until the Calcium returns back to 450. This tank is roughly 2 years old. The rock and the system is all from a 10 year old system. (Downsized from a 150g to this 80g, due to back and health issues. The sump is a 20g Fuji cube. Running a Paxbellum Chaeto Reactor, no room for a refugium, Aquavitro Skimmer, Avast Kalk Stirrer. All control with of course the Apex. The Kalk is fed from a Neptune DOS/ATO, and my Mag is dosed from the other head of the DOS. Running Two Radion G6's and One AI Prime for added coverage in the tank. I am currently looking to doing a mixed reef system/SPS Dominate. I have 30 SPS frags, 4 torches, 6 hammers, 3 frogspawn, 2 blastos(one colony and one SIngle head), Sonic galaxia, a couple of toadstool leathers, small zoa garden, Rock Flower garden and various mushrooms. I have 4 RBTA's (three are coming out of the system tonight), 1 clam. Also have 2 Maxspect Gyre Wavemakers(the new XF330's)

 

[Wayofthereef]

I know that Calcium is elevated. per the Trident, I currently have the Kalkwassser offline, and dosing ESV Alkalinity until the Calcium returns back to 450. This tank is roughly 2 years old. The rock and the system is all from a 10 year old system. (Downsized from a 150g to this 80g, due to back and health issues. The sump is a 20g Fuji cube. Running a Paxbellum Chaeto Reactor, no room for a refugium, Aquavitro Skimmer, Avast Kalk Stirrer. All control with of course the Apex. The Kalk is fed from a Neptune DOS/ATO, and my Mag is dosed from the other head of the DOS. Running Two Radion G6's and One AI Prime for added coverage in the tank. I am currently looking to doing a mixed reef system/SPS Dominate. I have 30 SPS frags, 4 torches, 6 hammers, 3 frogspawn, 2 blastos(one colony and one SIngle head), Sonic galaxia, a couple of toadstool leathers, small zoa garden, Rock Flower garden and various mushrooms. I have 4 RBTA's (three are coming out of the system tonight), 1 clam. Also have 2 Maxspect Gyre Wavemakers(the new XF330's)

Okay so one quick question I'm going to assume that you have one dedicated head on your dos for your kalk stirrer?

 

[dolpator]

Okay so one quick question I'm going to assume that you have one dedicated head on your dos for your kalk stirrer?

This is correct. I am pulling water from the ATO to feed the Kalk Stirrer. DOS head controls feed rate by alk reading from Trident

 

[Wayofthereef]

This is correct. I am pulling water from the ATO to feed the Kalk Stirrer. DOS head controls feed rate by alk reading from Trident

Ok so I've been running this the same way for a while now and here's my thoughts on your situation.

So obviously stop dosing like you already have. So the main 3, alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium are a 3 legged table and as long as they are in balance the absorption rate will be the same. So IMO I would start right now by bringing up your alkalinity to 10 to 10.5 to match your higher elevated levels. And let that ride till they fall to the levels you are comfortable with.

These are the levels I am currently at.. but I also run elevated everything. So that being said you will want to set controls for your dose to ensure it doesn't go way out of hand, I dont know if you have that already.

You can ignore Line 4, I have a level sensor in mine because kalk plugs up lines and Ive had an overfilling situation that I never wanted to have happen again.. so you can see that my dose will stop if the trident tests beyond these set limits.

Obviously the only one that isnt of concern is magnesium. With a kalk reactor the only thing you should have to dose is magnesium. You will notice your calcium climb and your magnesium fall and for me once it reaches below 1400 i dose it back to 1450 usually once a week for me and the calcium will settle out. So with kalk its like finding out how much insulin a diabetic needs.. so you start with a low baseline lets say for your system with 100g total and a low moderatly stocked tank... I'd say set your interval to 2000ML daily and the apex will divide that up into a dosing schedule that will be spread throughout the day.

As you can see mine has settled out around 7000ML's a day

Or 53.8mL every 11 minutes.. now my tank is packed plus its plumed in with a sump a frag tank and another 20 gallon sump..

So watch your levels, only dose the kalk and leave out the all for reef for the time being if your dosing that too.. find the balance.. id say increase the interval by 500mL id say once every 3 days till your trident is showing a leveling off at the levels you like. My calcium swings no more that 30ppm a day and my DKH is from 10.5 to 11 all day every day. So the swings are minimal.

Also I saw that you have a ph probe in your reactor which is perfect.. if that ph falls below 12 its time to add more. Keep that in mind.

Now you'll find that depending on your tanks absorption rate you wont need an ATO anymore or very rarely used... but an optic eye in your sump to turn off the dos incase your evaporation rate doesn't match your dosing rate wont hurt...

Let me know if this confused you or you have more questions.