My brainstorming idea on avoiding the kalkwasser evaporation limit.

[Lousybreed]

In my presentations I go over how to do it. You must use good kalk. Sealed chamber (with small hole to let air in when the levels drop), a very specific Jeabo wave maker, min dosing rates, etc. I mean it’s exhaustive how much content I put out there and I have 100’s of people using it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Vinegar and other acids would increase solubility however I found that despite Kaltwasser being highly basic that my tank water lost pH when trying to increase solubility with vinegar.

As a side note I think another con of kalkwasser is its lack of magnesium. Would love to have a product that had the magnesium already mixed in at a good ratio.

That pH decline is as expected.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Dude I have been dosing Kalk Slurry for years. It’s all on my IG page. Works just fine. Buy captiv8 kalk and you will be successful. My IG is quanta_lights and I have my kalk slurry presentations pinned for ease of access.

How do you ensure stability of the slurry potency?

 

[knockout]

Vinegar and other acids would increase solubility however I found that despite Kaltwasser being highly basic that my tank water lost pH when trying to increase solubility with vinegar.

As a side note I think another con of kalkwasser is its lack of magnesium. Would love to have a product that had the magnesium already mixed in at a good ratio.

I believe brightwell makes that product already, or so they claim, have a not used it

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I believe brightwell makes that product already, or so they claim, have a not used it

No, sadly that cannot ever work in normal methodologies and is misleading by Brightwell. If one added a huge amount more than Brightwell and dosed it dry as Miami suggests, it might work.

Heres a copy and paste from other posts of mine:

Magnesium is not soluble in limewater, so it will just sit on the bottom and worse, the amount present in kalk+2 is not nearly enough to meet the demand for magnesium, and far worse yet, is LESS than is present in many bulk brands of calcium hydroxide as an impurity.

Here's the Brightwell kalk+2 claim:

http://brightwellaquatics.com/products/kalk2t.php

Guaranteed Analysis
Calcium (min) 54.20% (542,000 ppm), Strontium (min) 1.00% (10,000 ppm), Magnesium (min) 0.15% (1,500 ppm)

So that is a ratio of magnesium to calcium of 1:361.

I show in this article that bulk calcium oxide (dried calcium hydroxide) has more magnesium as an impurity (1:263) and that in the actual limewater, the magnesium ratio does not exceed 1:36,000, with the remainder ending up undissolved on the bottom.

Magnesium and Strontium in Limewater

Aquarium Chemistry: Magnesium And Strontium In Limewater​

Because of a potential imbalance between the amount of magnesium and strontium used by corals, and the amount delivered by limewater, using limewater can potentially lead to depletion of both ions in aquaria.


I show in this article that a typical coral or coralline aglae incorporation rate is 0.1 to 4%by weight, for a ratio of about 1:400 to 1:10.

​

 

[BeanAnimal]

Pellets (think pill mold) would be easier to control. Not sure what could be used as a binder. It would also slow down the reaction (less surface area than the same volume of powder) and may prevent local precipitation.

 

[FishTruck]

This is easy. It would work with an AWC system... you just have to use brine instead of SW to replace what you take out.

1. Use a peristaltic pump to get rid of a certain amount of tank water each day. How ever much extra volume you want to make room for the Kalkwasser - and also this is the start of your water change.
2. This is replaced from your Kalk reactor - at a certain set volume each day. This volume would be less than the total evaporative losses PLUS what you are intentionally taking out of the tank. If the tank can't take the volume you want... just bump up the amount in step 1.
3. Another peristaltic pump pushes tank water into a brine bucket... returning higher salinity brine plus tank water back to the tank - as needed to make up the salinity. This is controlled by a neptune conductivity probe which turns the brine pump on and off - to keep the conductivity between 34 and 35 mS.
4. Your regular ATO adds whatever else is needed to maintain the constant volume.

In my case... I use a brine bucket with undissolved salt... and I just dump a bag of salt in every week or so as it is used. The neptune directs a peristaltic pump to pump tank water into the brine bucket which overflows back into the sump.

Notes:
Now... the concentrated brine going back in will vary in it's salinity... and also in the relative concentrations of various ions - which is potentially problematic. I am still experimenting with this... for four years now - but it works for me and creates some nice shortcuts in space and time over a more normal water change system.

Also... I am doing this as part of a dialysis system, which allows me to dump more tank water than I replace during the dialysis process.... and gave me the idea. Once I am tired of playing with dialysis membranes... I will set it up as I have just outlined.

And... I am still heavily reliant on a calcium reactor to maintain ALK.... I just use the daily dose of Kalk to boost pH. Things are working fine with the small daily changes I am making... but I have not tried pushing the Kalk to the point where I don't need my calcium reactor.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

This is easy. It would work with an AWC system... you just have to use brine instead of SW to replace what you take out.

1. Use a peristaltic pump to get rid of a certain amount of tank water each day. How ever much extra volume you want to make room for the Kalkwasser - and also this is the start of your water change.
2. This is replaced from your Kalk reactor - at a certain set volume each day. This volume would be less than the total evaporative losses PLUS what you are intentionally taking out of the tank. If the tank can't take the volume you want... just bump up the amount in step 1.
3. Another peristaltic pump pushes tank water into a brine bucket... returning higher salinity brine plus tank water back to the tank - as needed to make up the salinity. This is controlled by a neptune conductivity probe which turns the brine pump on and off - to keep the conductivity between 34 and 35 mS.
4. Your regular ATO adds whatever else is needed to maintain the constant volume.

In my case... I use a brine bucket with undissolved salt... and I just dump a bag of salt in every week or so as it is used. The neptune directs a peristaltic pump to pump tank water into the brine bucket which overflows back into the sump.

Notes:
Now... the concentrated brine going back in will vary in it's salinity... and also in the relative concentrations of various ions - which is potentially problematic. I am still experimenting with this... for four years now - but it works for me and creates some nice shortcuts in space and time over a more normal water change system.

Also... I am doing this as part of a dialysis system, which allows me to dump more tank water than I replace during the dialysis process.... and gave me the idea. Once I am tired of playing with dialysis membranes... I will set it up as I have just outlined.

And... I am still heavily reliant on a calcium reactor to maintain ALK.... I just use the daily dose of Kalk to boost pH. Things are working fine with the small daily changes I am making... but I have not tried pushing the Kalk to the point where I don't need my calcium reactor.

Sounds like an expensive way to dose. Add the cost of a gallon of new seawater to the cost of every gallon of kalkwasser dosed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

False. My mag levels are just fine. Been dosing kalk slurry since 2021.

It’s not exactly false, it’s true but in a freshwater slurry approach, you simply are allowing the magnesium hydroxide formed to redissolve. In a recycled seawater application, it’s a major problem.

 

[FishTruck]

Sounds like an expensive way to dose. Add the cost of a gallon of new seawater to the cost of every gallon of kalkwasser dosed.

Good point Randy - that last part!

Not to mention the cost of changing DI resin and membranes to make all that new water.

Since I already invested in a massive Calcium reactor, it is not likely I would achieve any gains my increasing the WC volume per month (currently just 7% per month).. just to avoid using the Calcium reactor.

 

[Garf]

Seems I've messed with all of these options (even slurry accidentally, lol). Back to normally saturated kalk and Randy's 2 part for me

 

[Miami Reef]

Seems I've messed with all of these options (even slurry accidentally, lol). Back to normally saturated kalk and Randy's 2 part for me

Nothing wrong with tried-and-true!

I’m a big fan of Randy’s 3 part system with NaOH as the alk additive.

 

[reef_ranch]

In my presentations I go over how to do it. You must use good kalk. Sealed chamber (with small hole to let air in when the levels drop), a very specific Jeabo wave maker, min dosing rates, etc. I mean it’s exhaustive how much content I put out there and I have 100’s of people using it.

And it works!!

 

[Garf]

Nothing wrong with tried-and-true!

I’m a big fan of Randy’s 3 part system with NaOH as the alk additive.

For what it's worth I've been doing 100mls vinegar per gallon of kalk for a while. I've encountered the bubbly SPS disease, which may or not be related. Turns out I may be a bad reefer, so reverted to "normal" for now.

Exceeding the limewater evaporation limit

Bit of a back story. In my old tank, many moons ago I used to do waterchanges by pumping in low salinity water, which used to overflow out of the acrylic sump, caring for the saltwater change and 75% of my evaporation, in one pump. The other 25% of the evaporation was taken into account by...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Orito]

Yes reinventing the wheel with a lot of extra steps to make it round...

I thought kalk was meant to be cheap and simple, I dose saturated, complete with afr and move on with my life...

 

[Orito]

False. My mag levels are just fine. Been dosing kalk slurry since 2021.

And that means absolutely nothing... Slurry isn't powder

 

[Garf]

Yes reinventing the wheel with a lot of extra steps to make it round...

I thought kalk was meant to be cheap and simple, I dose saturated, complete with afr and move on with my life...

A few of us like messing with stuff. I see no harm in that as long as it's done slowly with close monitoring of livestock.

 

[Pntbll687]

In my presentations I go over how to do it. You must use good kalk. Sealed chamber (with small hole to let air in when the levels drop), a very specific Jeabo wave maker, min dosing rates, etc. I mean it’s exhaustive how much content I put out there and I have 100’s of people using it.

^^^^This is the guy to follow if you're interested in dosing kalkwasser above and beyond the evap point of a tank.

Quanta_lights on instagram. It's a pinned post on his profile. It's surprisingly simple, but there's aone thing you need to do. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS. Don't go changing stuff and then ask why it's not working.

 

[Orito]

A few of us like messing with stuff. I see no harm in that as long as it's done slowly with close monitoring of livestock.

No beef with experimenting, but you need to understand the concept before teach others, the slurry thing it's still something very poorly tested and people are already trying to make a proprietary method, because you need this kalk, that pump and whatever, next thing is selling his miracle to others

 

[KStatefan]

No beef with experimenting, but you need to understand the concept before teach others, the slurry thing it's still something very poorly tested and people are already trying to make a proprietary method, because you need this kalk, that pump and whatever, next thing is selling his miracle to others

Who is making slurry a proprietary system?