Dripping Kalk??

[orion25]

I am dripping Kalk on an unregular basis. I usually drip a 2 lieter bottle on Sunday and Monday night and add the Kent 2 part additive on the other nights. Is this bad. By that I mean does it do more harm than good? I have a Nurace for top of water. Should I fill the Nurace with Kalk top off water in stead and let it go. The nurace spits out about .25 gallons each time. Not exactly a drip .

Would this be better than dripping kalk only two days a week??

Opinions please!!

[kevinpo]

It really depends on your calcium, alkalinity, and PH levels. If you are able to maintain your levels at:
400 ppm for calcium
2.9 meq/L alkalinity
8.1-8.3 PH
then you should continue doing what you are doing. In a system with high demand for calcium/buffer (lots of stoney corals) you normally need to replace all your evaporated water with limewater. Limewater has a PH of about 12 so it's best to drip it at night when the PH dips (unless you are running a refugium on reverse lighting). High PH would be the thing to watch for if you overdose limewater. I never used limewater until I began running a calcium reactor. It drove my PH down to about 7.8 which bothered me (I never saw any adverse reaction from the livestock) so I started dripping in limewater each night which brought the PH to 8.15-8.3.

HTH,
Kevin

[acropora]

I agree with Kevin above and my tank mimics his results.I also dose kalk in addition to my calcium reactor.I believe that what is important is consistancy. You should be dosing a consistant amount of the two part additive on a regular basis. Every day would be ideal, with kalk addition only needed if you are not able to maintain Calcium and Alk levels.Adding more of the two part additives should do the trick,but it can be expensive on a larger tank.Adding kalk nitely either manually or with a Nilsen reactor will also work.

[irabren]

I agree with Kevin above and my tank mimics his results.I also dose kalk in addition to my calcium reactor.I believe that what is important is consistancy. You should be dosing a consistant amount of the two part additive on a regular basis. Every day would be ideal, with kalk addition only needed if you are not able to maintain Calcium and Alk levels.Adding more of the two part additives should do the trick,but it can be expensive on a larger tank.Adding kalk nitely either manually or with a Nilsen reactor will also work.

Use kalk to maintain calcium and alk - place in the top-off water - best is to either drip at nite when ph drops or drip 24/7. Use B-ionic or turbo calcium to increase calcium

[Bamm Bamm]

I add Kalk to all my topoff water and only use kalk and ro/di for topoff, Everything is doing awesome parameters are all in check. I used to dose infrequently and have since started dosing through my topoff on both tanks seem tremendous growth--especially with my acroporas

[SueT]

I have used kalk. as my only top off for a long time. I run a calcium reactor on my 180g and stopped dripping kalk. due to my levels raising, but meanwhile like has been mentioned my pH went down to where I was not feeling good. So I started dripping a lesser strength kalk. and all is well again.

The kalk. top off is all I have ever used on my 120g and it is a reef tank again so we'll see if the same holds true.