Kalk

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Brad

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Messages
754
Location
British Columbia
I think I've hit the limit of my 2 part additions. Ca and Alk are steadily falling in spite of my increasing the A/B additions beyond the max recommended dosages. They worked for a while, but my tank is using more and more Ca/Alk all the time.

I'm using Kent A/B, which I'm sure isn't the best...

But I'm thinking now I should make the jump to Kalk. It is really going to be a pain the *ss to mix this stuff up, but I'm not ready for a calcium reactor yet.

Can someone point me to an article on mixing/buying Kalk? Do you simply replace your evaporation topup with Kalk?...because I go through a lot of water in evaporation. I think I'll be mixing Kalk daily!
 
Mixing kalk is a PIA! I mix about 5 gallons at a time. I don't saturate my kalk mix, just use the recommended 1 tspn per gallon. Depending on your calcium consumption, you might go up to 2 tspn per gallon of RO/DI water. I fill a 5 gallon container with 5 tspns of kalkwasser, stir with a plastic spatula (must be non-metallic), cover the container tightly or carbon dioxide can render the solution useless, leave overnight. The next day, sometimes two, I lift the 5 gallon bucket onto something higher & siphon the solution inbetween the top layer skin that forms and the bottom sediment into another 5 gallon bucket, fill my 2.5 gallon aqua dose and cover the remaining. This last me for about 8 days (2 refills on the aqua dose). I just get the next batch ready after the second fill.
I drip my kalk via a gravity dip line (Kent aqua dose). I feel that topping off evaporation even at night raises the PH too high.
Even with the kalk, I find that I still need to do the two part additive to keep levels in check. I use C-Balance two part.
 
Back
Top Bottom