Kalk in Nanoreef

[ZoozFishMaster]

I have a 7 g minibow reef. The tank has basically been unchanged for about a year: 1 perc clown, a bunch of mushrooms, polyps, feather duster, and a goniopora (unbelievably it's been alive forever and it seems to be thriving - i really cant believe it). I perform a 1 gallon water change every week with distilled water/oceanic salt.

Recently the snail population seems to be exploding and i added a few new softies. I tested the calcium and its around 380. I wanted to boost the calcium so i turned to kalkwasser (not only for calcium but also for its other benefits). I currently have 2 cups of kalk solution dripping into the tank over night at 1 drop every 20 seconds (the valve might gunk up over night). I'm kinda worried because I know its easy to mess this up especially when dealing with only 7 gallons of water!! Because I don't have much room for a large container with kalk that could drip continuously, I've been thinking about just dosing kalk once a week. Does this make sense? Also i heard that dosing kalk can lower alkalinity? Is this true and if so, how do I avoid a drop in alk without adding a buffer (if possible)?

I really hope I'm not shocking the heck out of the guys in my tank cuz i kno how quickly kalk can raise the pH. I'll see what the tank looks like in the morning. Any help appreciated.

 

[Brad]

I don't think there's anything about Kalk that could LOWER your Alk. So I don't think what you may have heard is true. The whole point of kalk is to raise Ca and Alk together.

You are correct to be very cautious with only 7 gallons in your system. If you were to overdrip the kalk you could cause a wild swing in your pH.

My recommendation is to continue to drip daily. On big, weekly shot would be too hard on the system.