Moving Away From Kalkwasser

[CodyF.]

It would help to know how large your tank is and how much kalk you were dosing. Was it fully saturated? You can always make it less saturated. I would recommend sticking with Kalk and just adding trace elements A and K (Tropic Marin) if that's your concern.

I have been dosing Kalk for many years solely as my top-off water, up to 4 gallons a day in a 240 gallon system depending on the season. When evaporation wasn't enough to keep up with the Alk and Ca needs of the tank I started supplementing with two part. But using Kalk is much cheaper.

Thanks!!

I really think the Tropic Marine A- & K+ is the way I will go, while keeping Kalk.

My tank is 50 gallons, water box AIO. It’s a mixed reef thank is slowly becoming SPS heavy. ( at least it will get SPS dominate)

I was thinking about going to AFR but same as you and Randy I’ve had good success with Kalk. It’s simple and easy. I do the same as you, use as my ATO with a dosing pump. I monitor my PH and if it gets above 8.3 then my ATO takes over with RO water.

I just ran my first ICP, been in the hobby about 6yrs. But had a 2yrs break, I’ve been back for about 1.5 yrs or so. I’ve just been doing a tone of reading on trace elements, the brands and how people use them. I was definitely starting to lean to the “shiners” method. But I’m not sure if all the elements are really needed, old school refers had beautiful tanks with just water changes.

Tropic Marine is a trusted brand and they seem to be very open about what’s in their products, which I like. I was waiting on getting my ICP results back and going from there. But the more I read on A&K elements the more I like it over the rest. Seems simple & easy and very open to what’s in it.

 

[CodyF.]

*sorry for the miss spelling….. maybe my phone auto corrected or maybe I just fat fingered…? *Marin

 

[MickeyCT]

In the interest of simplicity I left this detail out, but if you're staying with Kalk I would recommend it. Figure out how much Kalk you put in daily even when you have low evaporation. Then set your Kalk doser to add that amount, or just a little less than that. And have a top off system with RODI water to kick in when your evaporation is higher than the amount of Kalk you're adding.

Good luck.

 

[CodyF.]

Also, I forgot to address the consumption. My tank goes through about 5-6 gallons a week. I was running full saturation, but my Alk & Cal crept up higher than I liked. So I went down to 4 grams per gallon to balance it out. Now I’m running 4 gallons at 4grams and 2 at 5 grams a week on average. I’m about to up the saturation to 5grams across the board.

 

[CodyF.]

In the interest of simplicity I left this detail out, but if you're staying with Kalk I would recommend it. Figure out how much Kalk you put in daily even when you have low evaporation. Then set your Kalk doser to add that amount, or just a little less than that. And have a top off system with RODI water to kick in when your evaporation is higher than the amount of Kalk you're adding.

Good luck.

Thanks buddy! I appreciate all the advice

 

[legalizedreefer]

Just for clarity sake because I saw you mention mixing earlier. AFR and KALK cannot be mixed together in the same dosing container. But they can absolutely be dosed together in the same tank.

I’m sure you knew that but I just wanted to point it out just in case you go that route.

I dose AFR and I absolutely love it. There are some drawbacks though. I base my dosing off of Alk consumption. It’s very easy to keep stable. HOWEVER, the dose of AFR to maintain my alk slightly oversupplies calcium, and under-supplies magnesium.

Every 6 weeks or so, I’ll bring MAG back up with a single corrective dose of Red Sea magnesium.

Regarding calcium, when I notice it starts getting high, I turn off my AFR dosing for a couple days and just manually dose alkalinity in that time to keep ALK stable but let calcium fall back down to where I want it.

I’m on the flip side of this equation. I’m currently considering adding Kalk alongside my AFR to aid in pH. It might be silly… I swing from 8.02-8.30 pH daily so I’m already in acceptable range, but I like to tinker!