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Peter's Garage Tank

Ok. Gotcha. That's fine then as long as your alk/ca demands aren't too large. I personally prefer using 2 part. I like having the control over the dosing amount. With kalk you never know exactly how much is going in because evaporation will vary. Plus dripping anything that's gravity fed with a float switch scares me.
 
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If your pH is fine and you are just looking for an easier way to dose calcium and alkalinity, just use 2-part with a doser, you will get the benefit of continuous dosing throughout the day/night and also have control over how much Ca/Alk you are putting in. With kalk in your top-off, the amount you are dosing depends not only on how much evaporation you have, but also how much of the stuff is in solution vs precipitated when dosed.

I think of kalk as more of a way to deal with low pH problems while dosing.

Some people have problems with it clogging top-off systems or shortening the life of top-off pumps.


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It's not that it's not a good idea. Doing both methods probably doesn't make much sense. I may have missed it somewhere, but are you looking to keep doing both? Or switching exclusively to using kalk? If it's the latter, then that's ok.
Kalk has some other benefits.
Cheaper
Boosts PH
Binds (reduces) phosphate a little bit
No need for pumps
 
Kalk and carx goes hand in hand. Love that it maintains my ph since the carx seems to lower it.


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Had a small avalanche and every rock I tied to fix made it worse. Most of the rock work had to be restacked and a lot of corals had to come out for a bit. Afterwards the wrasse was gone, no sign of him. The wife spent about 1/2 an hour looking through the tank for it - maybe he jumped? But then 36 hours later, he's back - yay! I was already planning his replacement:eek:
 
I’m glad he’s back!

Hopefully my new peppermint shrimp that disappeared instantly will pull the same trick, lol


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I’m glad he’s back!

Hopefully my new peppermint shrimp that disappeared instantly will pull the same trick, lol


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LOL, that's wishful thinking – I think they've all been eaten by now. I'm just going to hand kill the aptasia with squirts of vinegar
 
Had a small avalanche and every rock I tied to fix made it worse. Most of the rock work had to be restacked and a lot of corals had to come out for a bit. Afterwards the wrasse was gone, no sign of him. The wife spent about 1/2 an hour looking through the tank for it - maybe he jumped? But then 36 hours later, he's back - yay! I was already planning his replacement:eek:
What wrasse? Many bury themselves under sand.
 
ATO has run 2 gallons of Kalk @ 1/2tsp. per gallon. Parameters are:
DKH - 8
Calcium - 380
Phos. - .3ppm
PH - 8.2
Not sure how accurate the PH is. I am getting a digital meter today and will get a more precise reading. I added 6ml each of 2 part to bump the calc. & Alk. and once I get the digital ph meter I will know whether I can increase the ratio of Kalk in the ATO.

Cheers!
 
Reminder: Digital PH meter can be less accurate than drops unless calibrated.
Yes, it comes with three batches of calibration material. Can't be any worse than trying to match the color of the vile to a color chart and no two colors seem actually to match. My margin of error is about .5 with the color chart on the pH
 
Now that we are getting a little more serious with our "reef" Decided it was time to add a little more flow. Our old 1990's powerheads were moving about 885 gph and turning the tank over about 17 times per hour. Put in a couple wavemakers and bumped our flow to 3,800 gph (if you believe the rating tag) with 75 turnovers per hour. It sounds like a lot of flow, but nothing is getting blown away.
 
Peter and I got our PH meter all calibrated and got a reading of 8.28 yesterday and 8.11 this morning. Bumped the Kalk ratio a bit to 3/4tsp per gallon to get calcium and alk a little higher.
Cheers!
 
I’d return those cheap import wave makers, they are weak and breaks easily, I got them earlier and they keep on breaking the shaft within a few weeks.


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