All for Reef and Kalkwasser

[Salty_Northerner]

I'm dosing BRS pharma kalkwasser at 2 tsp in a 5000ml acrylic dosing container with a Versa dosing pump and pretty much nailed the dkh @8.9 with my current dose and Kalkwasser mix.

So my question is can I still keep my alkalinity @8.9 with AFR if I dose say 5ml a day? Montipora sticks and plates and coraline algae is growing really good. Over a month ago I was finding the sweet spot of AFR to keep the dkh at 8.5 but pH was really low so switched to kalkwasser. Is it going to be an issue just adding 5ml AFR a day and keep my current dosing of kalk or it the AFR going to alter the dkh? Before kalk I was dosing 8ml a day and it was holding 8.5 but now dosing kalkwasser the growth has taken off so I'd like to use AFR in conjunction with kalk?

Id like to here your thoughts on this. I just like having piece of mind the tank is getting some trace elements by adding AFR.

Thoughts?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Well, adding more alk on top of a steady situation would seem likely to raise alk.

If you just want trace elements, why not dose just them?

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Well, adding more alk on top of a steady situation would seem likely to raise alk.

If you just want trace elements, why not dose just them?

I was just thinking a low dose wouldn't increase alkalinity. Before if the dkh was as example 7 and I dosed 5 ml it would only bring it up to say 7.3 and hold. So my thinking is a low dose of AFR wouldn't change the dkh if the dose is lower then I dosed before hand. Hope that made sense? I just like AFR won't over shoot trace elements vs Brightwell replenish where your basically guessing how often to add it to the tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was just thinking a low dose wouldn't increase alkalinity. Before if the dkh was as example 7 and I dosed 5 ml it would only bring it up to say 7.3 and hold. So my thinking is a low dose of AFR wouldn't change the dkh if the dose is lower then I dosed before hand. Hope that made sense? I just like AFR won't over shoot trace elements vs Brightwell replenish where your basically guessing how often to add it to the tank.

If the dose of AFR is low, the addition of trace elements is also low.

IMO, Tropic Marin A and K is a fine choice and there no more guessing than when using AFR.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

If the dose of AFR is low, the addition of trace elements is also low.

IMO, Tropic Marin A and K is a fine choice and there no more guessing than when using AFR.

Sounds good thanks Randy.

 

[FindingNem0]

I got a 20g tank with about 50 corals my alk was dropping 0.4 dkh per day, I started kalkwasser 250ml per day with a doser and AFR dropped from 8ml to 4ml. Now my dkh is stable at 8. You just have to test daily and fine tune it.

FYI I love kalkwasser and AFR. Best combo.

 

[nano reef]

Does a person even need trace elements if you do biweekly water changes of 30 percent or more? is that to big of a wc? I tend to vacuum a lot so end up taking out at least 30! I use Fritz blue salt mix.

 

[Troylee]

Does a person even need trace elements if you do biweekly water changes of 30 percent or more? is that to big of a wc? I tend to vacuum a lot so end up taking out at least 30! I use Fritz blue salt mix.

Personally I don’t think so… a reef moonshiner will tell ya different! lol…

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

it’s a complex question, and I suspect foods are a big source of trace elements.

 

[rishma]

If you want to use both AFR and kalk, you certainly can. I’ve done that for some time now. You can reduce your Kalk, and add in the alkalinity equivalent of AFR. For example, in my 100L tank, 160ml Kalk is the same alkalinity addition as 3ml of AFR. At least I think so…going off memory, Randy can call me out if my math is off.

 

[mlivvy]

I also dose both. I can stop the kalk at any time and just increase the AFR but, with kalk, my AFR consumption is low so it's a win for me.

 

[FindingNem0]

If you want to use both AFR and kalk, you certainly can. I’ve done that for some time now. You can reduce your Kalk, and add in the alkalinity equivalent of AFR. For example, in my 100L tank, 160ml Kalk is the same alkalinity addition as 3ml of AFR. At least I think so…going off memory, Randy can call me out if my math is off.

I don't think that's correct. My 75litre nano which is 20g waterbox. I dose 600ml kalkwasser at normal recommended mix with 6ml of AFR daily.

 

[rishma]

I don't think that's correct. My 75litre nano which is 20g waterbox. I dose 600ml kalkwasser at normal recommended mix with 6ml of AFR daily.

You are talking about using both 600ml Kalk and 6 ml AFR? That fine, but it wasn’t was I was getting at.

I guess I did not say it the way I meant to. I was not recommending 160 ml Kalk with 3 ml AFR.

What I was meaning to say is AFR and Kalk both add a certain amount of dKH per ml for a given water volume. So you can swap AFR for Kalk or Kalk for AFR and achieve the same alkalinity addition (or use both and get some alkalinity from each source).

Just looking at the notes on my phone right now I found this…AFR is 6,000 dKH and saturated limewater (kalkwasser) at 25 deg C is about 114 dKH, so AFR is 53 times as potent as saturated limewater.

So my point is…you can swap 53ml of Kalk for 1 ml AFR. 159ml of Kalk for 3 ml AFR.

Assuming I knew what I was doing when I wrote those notes, the numbers should be right. Regardless, the concept stands.

 

[rishma]

Ok, did a quick search and found this from @Randy Holmes-Farley on AFR

“If you dissolve that in 1 L of water, the concentration is 43,000 ppm calcium and 6,000 dKH.

To raise a 100L tank by 1dKH, you would need 100/6000 = 0.0167 L or 16.7 ml

To raise a 100L tank by 0.1dKH, you would use 1.7 ml”


And using the hamza reef calculator https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/KalkContribution.php

I found that adding 835ml of saturated Kalk to a 100L tank will raise alkalinity by 1dKH.

So 835/16.7=50.

By those calculations Kalk is 50x less alkalinity per ml than AFR

Not sure where I got 53x but pretty close! Cheers.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

By those calculations Kalk is 50x less alkalinity per ml than AFR

Not sure where I got 53x but pretty close! Cheers.

Yes, that’s correct. I will note that saturation potency depends on temperature ( higher at lower temp) and many folks don’t get kalk to saturation anyway, so I would focus on the exact ratio, but rather the ballpark.

 

[Reef Puncher]

If you want to use both AFR and kalk, you certainly can. I’ve done that for some time now. You can reduce your Kalk, and add in the alkalinity equivalent of AFR. For example, in my 100L tank, 160ml Kalk is the same alkalinity addition as 3ml of AFR. At least I think so…going off memory, Randy can call me out if my math is off.

thats what i do. i do kalk at night mainly to offset the drop. afr in morning. had to play around for a while to keep alk at 9.0. my only thing is even with kalk, my ph never goes above 8.18, at night its still lowish at 8.01. my doser is dosing like 10mls every 30 min. i cant figure out how much mls i need to raise ph. or how often does it need to be in the system to keep ph up. like is every 30 min enough? does the ph raising function dissipate quickly? like i cant find answers to this stuff anywhere. but at least i found the right balance for stability in my tank. i would decrease the AFR if i needed to get a better ph boost.

 

[rishma]

thats what i do. i do kalk at night mainly to offset the drop. afr in morning. had to play around for a while to keep alk at 9.0. my only thing is even with kalk, my ph never goes above 8.18, at night its still lowish at 8.01. my doser is dosing like 10mls every 30 min. i cant figure out how much mls i need to raise ph. or how often does it need to be in the system to keep ph up. like is every 30 min enough? does the ph raising function dissipate quickly? like i cant find answers to this stuff anywhere. but at least i found the right balance for stability in my tank. i would decrease the AFR if i needed to get a better ph boost.

I am not sure how to correlate Kalk addition with pH.. but more is more! I expect there are lot of variables like ambient CO2. I started with Kalk and ramped up until I didn’t want to dose any more because my reservoir size (I want to mix/refill monthly). Then I started also using AFR for additional alk needs, and my tank seems to benefit from the trace elements based on coral observation.

Adding an air pump outside and running airline to a diffuser in the sump raised my night pH by about 0.08-0.1, but I don’t think it changed my daytime pH peak as much.

 

[Reef Puncher]

I am not sure how to correlate Kalk addition with pH.. but more is more! I expect there are lot of variables like ambient CO2. I started with Kalk and ramped up until I didn’t want to dose any more because my reservoir size (I want to mix/refill monthly). Then I started also using AFR for additional alk needs, and my tank seems to benefit from the trace elements based on coral observation.

Adding an air pump outside and running airline to a diffuser in the sump raised my night pH by about 0.08-0.1, but I don’t think it changed my daytime pH peak as much.

i wonder if putting a bubbler inside my display would raise ph

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

i wonder if putting a bubbler inside my display would raise ph

More aeration with room air can raise or lower pH depending on the CO2 level of the air. Most often it isn’t a significant help.

 

[rishma]

Outside air to a skimmer or air diffuser seems to help some tanks’ pH because the CO2 outside tends to be lower.