DIY KZ Coral Snow (with >97% purity)

jedimasterben

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So Korallen Zucht's Zeovit product line has been around for a while. It contains many products, but one that finds usefulness outside of the ultra low nutrient setups is Coral Snow. In addition, the claims that KZ makes about it are not completely absurd and actually lie in the science of it. They claim it is a 'calcium-magnesium carbonate mix' (aka MgCO3 and CaCO3). When dried, it looks like an off-white confectioners sugar, extremely fine ground powder.

It is essentially a calcite chalk. Yes, the same stuff that teachers used to write on chalkboards with, that is bought for pennies and sold in RO/DI at nearly $120 per liter.

Despite being expensive, it does have its benefits. Organics adhere to its surface, as do particulates, acting as a flocculent, being easily removed via protein skimming or small micron mechanical filtration. This leads to unparalleled water clarity.

Thankfully there is a cheaper way to get that same clarifying effect. You can purchase food grade calcium carbonate powder, minimum 97% purity, for around $9 per pound, less if you order more (but that's not really necessary).

It comes as a very fine powder. You will want to mix it with water before dosing. The amount of KZ product in each mL (after it is very well-shaken to thoroughly mix) is 0.4g. This is a bit less than 1/8 teaspoon, and this is good for roughly 100 liters aquarium volume (25 gallons). You can either just put the dry powder into a small container and mix right there, or you can create a stock solution.

For a 250mL solution, use 5 level tablespoons (roughly 115 grams) of CaCO3 powder and add roughly 230mL of RO/DI water. This should mix right about 250mL. The powder will NOT dissolve, it will stay suspended in the water. Will look like this when you're done.

20150826_190144.jpg



Mix thoroughly before dosing, and dose 1mL per 100L volume (25 gallons) whenever you feel like. No harm in doing it daily, twice a day, once a week, etc, as it gets removed from the water column. It won't raise your pH, calcium, or alkalinity, as the powder will not dissolve in a reef aquarium, the pH is too high. You can even double, triple the dose without consequence. Your tank will look like this (or actually a bit cloudier, as this is roughly an hour post-dose) for a few hours, then will clear up with much higher clarity than before.

20150826_181336.jpg



Happy reefing!
 

whatchamacallit

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Interesting, I used to use coral snow to clear the aquarium of any color in the water since I don't use carbon.

I'll let someone else do it first :)
 

sawdonkey

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Isn't this just the same thing as mixing up kalk solution to a point where it won't dissolve? How does this work. I dose kalk every day and it has no impact on my water clarity (that I know of).

Edit: I realized it says carbonate and not hydroxide... My bad!
 

Mattyice008

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I used coral snow for a while, but stopped a couple months back. Just started using chemipure elite a couple days ago and I've been using kalk since July. Every time I read about it, they say to have a skimmer going if you're dosing coral snow..is it really that detrimental to it? I never noticed. I still use Coral Vitalizer, 1 drop every 2-3 days in my 16
 
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jedimasterben

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I used coral snow for a while, but stopped a couple months back. Just started using chemipure elite a couple days ago and I've been using kalk since July. Every time I read about it, they say to have a skimmer going if you're dosing coral snow..is it really that detrimental to it? I never noticed. I still use Coral Vitalizer, 1 drop every 2-3 days in my 16
If you don't have a skimmer or great mechanical filtration, there won't be anything to remove it from the water column and it would basically be forever cloudy :)
 

Mattyice008

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If you don't have a skimmer or great mechanical filtration, there won't be anything to remove it from the water column and it would basically be forever cloudy :)

Hm. I have a nuvo 16, only filtration is a small piece of filter pad, good old LR, and now some chemipure elite. I never noticed it stay cloudy when I dosed Coral snow daily, it usually cleared up within 30min.
 
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jedimasterben

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Hm. I have a nuvo 16, only filtration is a small piece of filter pad, good old LR, and now some chemipure elite. I never noticed it stay cloudy when I dosed Coral snow daily, it usually cleared up within 30min.
The filter pad is your mechanical filtration.
 

robert

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Excellent - I will have to give this a try...Thanks for the tip.

Along the same lines I often use bentonite - for much the same purposes - bentonite has the property of adsorbing relatively large amounts of protein molecules from aqueous solutions. - a flocculant.

I get the food grade from the health food store - made by great plains labs - inexpensive and also very good at clearing water.
 

CausticGuy

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just ordered some. Im fighting with some cyano so ill see if this helps some. Bactiv8 seems to be helping a little
 
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jedimasterben

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All this will do is remove some organic molecules from the water, it is unlikely that it could truly affect cyanobateria growth, though I know that is something KZ claims. I have little experience with cyano, so I can't comment on effectiveness in that regard.
 

reefknight

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Thank you, this is awesome! This is one of the products by KZ that I absolutely love. As its does work to assist in clearing up several issues. The problem is, that's it's astronomically priced. I'll give this a try after my current bottle runs out.
 

Latino277

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how many people have tried this? can you please share your results?
 

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