I have a large 600 gal display tank and a total volume of about 750-800 gallons for the whole system. My system is running pretty stable right now with the following water parameters:
S.G. 1.024
dKH 8-8.3
Ca 420-430
Mg 1280-1300
pH 8.23 day and 8.15 at night
PO4 0.006 t0 0.021 (measured by Hanna ULR phosphorus checker)
Nitrates and nitrites undetectable (measured by Elos liquid test kits)
temp 76-78 F
My evaporation rate is about 7 to 7.5 gallons per day. So I am running a Ca reactor with effluent pH at about 6.7 at a steady fast drip and I have a Kalkwasser reactor (Precision Marine) that gets fed by an RO tank and uses a Liter Meter III dosing pump to put 28 Liters of mixed Kalk water into the sump per day. This is all fine except my tank is fairly empty (fairly small bioload of coral and fish) still and my dKH is getting a little hard to maintain at 8 or above. I can maintain Ca, Mg, and even pH fine but my alkalinity will likely need to be added as a supplement of some kind in the future. But my issue is that my kalk reactor is essentially putting in all my evaporation right now as RO water. If I increase the kalk reactor any more (to increase alkalinity) then I will eventually see a drop in SG due to more RO water going into the sump than is evaporating.
I realize all is good and stable right now. But my concern is when I start adding a lot more corals to the tank how will I keep my alkalinity up? I can't use an alkalinity solution because those are made with RO water which is just adding more non-salt water to the sump. I had thought about just running the kalk reactor from the sump itself which would work except I suspect the salt water would precipitate Ca out in the kalk reactor once it is added to that high pH environment. Do you see my concern? Does anyone else have this problem and any thoughts on solutions?
thanks,
Steve
S.G. 1.024
dKH 8-8.3
Ca 420-430
Mg 1280-1300
pH 8.23 day and 8.15 at night
PO4 0.006 t0 0.021 (measured by Hanna ULR phosphorus checker)
Nitrates and nitrites undetectable (measured by Elos liquid test kits)
temp 76-78 F
My evaporation rate is about 7 to 7.5 gallons per day. So I am running a Ca reactor with effluent pH at about 6.7 at a steady fast drip and I have a Kalkwasser reactor (Precision Marine) that gets fed by an RO tank and uses a Liter Meter III dosing pump to put 28 Liters of mixed Kalk water into the sump per day. This is all fine except my tank is fairly empty (fairly small bioload of coral and fish) still and my dKH is getting a little hard to maintain at 8 or above. I can maintain Ca, Mg, and even pH fine but my alkalinity will likely need to be added as a supplement of some kind in the future. But my issue is that my kalk reactor is essentially putting in all my evaporation right now as RO water. If I increase the kalk reactor any more (to increase alkalinity) then I will eventually see a drop in SG due to more RO water going into the sump than is evaporating.
I realize all is good and stable right now. But my concern is when I start adding a lot more corals to the tank how will I keep my alkalinity up? I can't use an alkalinity solution because those are made with RO water which is just adding more non-salt water to the sump. I had thought about just running the kalk reactor from the sump itself which would work except I suspect the salt water would precipitate Ca out in the kalk reactor once it is added to that high pH environment. Do you see my concern? Does anyone else have this problem and any thoughts on solutions?
thanks,
Steve
