Calcium Supplementation 3 Ways - Kalkwasser, 2-Part, and Calcium Reactors
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
- Reef Aquarium Calcium Supplementation 3 Ways - Reef tanks with a high number of stony corals will have higher calcium demands than tanks filled with no corals or predominantly soft corals. Like many aspects of this hobby, there are many ways to keep up with their requirements. Let’s look at three ways to maintain calcium and go over the pros and cons of each - Kalkwasser, 2-Part, and Calcium Reactors.
Music:
Tracks: “Finding the Balance” “Night Cave” “Groove Grove”
Artist: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
License Terms:
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Video:
Camera Gear List on Amazon
Canon C200
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS macro
Canon EF MP-E 65mm f/2.8 macro
Sigma Art 18-35mm f/1.8
Free Fly Movi Pro Stabilizer
Copyright Information:
This video was shot and edited by Tidal Gardens. Tidal Gardens owns all intellectual property rights to this content. 
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AWESOME job! I used Kalk in my evaporative make up water container and where needed, I supplement manually with 2 part dosing! No issues. Low maintenance. Thanks for the video!
Great video Than! Super valuable info and nice edit!
Great video and it is my favorite place to go for my information. Thanks Than
I’ve watched Tidal Gardens videos for some time, but I’ve never seen the store! The place is insanely neat and organized. Wow! 👏🏻
Nice video Than. Good information on 3 different ways of Calcium supplementation :)
Im more of an old school Reefer and use Kalkwasser almost exclusively via a 1 gallon jug with a valve on it to drip into my tank. This has given me some of my best, most stable, tanks over the last 22 years. Its also been one of the cheapest solutions as well in my experience. Once I reach a point where Kalkwasser cant keep up, I will be adding a calcium reactor. I typically drip Kalkwasser at lights out when PH is at its lowest and in place of all make up water more times than not.
Another great video Than, I'm using kalkwasser as its my first tank and I went for what seemed easiest to get started.
Great explanation, I now understand 2 part dosing, thank you for sharing your knowledge.I was using soda ash in the past, that's why my PH went up. Thanks again.
Great information!
I’ve mainly had experience with calcium reactors. Just recently tried kalkwasser in my auto top off to help raise my ph. Working on a frag system they will probably be using a 2 part dosing pump situation. Calcium reactors are my favorite but a good co2 regulator and ph controller are a must. Making it the most expensive option but definitely the most stable.
I purchased a calcium reactor 3 months ago and my chemistry is much more stable than using 2 part with a dosing pump. The corals seem much happier. I have used kalk in my nano ATO and that worked well with the added benefit of keeping the ph up.
👍 Look at all those beautiful T5s!
Yup, they still work.
I've used all 3 methods one time or another but today I use 2 Part + Kalk as part of my ATO. I have a KH Guardian Pro + AIM to use dKH and pH to regulate the Alkalinity and determine if I want to top off with Kalk or with freshwater.
The problem I had with my AquaC Rx was that it was tough to keep the effluent lines clear and clog free.
Great information! I use Brs Kalk in my ato and now am starting to have to also dose 2 part because everything is growing :)...That being said kalk still worries me at times, because i have had my top-off stick on and ended up dosing a saturated solution of Kalk! What a nightmare it is to get everything leveled back out, so be careful!
Kalk for me. Simple and easy in my IM25 Lagoon set-up. Mix it in my ATO and it's done.
Very helpful as always, thanks! Please consider adding the names of the corals you display during your narration.
Tiny chemistry quibble: Sodium Bicarbonate is NaHCO3. Sodium Carbonate is Na2CO3.
Lower PH is my problem, I will began using Soda Ash to see the results , very good video and even best explained.
Thanks, Than. Hello from the D.C. area! I met you at MACNA 2015, at your booth- your voice is still soothing!
Thanks Alex!
I use kalk and 2 part if needed. Great video Than
Kalkwasser and controller/BRS 1.1ml doser is my staple. I tried adding 2-Part but became more hassle than convenience. Look fwd to testing CalRx + Kalk when coral growth demands more Alkalinity. Nice overview video!
Been dosing 2 part for a while now. Only using 40 ml per day so will be sticking with this a while. The gear head in me still wants to get a kalkstirrer to raise my ph and eventually a calcium reactor but 2 part is working for now..
Than as always very informative, thank you . I do aqua forest 2 part but will be switching to Triton other methods soon because I like to do water changes. Yea I know, nuts rightist like the results of keeping trace elements in line although nitrate is low….
I'm using Kalkwasser in ATO with daily supplemental manual 2 part dosing. Calcium reactor's my next big purchase. Planning on a Geo unit with a masterflex peristaltic pump and carbon doser. A continuous duty peristaltic pump that's Apex controllable would be nice with the new Trident being released. One could theoretically have a calcium reactor that requires literally no intervention aside from refilling.
I use a combination of Kalkwasser and 2-part. I use dosers for all of them. I mostly use the kalkwasser with the 2-part supplementing the Kalkwasser. Just using kalkwasser alone isn't sufficient enough to keep the alkalinity and calcium high enough in my tank so that is where the 2-part comes in. I also like that the Kalkwasser is much cheaper but do not like all of the white gunk it leaves on my thermometer in my sump.
2 part in my 240 and kalk in the 75. Eventually would love to go to a reactor on the 240
Before hurricane María wiped almost all reef tanks in Puerto Rico (including mine), I used 2 part with 2 BRS dosing pumps controlled by a Vertex Cerebra controller and parameters were very stable. Magnesium was replenished by water changes, which were done weekly (10-15%). Hopefully, electricity comes back soon and I can restart the aquarium but it doesn't look like it will happen any time soon.
You never mentioned anything about the chloride buildup that can happen when dosing 2-part. Regular water changes are needed to keep it in balance.
I started out by dosing kalk, then moved on to two part but it began to become too expensive to dose, so I moved to a calcium reactor. Haven't looked back since
At 7:40, you show a bucket that has a pipe and valve installed on it. Can you provide any info on the pieces needed to do that? I would like to make the same exact thing.
I adjust cal and alk with 2 part, and maintain with Kalk in my top off water.
Hey sir I have Redsea 170 34gallons tank.... How often I dosing in my tank I have soft corals and Acropora corals... Thanks...
Say you run a mixed reef tank and you use a high quality reef salt for water changes. If you are not dosing are you harming stony corals or just hindering growth?
I just started dosing the ATI Essentials.
Great video than and since I primarily run Kalk with vinegar. I have tried 2 part and just got tired of it because I did not have a doser. I know financially a calcium reactor is not in the future for some time.
I understand. Reactors are a big up front cost between the device itself, the CO2 equipment, and the media.
how much are the prices going up after all this?
Hey i have a question that non of my lfs could answer for me..i hope you can help me out but first ill give you a quick story of my tank. It's the red sea reefer 625xxl the tank is an upgrade 6 months ago corals and frags just shy of a year old. Most are sps some lps no nothing else. With 3 clams. Im using a 6" diameter cal reactor with two little fishies reborn media. I have a milwaukee mc122 ph controler to control my ph in reactor witch i jabe set to 6.5. Now heres the issue my alk is stable at 9 but calcium goes from 420 to 330 with in 10 days. I do a 30% water change to get it back up every 10 days. What the hell am i doing wrong? Or what is going on? Please help ive spent a lot of money to get a reactor going and now im seriously contemplating on going with 2 part dossing instead
Have you tried Seachem Calcium and Magnesium complete?
Kalk and 2 part together for me. Maybe once my tank is full of colonies I’ll invest into a calcium reactor. But in the meantime it seams pointless. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Is kalkwasser consider the beginners way?
i dose 145ml a day of kalk after testing once a week i will use 2 part if one or the other is low
Hi Than and thanks for yet another greatly educational upload. I do have a question regarding 2 (3) part..... after much initial testing, I have been manually dosing twice weekly to maintain levels, 5ml of each and dose the alk at least half hour later. Should or could I just dose these amounts into the ATO Res, obviously then double the dose and only once a week. It takes just over a week to use the whole res though and I'm not sure if the tank would become depleted due to it not being in the system as per usual.... I hope you understand what I'm trying to get across. 😕 Cheers buddy.
2nd
I use Kalk in my ATO water with 15ml of vinegar/gallon when I mix it. That maintains my parameters rock steady. That being said, I also keep a jug of BRS Sodium Bicarbonate & a jug of BRS Calcium Chloride on standby just-in-case
@@karennation3580 I think it was mentioned in the video that vinegar allows for a higher saturation, meaning higher PH.
In the summer I dose 2 part because with the windows being closed I can adjust the PH by only using ALK or PH buffer and not having to worry I will over shoot the CA. In the winter I can open the windows so I dose Kalk with no fear of having a high ALK, PH, or CA.
I run 2 part (cheap when using damp rid and bi carb) and recently doing Kalk as well, mainly for PH. I cook my bicarb to help with PH , I also run air in from outside and my PH won’t go above 8. So hoping kalk will raise it up a tad. I have noticed an improvement after running air in.
So did the kalkwasser raise your PH?
1:33 Supersaturation can only occur if energy is put into the system like heating the solution. What you have is a saturated solution
officer, please let me explain! i know it looks suspicious, but it's kalkwasser, it adds calcium and alkalinity in a balanced solution for my reef tank! please don't let me swim with the fishes!
i'd definitely recommend using kalkwasser, since it is the most economical way to maintain calc and alk. i'd also recommend having 2 part handy, just to make the minor tweaks while you dial in your tank's consumption.
My mom visited once n throught I was doing cocaine cus I had spilled some on my table
It would hurt so bad to snort kalkwasser.
If you've done coke, you probably have... lol
Its great if you got low PH ! Haven't tried snorting kalk and adding cocaine to my ATO though. Seems expensive
If I'm using kalk in my top off, is it needed to clean it out every time I refill my top off to clean out the left over sediment? If I don't and I keep adding the same amount does it make my top off stronger and stronger?
Started with Kalkwasser, but quickly switch over to 2-Part which I like a lot better. I don't see a calcium reactor in my furture
I've done lime water and 2 part. I have had better success with 2 part. I'd like to try a calcium reactor one day but it has a greater up front cost that I haven't felt the need to obtain yet. Great video!!!
I like the 2-part formula but I prefer using b-Ionic which has additional Trace elements
I've seen many tanks do really well with b ionic.
Nice camera work. What do you use to stabilize the camera?
Most of it was on a tripod, but when I was walking around early in the video I use a Movi Pro.
2-part all the way for me. I'll probably graduate to a calcium reactor at some point.
ReefSpy I'm gonna wait til I've grown up for that one buddy...... (I'm 43 now so not much chance of that happening he says.....) 😂😂
I really like calcium reactors. They keep the water chemistry very stable.
I dose a lot of kalkwasser and 300 ml of both calcium and alkalinity.
I've tried all 3 methods, my personal preference is:
Kalk > Kalk + Vinegar > Calcium Reactor + Kalk > Calcium Reactor alone > 2-part (with or without Kalk)
I dose 2 part. I want to try kalk because of it being more "balanced" but the frying everything in the tank if too much is added has always scared me off.
I have screwed up kalkwasser as recently as last month, so it's always a possibility if your technique slips up.
i like doing a manual slow drip on a diy kalk dripper with a valve...super accurate and super simple
assuming you have a calcium carbonate based sand, wouldn’t the sand act as a calcium reactor during periods of darkness/CO2 production?
Probably not too much. If your pH is dropping so low as to dissolve sand, it is probably too low for the rest of the tank.
I've never understood how Kalk is used in the ATO container since evaporation is not the same all year.I have 2 times more evaporation in the summer than in the winter so how is it managable?
wheelsdeal I use a separate 10gal Brut can with a BRS dosing pump hooked up to Apex.
6:42 what coral is that?
Pavona
Awesome thanks!
I cant wait until my pavona looks like that.
2part(3part) cal-redsea, mag-colombo, alk-dsr,
Kalk by hand
While I have tried Kalk I don't really remember liking it. Messy, harder to know how much to use ect. If you don't have a lot of evaporation you're never going to get enough in. Calcium reactor was very much set and forget, but had some issues getting the right drip rate + pain to refill Co2. If i was sps dominated I probably would still use a reactor. For the past 5+ years I've used 2 part. Probably longer than 5 years. BRS additives are cheap and its the easiest to use either by hand or with dosing pumps. Test and test again in 24hrs and then use a calculator to figure out how much to dose and you're done until coral load changes. I usually test my alk twice a week and if I'm adjusting I'll check calcium and magnesium too. 2 part is really 3 part but mag should not be needed daily.
My system is 120 gal 3 yrs old Sps dominated which is connected to reefoctopus calcium reactor with seachem extra large coarse media pH set at 6.0-6.2 in calrx
Yesterday did my test
Effluent 10 ml/min
Cal 120
Alk 28.6
Mag 1950
Co2 60/min
Tank parameters
Cal 190
Alk 7.6
Mag 1750
PH 8.2
I tried but unable to raise my calcium now m dosing ati essential calcium 450ml
What shall I do plz suggest
Can I add kalk and stop dosing calcium
Kalkwasser is actually pronunciated like: Kalkvassa
Anyways, great video!
Make this a 2 minute vid by saying two words. "Purple up." Its the dummy safe way to dose the tank for calcium. No chemical burn, no worries. You dose one you need the others. Potassium and iodine. My LPS & montipora are doing good.
Good info till you got to recommending 2 part to be dosed at separate rates. Big mistake!!! A and B needs to be dosed at equal amounts. If there is a swing, then manual adjustments need to be made. Read up.