Dirt-simple chemistry MUST-knows for tank health

[avelino78]

Sk8r thanks for all your advice. I ordered all the chemicals and I even found the pickle lime at Walmart for 2.25 a bag. I think I'm also going to order a JBJ ATO and will set it up to dose the kalk from a bucket with a lid like u said. I will have to put a ledge in the bucket so the pump won't be on the bottom probably use some egg crate. Once again thanks. I hope it works out but I'm sure if I have any issues you will have the answers.

[Paul B]

SKR8, nice thread. I am glad you take the time to give all this advice.
I almost never give advice because I do everything wrong.

[xCry0x]

+1 on importance of this.

I procrastinated on testing Alk/Mag/Cal since I have a small tank and do large changes weekly with red sea pro salt mix. Finally got the tests and my alk was down in the 7.8-8.0 range. Bumped it up to 9.0 and I might be seeing things but my corals seem much happier, everything is more open and I can start to see some new growth after only a week.

[avelino78]

How long do I have to wait after I dose mag before I can test for it?? Also for all and calcium????

[Sk8r]

I give any dose about 8 hours to settle. It's not only got to dissolve, but to do what it does with the other chemicals in the tank. I want to be sure it's changed what it will change and is through doing it before I add more. It's a question of accuracy.

[avelino78]

Ok I have been giving it a day. I did everything you said and also set up an ATO with the Kalk everything is dialed in. I don't know if it's just me but my rock in just a week has more purple on it then ever. Thanks for your help.

[Sk8r]

I just hope you don't get as much coralline as I have---I'm always scraping the stuff!

[avelino78]

I'm starting to get some on the glass but I scrapped it off.

[cwbhawk]

Why does the Kalk ATO water have to be lidded? Would it be okay if the lid was just propped on top of the bucket? I ask because I can't close my top off water bucket due to the tubing that goes from the bucket to the DT. Would I need to cut a hole in the lid in order to have a tight fitting lid when I start dosing kalk?

[Sk8r]

Either notch the bucket, or get some rolled up paper towel or a strip of sponge to allow your cords out. I use a Brute trashcan, so the towel works well for me, but you can get sponge packing material or bubble wrap or anything that'll let those cords out. It doesn't have to be hermetically sealed, just discouraged. If you don't do that, you get this hard skin atop your kalk. I honestly don't know how bad it is for anything, but that's wasted kalk and it hastens the day you'll have to take your bucket outside and hose it out. You'll have to ask Randy or Disk One what the skin is composed of. Calcium is part of it, but it could be the air (oxy-nitrogen-co2) reacting with the kalk.

[Bowels]

Ok so let me get this straight I get my Mag and ca params set right, then from that point on I just top off with kalk water which is this kalk stuff dissolved in RODI water? and I just use this kalk water for all top offs?

[Sk8r]

Get alk, cal, and mg at the levels in my sig line, then yes, exactly right. This is adequate for all the stony coral you can stuff in a 54, and pretty well for a heavy coral load up to about 75 gallons. Beyond that, in larger tanks, corals will out-eat your evaporation rate and you have to use a calcium reactor to keep up with their appetite for calcium. BE sure to let the kalkwater settle as much as it will before using it. It should be about the filmyness of a few drops of milk dissolved in a glass of water. If you let it settle properly, you CANNOT overdose, because ONLY the right amount CAN dissolve in ro/di. The excess settles to the bottom to wait for more ro/di.

[Bowels]

This is a dumb question... what is the difference between Alk and Ph? isnt Alk the base part of the ph? or am I just totally wrong. :-/

[Sk8r]

It's not a dumb question: http://www.ppg.com/chemicals/askjoep...ifference.aspx This is the explanation for pools.

OTOH, ignore ph. It changes too often in our tanks to be useful in any but real problem situations. Track alk instead. It changes more slowly, and there is alkalinity buffer to slow down changes even more. If your magnesium is 1300 and your calcium is 420, it will lock your alkalinity in until the mg runs low. This is a great thing for us trying to keep a reef---but then reef critters have had millions of years figuring out what kind of chemistry is stable enough to hang their ecosystem on, and the alk/mg/cal relationship is the golden 3, where it comes to keeping corals.

[kingevil]

can mg be kept up with only water changes? i use red sea coral pro salt and i have a somewhat 'light' bio load in my 40g. no corals yet as i'm still trying to get my parameters situated. my mg is now at 1200 after a week and i know is should be higher. the tank has only been up for a week with no cycle as i transported live rock from an established tank and use new, live sand. should i start with a water change and test again? all of my levels are low compared to what it says on the salt bucket. i have the exact figures at home but i believe the kh is 9, calcium is 380. water is 35ppt at 79 degrees.

is there a way around dosing altogether if i only want to keep some lps and/or softies?

[Sk8r]

Yes---with qualification: some salts are low in mg because (a) it's one extra cost of manufacturing and b) the salt is intended for fish-onlies, and fish don't use it up that fast. SO if you have a salt like Oceanic or a reefing salt, it should be high enough; if you're using a fish-only salt, you may need to test and bring it up once, and then expect it to hold pretty well. LPS is a stony and a particularly hungry one: if I hand dosed, my lps tank at 54 gallons would take down 3 heaping tablespoons of pretty spendy calcium additive a day; or pennies worth of kalk. If you have only softies, you're pretty much like a fish-only, except that the softies want your water balanced and grow best when it is. If they go wonky, first run carbon (they fight among themselves with chemicals) and secondly test your water and bring it back to balance. If it's work you're worried about (as who isn't, if they've tried hand-dosing!) I can say a kalk-driven tank is no work at all. Mine runs for months on end without getting 'off' if I just keep the ATO tank full of water and enough kalk in the bottom to keep the saturation level up (ie, there's white residue in the bottom, which just means there's enough down there to supply several refills of that ATO tank) ---and I don't have to touch it. I don't clean filters (a reef usually doesn't have any); and I don't have to dose: the ATO handles that. I test periodically. That's it. But with any stony coral, SPS or LPS, you have to supply more calcium than any salt mix provides. If I weighed the stony mass of the coral in my 54, I'd probably have 50 lbs of coral skeleton in there, after several years, and all of that was built by dosing calcium via kalk.

[kingevil]

i am using red sea coral pro. however, i 'tainted' the water by mixing some sw from the lfs. i didn't have enough of my mixed water to fill the tank initially. i will do a big water change in the next few days and see if my levels go back up.

weird thing is... my coralline seems to be turning white, or disintegrating. i bought all of the contents from a previous owner. the old set up was using water from the lfs and the rock was covered in purple coraline. i brought it home and put it in a new tank with newly purchased live sand. i do have crabs and an urchin, but it's the same livestock as was in the old tank when the coralline was doing great. the lighting system has changed, however. i thought that by using higher quality salt, my coralline would take off and spread to the glass from the rock. instead it's going backwards.

[Sk8r]

If your coralline is failing, that could be either too-bright lighting too suddenly, or low magnesium. Coralline really depends on mg.

[fireanthodge]

Thanks for the easy to understand info

[avelino78]

The past few weeks I have been working on getting my mag,alk, and calcium levels to be perfect. I feel like yesterday I finally reached the number that I want. Mag 1320, alk 9.2 and calcium 425. Since I have been testing every day I noticed that after a water change my levels changed. Will they ever stabilize even after a water change or will I have to start over after each change??

[Sk8r]

To a certain extent that depends on your salt brand. Test. REad labels. Test, keep a log, and you may find at least the degree of 'off' is routine and easily handled.

[Envieddesigns]

Hey i tested my water & here is what i got. PH 8 KH 120 GH 180 Salinity a little below 1.026 & temps 78-80. Is this good? Also I attached a pic of the test strips I use.

[Sk8r]

If you're beyond cycling save the test strips for suspected-ammonia/nitrate emergencies and get separate test kits for alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium. Use the DKH scale, where your alk reading should be 8.3. Your ph is ok, but it's not really important for a marine tank to track it---it changes by the hour. It's your alkalinity that will tell you how your water is. Your salinity and temp are fine. Be sure to track that salinity with a marked fill line on your tank and a refractometer when adding specimens to a QT TANK. You're doing fine. Start a log book with the following readings: dkh alk (you'll run that one every few days at first, then weekly); magnesium; and calcium. If your alk is holding at 8.3 you don't have to run the other 2 tests. If falling, run mg, get it up [it'll almost certainly be low); and run calcium test. Maintenance isn't too hard if you just track alkalinity and temperature religiously. Salinity tends to stay put as long as your tank meets that fill line (get an automatic topoff unit for fresh ro/di water.)

[Envieddesigns]

Thanks sk8r you are a god when it comes to this stuff. Lol. I forgot to mention those readings are on my 5 gal QT tank with a damsel & 2 clowns they are about an inch very small an only feeding once a day frozen brine. I'm totally new to this so I appreciate all the advice. My 55g DT is cycling day #5 now with 45lbs live rock. I'll have to get one of those refractos an other test kit. An ATO I want to look into doing one do you just buy the ro/di gallons an hook the ATO to that with a hose or you mix your own?

[Sk8r]

Your 55 is going to evaporate a gallon a day. One of the buckets salt comes in (Oceanic has a lidded 7 gallon bucket free (and don't lose the lid!!!!) with its large-size salt. I collect those buckets) is excellent for a small tankside freshwater reservoir---ie, a topoff reservoir. If you're clever, you can set the 7 gallon old freebie salt bucket beside the tank, turn a basket or furniture-grade box over it and disguise it as a potted palm or a stereo speaker. Or put it in a garage-sale doored cabinet, which can give you room to store stuff or even hold a larger sump. Old furniture can give you a lot of extra space next to your tank.

If you've got a tank evaporating a gallon a day, this gallon-a-day evaporation rate becomes ideal for 'dripping kalk' (explanationn within this thread, above) to supply a stony reef. I'm lucky---I have a basement sump, so I use a 32 gallon Brute trashcan for my freshwater reservoir, and I so love it---I can go away for a month, and putting kalk powder in that trashcan full of ro/di will feed my corals and hold their chemistry rock-steady until I get back. An ATO is indispensible for this---some people use "dosers," and "controllers" for this. I just use a simple mechanical float switch I got from autotopoff.com---cheap, pretty well infallible as your bathroom ball float---same principle, only tiny and contained in a tube. Instead of maintaining a connection to a pressured water line, however, this just turns on a pump in that trash can that delivers a few teaspoons of water ever so often---adding up to that gallon a day, but so subtly the fish would never detect it going on.