Kalkwasser, Calcium and alkalinity.

[Fastmarc]

I have a 55 gallon tank that I use kalk to supplement Ca and alk.
I recently aquired a new Salifert test kit (expire date confirms the newness, so I doubt false readings) and checked the calcium and alkalinity levels. I did both test twice and got the following results.
Calcium = 470 ppm
Alkalinity = 2 meq/l

My question is this, since I only dose kalk ( I do not add any other additives), how could it become imbalanced?
I thought dosing kalk would add cal/alk in equal amounts and I also thought it is consumed in equal amounts.

I change 5 gallons of water every 2 weeks with NSW.
I am seeing good growth rates with corals and all tank inhabitants are doing great.

 

[wade1]

Kalk is not technically even in abundance for both Ca and Alk... and it very much depends on the uptake in your specific aquarium (by the animals) which is never in total balance.

Another factor is that when your Ca creeps up too high, it can make your alkalinity crash out.

I would highly recommend a few 30% water changes to get things back into line and then you can start dosing again.

 

[comatose]

you can add baking soda to bring the Alk up

 

[wade1]

One other note... frequently Mg being out of whack can cause alk imblance, especially as detected by many cheap hobbyist kits.

 

[Hexboy]

I may have experienced the same thing using Kalk in my 40 gallon. I thought I was doing just fine, and seemed to have to add Ca periodically to maintain balance.

Then....quite suddenly, I began to get a lot of abiotic Ca formation. At that point, my Alk became very low and I've had to add a lot of Alk to get back to balance.

I'm sure that I pushed too far with the Kalk, oversaturated causing the precipitation that took a lot more Alk out of the system. Really hard on the pumps, btw.

I never saw a Ca reading more than 420, so I never imagined that my levels were getting high enough to cause problems...just too much, too fast I suspect.

 

[chevell]

When trying to get by with just kalk additions and nothing else you will want to monitor PH levels at all times because it is easy to raise it high enough to cause problems. Kalk while raising calcium directly only maintains alk. and does'nt actually raise the level of it. You should be using another means to raise the alk. and then try to maintain that level using kalk while not going over a PH of 8.45. It's not always possible on some tanks to maintain alk. with kalk alone. You can use just the alk. part of the ESV or similar product to raise alk. Best is to use a Ca reactor and then use kalk at night to avoid over night PH drops.

 

[greenman]

Just stop using the kalk and use a dkh buffer in your top off. All the calk is whats driving down the alk. You need to add both adding to much of one will crash the other. I'm not a chemist but Mg can go out of wack also all 3 have some relation ship. I use kents dkh buffer in my top off as needed with good results.. Alk test kits are nice and fast keep using a buffer and dont add any cal additves until the dkh is 8-12.
Water changes along with the buffer will help with anything else such as Mg if thats low. But i dont test it. Kits are expsive and water changes are enough to keep where it should be.

 

[WRASSER]

i know i am a little late on this. Question, what can i use for calcium that does not have any buff in it?

 

[Anonymous]

Calcium chloride.