I've been using kalkwasser for years I like it the best I have a pump that drips it into my water slowly 24/7 my pH doesn't never go over 8.2 it drops a little bit at night but it stays pretty consistent my corals are doing great I'm getting lots of Coraline algae I think it's the best stuff you can use and it's not expensive

My tank is in the garage and the garage door is cracked 24/7 minus a few hours here and there during the week, basically your situation chris. My chronically low ph without kalk baffles me.

Chris you mentioned reef blueprint, there's a store local here in Tampa (the coral corral) that mentioned that brand, but which product were you referring to in this video? The Caron8 aq 8.35, or their kalkwasser?

So would I be right assuming that as soon as I start Chris's method, I shut down my calcium reactor until it's needed again.

💙🙌

💙

💙

Tuxedo urchins

Thanks!

not really, some of us skim wet on purpose

Blow fans over the water surface to increase evaporation? Cool the kalk to increase concentration?

One thing how did you control your C02 regulator to turn on when ALK is lower than 8.7

@@keelovision257 we have the CO2 controller for the calcium reactor plugged into the energy bar of our apex. When the trident tests Alk and the Alk is 8.7+ the rule tells the outlet to go off.

kalkwasser is a co2 scrubbing material so to speak; calcium hydroxide is often what is used inside the store bought co2 scrubbers, but they use a dye so you can see how long it's been "exposed" to air.

@@aquaticnstuff7666 I should have clarified my statement. In context with what he was saying regarding the impact on kalk from co2 and limiting the exposure within the mixing container to air (atmospheric co2). I'm aware kalk absorbs co2 but in a mixing container that is bad. Mixing containers exposure to it has been an issue for myself in the past and thus controlling the air going into it through a pelletized CO2 media would further control exposure in a vessel that has a longer dosing window (week plus). Most likely needing minimal maintenance.

Those are the Neptune SKY lights, running in a white mode (called Streaming mode) while doing the show.

Those lights make your tank glow like t5, all I can say is wow!

i find it all boring as f... to be honest, imean talking about kalk at all lol

If it is high purity Kalkwasser 6.5g per gallon

I’ll let Chris know about your question.

Hi Tony, Kalkwasser is very reactive to atmospheric CO2. The other issue with some Kalkwasser is the purity. Not sure the brands you are using but if the raw material is on the lower end of what is acceptable, you possibly have to add more to the solution to reach the max saturation point of 12.4-12.44. It sounds like you are handling the kalkwasser correctly by making sure all or most air is squeezed out and then double sealing with another bag. The solution will react with the air around it by creating a surface crust that looks almost like Ice. This crust is carbonates. If that is opaque you have to much interaction with air. We combat this by using the styrofoam float that covers the surface of the solution almost 100% and that made a huge difference. The crust is now limited to the 1/2” of exposed surface area around the float. We use only the Reef Blueprint Kalkwasser. I know the owner personally and can 100% guarantee this is going to mix up to max saturation with 6.5g per gallon. He only uses the highest purity with an acceptable certificate of Authenticity according to the specifics he required when purchasing it. Bottom line, as long as your Ph monitor is calibrated and your confident it is, then keep adding small amounts of the Kalk you currently have on hand until the Ph reaches 12.4-12.44. Only 1 other possibility I can think of and that is the temperature of the RODI water you mix it. If the temp is above 82° 12.2-12.35 is all you will reach because calcium Hydroxide is very insoluble in water and temperature will dictate how much actually goes into solution. If the temperature is between 68°-81° 12.4-12.44 should be no problem unless the kalkwasser is compromised or really low quality. I hope this helps.

@@aciaquaculture Chris, thank you for the swift reply. I'm located in Europe and here we can get a few brands (Deltec and Rowa kalk). I'm will try now with new lab grade mix, that I found, but I was worried to put more then the 6.5g. Is it matter the grams that I use for the mix or is important to have the 12.44PH reading? My RODi is in range of 73deg, thus I should get the reading of 12.44. I'm using apex dos and monitoring the same way you explained and separate PH pen to check the mixed solution, I'm also using the styrofoam at the same way. Thank you one more time.

Getting to the max Ph , if you use more powder it will just settle and have to be cleaned out once in a while.

my problem was having a big enough container because basically all my evap was kalkwasser

Turn off the ato!

He wanted to add all the evaporation for the day in only 12 hours time, dosing when pH would normally be lower. If you tank evaporates 3g per day, he recommends that all three gallons are dosed that night, rather than 1.5 hours at night and 1.5 hours during the daytime.

Are you dosing only a night? If you are unable to get an air exchanger maybe try some house plants near your tank. It might help a little.

@@aciaquaculture no, dosing all day. I hooked my co2 scrubber setup back to my protien skimmer. Currently using a dosing pump to push water through a kalkstirrer. Ordering a 15gallon chemical storage container soon to pull from that instead of the stirrer.

@@aciaquaculture I think I got it dialed in. 8.26-8.31 ph during my night drop. Running co2 scrubber on protien skimmer and dosing double evaporated amount of Kalkwasser, sump level staying stable was slightly elevated at first. Problem is seeing how long the co2 media lasts on a recirculated setup with a tee and valve to just let a little fresh air into the venturi. Super excited.

I can answer this because I experience the issue, I have an ATO also, so if the evaporation is more than my Kalk dosage then the ATO just turns on, very rarely though

@@Robbogolf90 Won't that run the risk of flooding the sump IF the ATO is keeping water level stable and dosing is going to try and reach PH?

No, do not enter your lights out schedule in the interval. In my example, my average PH is 8.3. What you need to determine is what your average PH is currently and use that number in the rule vs my 8.29. Your PH will naturally start to decline when your lights go out and rise when lights are on. As you start dosing, your average PH will go up. Your average will change and should be monitored until you reach your goal. So I would recommend checking your average before lights out and adjusting to the new average in the rule. In order for you to dose your full evaporation you need to double that in the interval section because essentially you are only dosing when you are below that average which occurs at night.

@@aciaquaculture so, you dose an 24 hour time period?

OK… So Apex is controlling the dosing with “the rule” 24 hrs a day, BUT… it will only dose when pH is lower than what is defined in the rule. And the reason we double the daily evaporation rate is that in THEORY, it will only dose at night, when pH dips below the average. My tank is averaging a pH of 8 (well 7.99) so I should set the rule to maybe 8.1, monitor a couple days until the tank averages 8.1 and then goose it up another .1 until I get to 8.29?

They will adapt, and many pretty reef tanks may regularly run 7.9-8.1 daily. Like mine.

It is no different than buying wild coral. Well these are taken better care of and not shipped in a box 3-4 times and half way around the world. It is a non issue we are wholesalers and sell thousands of aquacultured corals a week and have only heard positive results going from our farm to the retail store

agreed but some things translate in vitro

The legs to measure 3 inches

Sure, that's something I can do for you.

@@melevsreef perfect 👍 let me know ones is done

stable is a relative term

We believe Ph of 8.3 is more important than high Alk.

unless you live in a city I dont see how people can generate that much co2

That has not been my experience, it may have to do with other factors such as your specific location and prevailing wind direction during the summer months. Perhaps your proximity to a major road that sees elevated summer traffic similar to what Chris felt impacted his system.

You know how much photosynthesis is going on from plants outside in the summer sucking up CO2? That’s astonishingly different from other people experience. You should collect CO2 data and show how that’s happening.

@@PatrickJewellTheGreat well if the trees are sucking up all the CO2 then that’s dispels global warming.

Global warming! 😂 There is a reason why they changed it to “climate change” IT’S ALL BS!

No it will not be a good outcome

@@aciaquaculture okay, thank you for the quick response. I'm using all for reef and have been trying to figure out how I can raise my pH using it. I may have to just give up on the all for reef.

This would cause a ph spike. The key with ph is to gradually raise it then keep the swing as small as possible.

@@MrGarciaJr I am using all for reef as well and trying to figure out how to incorporate dosing Kalkwasser .

@@MrGarciaJr have you decided what to do in regards to all for reef and trying to raise your pH? I think the difference between kalk and all for reef is the trace elements. I was just watching a live stream from telegraham from a year ago and he made a comment, "I'd just use Kalk with some trace" . I like the simplicity of just dosing all for reef but don't have the stability of the PH.

He mentioned in a few spots that he's not doing a slury because of the variables it introduces.

We do not dose Kalk slurry. I have been telling those who dose slurry are playing with variables that can be a ticking time bomb.

@@aciaquaculture is the difference the powerhead/pump inside the container versus not having one.

@@cww180 Slurry is not synonymous with saturated solution. If you mix up Kalk really well and let it settle, you get a clear saturated solution that is remarkably stable and can be used in a dosing container. Slurry is more like saturated solution + more Kalk, or, if you are using a stirrer slurry can end up being dosed when the pump is pulling solution while it was just agitated, putting more free Kalk precipitate suspensed in already saturated solution.

@@cww180 having a powerhead stirring means more CO2 exchange with the air, hence, lowering the effective pH of the Limewater, creating more useless crust on top.

I always say … sit back and watch the magic happen. Don’t worry about the Alk unless it goes down below where you like to keep it.

Question, do you need to raise the temp in order to get a larger evaporation amount? I would recommend using a vessel to dose vs the reactor for more stability. Happy to hear your corals are happy. Some Australian LPS corals do not like the higher temps in our experience. Keep an eye in those if you have any.

Hi Chris, yes I need to up the temp for more evap, but Im still within reasonable temp, the chiller kicks on at 79deg and shuts off at 78… I have a magnetic ice cap reactor, My kalk stays potent for a few weeks, I dump it out every 2weeks and replace it with fresh kalk, I know if I let it go too long when my water level rises and the salinity drops down, it takes more solution to up the ph… I will try a 5 gallon bucket of premixed kalk! Thanks Chris👍

Update...! I went ahead and ordered the Reef Blueprint kalkwasser and It made all the difference in the world, previously I was using SR Aquatics brand Kalk and could only achieve 11.2PH and that was supper saturated!! I noticed an immediate difference when I mixed the Reef Blueprint, The powder irritated my skin immediately, my other kalk did not. The PH with the Reef Blueprint hit 12.2! I made sure to seal it with as little air as possible. I even had to put on a dust mask and safety glasses the Reef Blueprint is so potent, be careful guys! It also took a very long time for my Kalk water to clear up, the SR brand would clear in about an hour. The real test was my nighttime PH, during the day my PH has been 8.3/8.4 (I only run a Millwaki ph monitor calibrated) the SR kalk would have to dose about a gallon at night to raise the PH so in the morning my sump was almost overflowing and my salinity was down a few points from 1.025 to 1.023/22. Well this morning using the Reef Bluprint Kalk, my salinity was 1.025 and my PH 8.4! Im still fine tuning, trying to get my evap rate to match the dosing, also my alk is 12.1 so I dialed back my calcium reactor to almost nothing. One more happy story, I went and picked up a new Hammer coral from my LFS and it looked great at the store. I got to say It plumped up beyond belief the next day in my tank, and all my corals look incredible! Thanks for the advice Chris!!

@@SA8N 💙

💙🙌

It doesn’t work that way. Every system is different and there is no formula because of all the variables.

Alk is not the # to worry about. I still have a system with Alk over 11DKH and it was above 13DKH for 9 months. I firmly believe this chase your Alk is something beat into all reefers, for the sake of selling products. Kalk is cheap and IMO Ph is more important than ALK. Ask yourself this simple question. Chemists tell you to keep Alk,Ca,Mg @ values above NSW but why not Ph? From my experience there is no money in chasing Ph because Kalk is cheap. Water down some baking soda and soda ash and boom gold mine. We have the results to speak for this method and hundreds of hobbyists around the world thanking me for helping them keep corals alive and thriving. A lot of reefers cannot get past the fact that this is totally different than what they were told and have been doing for decades. It’s a lot to take in but it is simple to put into action. Energy is energy and I choose to keep it simple and stop chasing # other than Ph. I do always say “just don’t let your ALK,Ca,&Mg fall below where you like them. I like ALK 8.3-8.7 Ca 390-420 Mg 1350-1400. Above these #’s no worries Remember to let your corals tell you if something is wrong.

@@aciaquaculture You do not have to convince me a ph of 8.3 is very important, that is well documented. But let me give you a real world scenario using math and no opinions. Lets say you have a tank with very low consumption and super high evaporation. A 200 gallon tank that evaporated 20 gallons of water in a weeks time with very little alk and calcium consumption. Starting dkh of 7.8, ph of 7.7 with high CO2 in the air, and calcium of 420. Per your method of adding saturated kalk to your aquarium at the evaporation rate and your apex stopping when a ph of 8.3 is achieved. Your ph would lower quickly after each time you stopped dosing, and you would have to continue to dose more as the ph falls from added CO2. If you dosed 44 gallons of fully saturated kalkwasser in the coming weeks, your alkalinity would be 34 dkh and your calcium would be 600! And with very little alkalinity and calcium consumption in this particular scenario, your alk and calcium would not fall, it would only rise. In fact if you continued to dose kalkwasser at high rates only looking at ph in a system with very low consumption, your alk and calcium would hit ultra high levels. That is a fact. You are dosing calcium and alkalinity with kalk. If nothing is there to uptake the calcium and alkalinity it will rise at an easily calculated rate. For anybody that doesn't believe the math, google a reef calculator and run the numbers yourself. Keep adding kalk at a pace your tank can’t uptake the calcium and alkalinity, your levels will continue to rise forever.

on the logarithmic scale 12 pH is 100 times more caustic than 11pH so a 0.1 increase in pH means that it is 10 times more caustic.

@@ducklady1993 Incorrect, a pH of 12 is 10 times more concentrated (-OH) then a pH of 11. pH and pOH are calculated with log base 10, not 100.

@@thereefhobbyist oh I have always thought it was 100. Thanks for the correction.

@@ducklady1993 Absolutely!

@@aciaquaculture This comment has nothing to do with your farm which I claim to know nothing about. It is talking about how your method is hands on because the dosing changes when the evaporation changes. You have employees there to manage this. The average person does not have the time to monitor their evaporation daily, which does change. Failure to monitor this frequently will result in salinity changes.

He was referring to alk spiking at 12 , not ph