Limewater to maintain Ca & KH?

[brojj]

Hi fellow reefers, i wished to know whether limewater is effective on maintaining Ca & KH? I know that limewater pH is very high and has to be dose drop by drop. It also helps to keep the PO4 in check. Moveover, my 2 parts dosing has reach around 60ml per day for each & is currently looking for alternatives in the near future, when my SPS frags gets bigger. Limewater is one i am considering now. Mine is a mixed reef, 3x2x2, including sump, 90 gallon of water. I have a total of around 10 sps frags, 1 clam, 1 candycane, 1 blasto, 1 acan, some zoas. Thanks in advance.

[brojj]

Limewater is also known as kalk.

[Ahhyi]

It's kalwassar water. I'm using it alternately with Di water for top up.

[brojj]

Does it alone able to maintain Ca & KH? Apart from using it as a top up?

[mjck]

Since its used in the top up water...usually not suuficient when your car and kh consumption are high. Unless the evaporation rate matches the consumption rate. To make the matter worst...evaporation rate varies on different times of the year. Unlike a calcium reactor, which uses the tank's own salt water, ut may be tweaked to the tanks specific kh and ca consumption rate.

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[vidextreme]

Does it alone able to maintain Ca & KH? Apart from using it as a top up?

Depending on the concentration. But I prefer using kalk water as my top-up rather than using it to maintain pH. I find the pH it increases last only a short while. It happens when this solution gets exposed to carbon dioxide, you get Ca+ plus handful of electrons that increases your pH. And that's good but happens too quickly. In order to maintain pH and calcium availability with kalk, reefers has to resort concentrated-kalk to drip system.

Comparing this to the two part (A+B Calcium Chloride + carbonate, bicarbonate salt)... What's good about the two parts is that calcium chloride decomposes much slower than kalk as it gets exposed with the carbonate solution. Another good thing about this is solidified calcium chloride (I forgot the precipitated compound of this, sorry) would decompose back to useful Ca+ over time. What's bad about this is you need to do it once or twice a week as opposed to the drip system (which is setup and forget).

Both have good and the not so good on them. Which is why I chose both. Dose once or twice per week with two parts, and top-up with diluted kalkwasser.

I didn't answer your question straightly but I hope you find this useful.

Btw, you need the availability of magnesium to your tank in order to prevent precipitation of Ca+ too fast thus maintaining your pH better.

[Sengreef]

Does it alone able to maintain Ca & KH? Apart from using it as a top up?

For kH is YES , but for Ca is NO ...

from my kalk dosing experience, when the 1st time kalk powder mix with water will release very high kH ie: if using Kent Marine kalk u can get more than 60dkH at the 1st day and it will drop if u mix water again the next day so if u mix the same powder with water daily until 7th day only will get 5~7dkH etc etc ... for brightwell kalk, very low about 16~20dkH at the 1st day mix ...

but all kalk Ca are low below 500ppm so its good to maintain Ca level and not to raise your tank Ca level ...

[brojj]

Thanks for those who have given advices so far. Seems like limewater is not that consistent in performance.

[james72]

Maintain same 2 part dosing rate but increase the concentration when mixing your 2 part solution.

[brojj]

Thks for the advice. My 2 parts are commercial ones, using aquapharm.

[james72]

Oic then cant play with concentration. ...