Evaporated Water

[Mishikal]

Should I replace evaporated water in my sump with the reef kalkawasser?

I have read that some people replace water with limewater which is reef Kalkawasser.

What do you guys do?

Should I put regular ro/di water or limewater back into my tank?

 

[LakeEd]

Mishikal,

That depends on a lot of questions about your setup. What size is your tank, what do you have in your tank, how much evaporation do you have daily, what are your Calcium levels, how often do you do water changes, what is your Alk level??? Questions Questions Questions. The more information you give about what you have here, the better the people here can help try and answer your questions.

Ed

 

[Mishikal]

I have a 55 gallon with a 20 gallon sump/refugium.

Flower pot
pink star polyps
green star polyps
several ricordia mushrooms
Rose bubble tip anenome.

1 baby false percula, 1 baby blue Tang, 1 bicolor blenny, and 1 cleaner shrimp.

I have about 80 pounds of live rock and my evaporation has to be about 1/2 to a gallon evaporation( it's still in the 90's here). Probably 20% of that is the protein skimmer though.

I have another question also. Is the crap from the protein skimmer have salt in it?

 

[wrassehole]

Oh , its still in the 90's for you down there? Awwwwwwwwww poor you. I feel for ya. lol.

 

[wrightme43]

If your alk and ca are still inside of the parameters you like just use ro/di water. If alk is dropping alone add buffer to ro/di water, if calcium alone and calcium supplement, and ro/di seperately or together/ its up to you. if both alk and calcium are being used up dose with kalkwasser. There is a groovey calculator in the GREAT POSTS forum under the thread reef calculators. Once you get it inline and get used to how much kalk you need you will be good to go. I use a dkh measurement of alkalinity at 10 dkh and a calcium of 370-400 ppm. This is just what I do, it may or may not work for you. Check out the reef calculator it will help you alot. Steve

 

[wrightme43]

What do you mean about the skimate having salt in it. Like dried salt crust, or did you have a shot of skimate over ice and it tasted salty or what? Thats a joke you know. Mine never have had salt in it. As far as I can tell with out tasteing it. How do you have yours set. I.E. dark brown thick skim. light brown watery skim. black dry skim. or is it just pulling a bunch of water out of your tank?

 

[Katchupoy]

Hello Mishikal.

I for one uses kalkwasser on filtered fresh water. But here is my 2 cents. Make sure that you test your water for calcium and alkalinity so you know how much to put.

It seems that you bioload doesnt require too much calcium like mine, so I only use 1 tablespoon of kalkwasser per 5 gallon of water.

That is way way down compared to others. But in this setup, I was still able to maintain calcium in the 400 - 450 range.

Also you have to tell us how much evaporated water are we talking about.

 

[Shoreliner11]

I drip kalkwasser in my tank but has a little bit higher calcium needs than yours. It also can serve a purpose of helping stabilize pH. With that said if you don't have your dose right, you can overshoot your pH as well. I like the stability it keeps in my 20gal with a 10gal ref. Oh, and all skimmate has salt in it...the water that is used to make the bubbles still has salt in it.