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Ash's 400 Gallon Reef

diana a

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
You think I should put some muratic acid in the 15 gallon new saltwater? I have it in my garage but scared of the thought
What does muratic acid do to a reef aquarium?
Is this muratic acid that you use in a swimming pool to kill mildew?
 
What does muratic acid do to a reef aquarium?
Is this muratic acid that you use in a swimming pool to kill mildew?
Yes sort of. It's the stuff ppl use to acid clean liverock clean. In pools its used to lower ph. It brings down the alk on saltwater so ppl do it.. It can be done safely I just rather not play with chemical bc I read you have to let it aerator for 12-24 hr to bring back up the ph. I just made the 15 gallon waterchange. If my alks not close to 9 then I'll just get fritz and make a 30 gallon waterchange
 
Alk at 9.3dkh in QT. Losing patients and wont move anything else in QT until Alk is at 8.5dkh.

Added 10ml of muratic acid to 15 gallon of saltwater. Alk dropped from 9.8dkh to 7.2dkh. I tested the PH and it's at 7.2. Now have to aerate and wait for PH to get up and then I can make a waterchange

Oh its fun playing Mad scientist
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I'm gonna get the alk down. Then add some T5 to the QT, I feel the one puck has way too much shadowing and T5 are just better. Plus I want this QT to have exact same lighting as my display. Especially since I am doing an extended QT

I've never used Kalk before but going to use it for the first time. I have a 7.5 gallon container that I can make air tight, mix kalk once and figure out consumption. Again this is for my QT only not the big tank
 
I'm gonna get the alk down. Then add some T5 to the QT, I feel the one puck has way too much shadowing and T5 are just better. Plus I want this QT to have exact same lighting as my display. Especially since I am doing an extended QT

I've never used Kalk before but going to use it for the first time. I have a 7.5 gallon container that I can make air tight, mix kalk once and figure out consumption. Again this is for my QT only not the big tank
First time using kalkwasser as well and definitely loving it, got a bit scared after ph getting a higher than 8.3. But thanks God everything happier at this ph!! And with alkalinity I think every system reacts deferent to another, my acros did not look good until I was at 8.5 dkh. I guess light and flow impacts your alk level as well
 
First time using kalkwasser as well and definitely loving it, got a bit scared after ph getting a higher than 8.3. But thanks God everything happier at this ph!! And with alkalinity I think every system reacts deferent to another, my acros did not look good until I was at 8.5 dkh. I guess light and flow impacts your alk level as well
You got some tips let me know. For example, does the dosing tube the feeds the Kalk have to be under the water line? Also, lets say I test my alk today and its at 8DKH, in 3 days Alk is 7.5DKH. If my total system volume is 50 gallons what would be a good starting point as far as ML dosing per day goes? Or should I just start of at 50ML per day and test ALK daily and see if I can increase or decrease.

I am excited to finally master PH! When I got into reefing, all i read on those old TOTM articles was reefers using Kalk and I just thought it was to increase PH from CA reactor. All I heard was horror stories about dosing Kalk. I am looking forward to seeing how much of a difference this makes to my corals since they dont grow fast enough with 8.0-8.1 range I am used to seeing.
 
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Jamie S

NJRC Member
You got some tips let me know. For example, does the dosing tube the feeds the Kalk have to be under the water line? Also, lets say I test my alk today and its at 8DKH, in 3 days Alk is 7.5DKH. If my total system volume is 50 gallons what would be a good starting point as far as ML dosing per day goes? Or should I just start of at 50ML per day and test ALK daily and see if I can increase or decrease.

I am excited to finally master PH! When I got into reefing, all i read on those old TOTM articles was reefers using Kalk and I just thought it was to increase PH from CA reactor. All I heard was horror stories about dosing Kalk. I am looking forward to seeing how much of a difference this makes to my corals since they dont grow fast enough with 8.0-8.1 range I am used to seeing.
I've been dosing Kalk for 2 weeks and trying a new method. I'm dosing to keep my PH between 8.2 and 8.3 and I'm dosing about 6,000ml of saturated Kalk in a bucket (150gal system) through my DOS and my alk has gone from about 8.2 to 12 which has me concerned however i was told this was perfectly normal that it will eventually equalize after the carbonic acid release. To be honest the corals look great with a lot of polyp extension and color.
 
You got some tips let me know. For example, does the dosing tube the feeds the Kalk have to be under the water line? Also, lets say I test my alk today and its at 8DKH, in 3 days Alk is 7.5DKH. If my total system volume is 50 gallons what would be a good starting point as far as ML dosing per day goes? Or should I just start of at 50ML per day and test ALK daily and see if I can increase or decrease.

I am excited to finally master PH! When I got into reefing, all i read on those old TOTM articles was reefers using Kalk and I just thought it was to increase PH from CA reactor. All I heard was horror stories about dosing Kalk. I am looking forward to seeing how much of a difference this makes to my corals since they dont grow fast enough with 8.0-8.1 range I am used to seeing.
Your tank it’s big so you could start with 100mls of kalkwasser and test every day!! First 2 weeks I was doing around 10 alkalinity checks in a range of 2 hours in the morning, from 10:00 to 12:00.
this way you can understand how much used in this 24 hours and can adjust them keep checking if goes up or down.
I check every other day now!!
 
I've been dosing Kalk for 2 weeks and trying a new method. I'm dosing to keep my PH between 8.2 and 8.3 and I'm dosing about 6,000ml of saturated Kalk in a bucket (150gal system) through my DOS and my alk has gone from about 8.2 to 12 which has me concerned however i was told this was perfectly normal that it will eventually equalize after the carbonic acid release. To be honest the corals look great with a lot of polyp extension and color.
Oh man, thats a big ALK jump in a short time.. Do you have any acros? acros wont like this but LPS and softies will be fine
 

Jamie S

NJRC Member
Oh man, thats a big ALK jump in a short time.. Do you have any acros? acros wont like this but LPS and softies will be fine
Yes I do have some hardy acros but Chris Mekley at aci aquaculture says he worries more about pH than Alk. I’m pretty nervous myself and have my fingers crossed.
 
So I have a very crazy story.

First time fragging zoas so there was 2 polyps growing on an awkward angle on egg crate. I accidentally dropped the larger head 100% covered superglue on frag plug. Thinking it was dead after few days it's head pops up from the side of its body and eventually released from the frag plug.

It was getting beaten up by the propeller pump and I put it in a cup in sump to glue later. Anyways I lost it in the sump rubble 4 days ago and yesterday found it in the display tank looking line a pancake.

I glued it last night and surprised that it seems to be coming back. I guess zoas can be super hardy bc this thing should be dead

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