Kalk vs 2 part to start

[Jamie S]

I’ve been slowly adding some corals to my 125 and starting to notice a slight drop in calcium and alkalinity. Weekly 10% water changes have been keeping up with the demand to date but soon it won’t. I’m wondering when people need to start dosing, do they prefer 2 part or kalkwasser? Eventually when the demand is too great a calcium reactor will be put online.

 

[DEL]

2 part never failed me

 

[MadReefer]

Don't you need a stirrer for Kalk because it get thick?

 

[Mrx7899x]

Kalk is probably going to be the cheapest you can just put it in your ATO reservoir. It's nice because it does alk and calcium and bumps up your ph which will help your coral grow faster. I run a calcium reactor and still dose kalk everyday to keep my ph up.

 

[Iotari]

If you're still buildng up stocking Kalk should be able to keep up

 

[DangerDave]

Either will work. 2 part is cleaner, kalk is cheaper. Kalk gives a better ph boost. I’ve done both, nowadays kalk stirrer and calcium reactor.

 

[amado]

I do both. Dosing kalk on a doser not a ato will be your best practice.
You can get a 4 head doser. To dose 2 part, kalk
And mag. Kalk is cheap and it’s easy to dose.

 

[Hockeynut]

I do both. Dosing kalk on a doser not a ato will be your best practice.
You can get a 4 head doser. To dose 2 part, kalk
And mag. Kalk is cheap and it’s easy to dose.

Do you have a kalk stirrer With the doser?
I used to dose it long ago in my Ato and it was a pain without a stirrer

 

[amado]

Do you have a kalk stirrer With the doser?
I used to dose it long ago in my Ato and it was a pain without a stirrer

You don’t need a stirrer.
I don’t use one I dose kalk directly from my 7 gallon container ($12 Walmart). I have never had a problem with dosing kalk direct. I add water and 14 teaspoons of kalk to 7 gallon of water. I do this every week. I dose 1 gallon of the kalk mix every day. Every hour I dose 160ml.

Magnesium I dose manually once a week I dose 100mil as needed.
Dosing 2 part and dosing kalk is very good for your system. There is no reason just to do one over the other. It’s best to do both. I feel they compliment each other. Using both is like a back up in case something goes wrong. On a large system like my system I will eventually run all 3
Kalk / 2 part and a calcium reactor.

I also dose esv 2 part kalk during the night (40mil)
And calcium (40mil) during the day.
My alk is 8.5
My calcium 400
My mag 1400
Ph 8+

 

[Jamie S]

You don’t need a stirrer.
I don’t use one I dose kalk directly from my 7 gallon container ($12 Walmart). I have never had a problem with dosing kalk direct. I add water and 14 teaspoons of kalk to 7 gallon of water. I do this every week. I dose 1 gallon of the kalk mix every day. Every hour I dose 160ml.

Magnesium I dose manually once a week I dose 100mil as needed.
Dosing 2 part and dosing kalk is very good for your system. There is no reason just to do one over the other. It’s best to do both. I feel they compliment each other. Using both is like a back up in case something goes wrong. On a large system like my system I will eventually run all 3
Kalk / 2 part and a calcium reactor.

I also dose esv 2 part kalk during the night (40mil)
And calcium (40mil) during the day.
My alk is 8.5
My calcium 400
My mag 1400
Ph 8+

Great info thanks Amado! Right now i don't have the demand for multiple dosing mechanisms so I decided to just manually dose BRS 2 part manually until i can get the Apex DOS to do it automatically and then eventually the Trident for full control.

 

[kabal2]

I do pretty close to what Amado does, but I have a kalk reactor that I picked up for cheap, and my doser had a free head so I used to dose 150ml of kalk every hour, and dose 60ml of 2 part, 20ml each every 8 hours

 

[kabal2]