Low P.h In 24g Nano!

[sbreydin]

I have bought seachem kalkwazzer today. I am going to set up a diy auto top off system can anyone tell me how much i need to add to a 2 litre container?? Dont want to over shoot this and cause more problems.

Thanks everyone for the help i will get there in the end!!

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, you can just add kalk to the water till it stops dissolving, then it'll be saturated... FYI, don't be touching the stuff with your bare hands, it's a wee bit corrosive

 

[Musho3210]

woah, wait just a minute, your auto top off probably runs around 3-5 times a day, and it probably bursts around..... 25-50ml at once. If that is a kalk solution, say bye bye to some of your corals and stuff. This stuff is strong and VERY easy to over dose. Even if you dose slowly but dose a lot in one day, if you dose too much, it "burns" the corals.

Use a home made dripper, one that will have a small bit of kalk solution drip at a rate of maybe a drip every 2 seconds. Dont use it to raise your ph, alk, or calcium either, you'll notice it will either stay at it is now, or rise really slow. Normally, if it rises slow, people get impatient and raise the amount or speed, bringing your tank closer to a crash. It is a maintainer not a raiser IMO/IME.

Kalk is a dangerous things to be using in small tanks

 

[sbreydin]

Just an update, i have started dosing the tank with Kalkwazzer I put 2 grams into a 2 litre container of RO and drip dosed it into tank. Hopefully this will help to stabilise the p.h.

How often do you guys advise i dose the tank ???

The ph today was 8.0 at lights on and 8.25 at lights off so a vast improvement in ph i think mostly this is down to agitation of the surface water.

My test results this evening are:

ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 2.5
Alk 2.7
ph 8.25
s.g 1.026
temp 25 c

Think tank is now starting to stabilize.

I now have my C.U.C at work cleaning all the algae.They have been at work about 2 weeks now my C.U.C consists:

12 small turbo snails
3 astrea snails
1 red leg hermit
1 orange leg hermit
1 peppermint shrimp

Planning to maybe add a mithrax crab and 4-5 nassarius snails as sand is slightly neglected and needs cleaned also. Maybe a goby might be good for cleaning sand what you guys think???

I have added three mollies to the tank on Saturday this was advised to me by my lfs and i will add my first fish in coming weeks going to add them one by one staggering them by a week.

Does anyone have any advise as to what fish are best for this size of nano tank?
I am only looking to stock with 3-5 fish max

I am also going to add cheato to the 2nd chamber i was wondering what is the best way to go about getting light to the macro? I have a desk light that i think i can use it is one my mother used for cross stitching.It has a clamp that fastens to a desk. It uses 11 watt daylight bulb would this be sufficient light source to sustain the cheato?

I saw on Steels thread where he took some of the covering off the back of the tank to get light into the chamber can this till be done on the new type nanos???

Steve

 

[Musho3210]

thats a pretty big cuc... 3-4 nassarius would be plenty.

how often do you drip the kalk?

a 2 liter drip is pretty crazy, i did 500ml drip daily and it crashed my tank....

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah but he only put 2 grams of kalk powder in the 2 liters of water, thats NOT a saturated or even concentrated solution.

 

[Musho3210]

missed that part

 

[sbreydin]

How much kalk do you think i should add to the 2 litres of RO and how often do you guys think that i should dose then???


Steve

 

[Musho3210]

I wouldnt use kalk, use a dry powder thats calcium and pH buffer (most of them are sepparately bought). Kalk is more of a stabilizer, not much of a riser.

 

[sbreydin]

I am now running my tank with reverse lighting.
I am going to add cheato to the middle chamber what would be the best type of light for cheato and does it have to have light all the time?


Regards

Steve

 

[sbreydin]

Thanks Musho for the advice i want to be able to raise ph in the tank slightly and maintain it. Not crash it and burn!!!

I had just read a post by steel and he advised using Kalk over Bi-carb/carb as it would not cause further buffering problems with calcium etc. I didnt realise it could cause so much damage if overdone. So thanks for that Musho!

 

[Crazy fishes]

Musho, how much Kalk did you add to the 500ml? Also you have to consider the demands of the tank for alkalinity and also how much is added from your saltwater on water changes. Randy Holmes Farley did a nice article on Alkalinity and calcium. He highlighted for the most part calcium and alkalinity comsumption are matched but there are situations where alkalinity can be rapidly used. For examlple if calcium is too high you get enhanced inorganic precipitation or when Mg or Sr are high too. Also water changes can remove alkalinity due to incomplete nitrogen cycle although it is questioned whether this is significant in most home aquaria.

Anyway

Regards

 

[Musho3210]

Musho, how much Kalk did you add to the 500ml? Also you have to consider the demands of the tank for alkalinity and also how much is added from your saltwater on water changes. Randy Holmes Farley did a nice article on Alkalinity and calcium. He highlighted for the most part calcium and alkalinity comsumption are matched but there are situations where alkalinity can be rapidly used. For examlple if calcium is too high you get enhanced inorganic precipitation or when Mg or Sr are high too. Also water changes can remove alkalinity due to incomplete nitrogen cycle although it is questioned whether this is significant in most home aquaria.

Anyway

Regards

it was a while ago, i think i did... 1/8th of a tsp, following the instructions on the back of the bottle. I used about 450ml of it and didnt use the bottom bit. I used it to raise my calcium, and kH, so i dripped every day and got i think a 10ppm raise in calcium every 3 days maybe? Lasted for about 2-3 weeks, then my corals didnt open, i thought it was just a then moment, continued to add heavy amounts of kalk, corals flesh started to deeply recede into the skeleton, lost a frogspawn, shrooms, 2 sps frags, and badly damaged a candy cane.

THis was back when i didnt fully understand the concept of the calcium alk balance (and it still slightly confuses me) and i used it to raise my levels fast. It was a crash and burn, a lesson for me to take things slowly.