Kalkwassar?

[arcab4]

since i found a nurce unit (www.aqualan.com) on ebay for CHEAP, i found out it can drip Kalkwassar. great! but what the heck is it. and how do i use it?

i'm looking at marinedepot. any specific things i neeD?

 

[dattack]

It's just calcium hydroxide which is a building block for coral skeletons and for snails/shrimps shells.
I got mine from another reefer for very cheap.  It's sold in certain supermarkets for pennies compared to LFS and called pickling lime.  Just stir a few tsp. a gallon and let it settle and get the clear liquid out and dose with your nurce device.  It helps in reducing phosphates also and coralline algae growth.  Your pH and KH might be high after you add this so you might think about adding a buffer (baking soda) for it.  I did it a few times but I got lazy .
Anyways, usually you don't necessarily need kalk unless you have lot of calcium demanding corals.  The saltwater mix you add usually have enough for most soft corals.  You will definitely need to add kalk if you keep clams, lps, sps or if you want better corraline algae.

 

[arcab4]

oh cool. so it's something i'll need later. interesting. cool. i'll keep it in mind later on. thanks.

johnny

 

[dattack]

Hey arcab,
Don't worry about dosing anything in a new tank just yet.  Gotta make sure it's stable in by itself before you add more chemicals otherwise, you will never know what went wrong or right with your system.