Kalkwasser Is Not for pH?
- Sep 03, 2023
- Anshika Mishra
- 288 0 0
You read that right; Kalkwasser should not be used to measure your pH.
We need to first break down what Kalkwasser is and how it works in simple terms. Kalkwasser is a German word for limewater, and the actual chemical behind it is calcium hydroxide. When you dose it to your tank, the Calcium increases your calcium levels, and the hydroxide increases your alkalinity, which it does by reacting with carbon dioxide in your water to create carbonate and bicarbonate.
It is this carbon dioxide conversion that increases your pH. As you'll know from many documentaries on global warming, carbon dioxide makes saltwater more acidic, which decreases the water's pH levels. So, because Kalkwasser removes carbon dioxide from your water, it will increase your pH levels, which is good for corals.
So, if it does increase your pH, why isn't full pH?
With alkalinity, having too much of it in your system is a bad thing. If you are dosing Kalkwasser with the sole intention of increasing your pH without any thought to what it will do to your calcium and alkalinity, you're doing it wrong, and you'll more likely do harm to your tank.
And, if you focus solely on increasing pH instead of painting a stable alkalinity, you're getting your priorities wrong.
For decades, people have kept stunning reef tanks without giving any direct thought to pH. In fact, the one parameter most experienced reefers want to keep stable above any other is alkalinity and not pH. So, by dosing Kalkwasser just for pH, you're putting the carp before the horse, and you're ignoring the one parameter people have spent decades focusing on with outstanding results.
Plus, you are more likely to succeed if you follow time-tested methods with great success.
However, this does not mean that you shouldn't use Kalkwasser or that pH is just a fad. Dosing Kalkwasser appropriately will improve most reef tanks over a long enough period of time, but only if you use it for its intended purpose of maintaining stable levels of calcium and alkalinity while seeing better pH levels as nothing more than a side benefit.
How to Dose Kalkwasser?
When you only have a few corals in your tank, you won't need to lose a lot of Kalkwasser to maintain your calcium and alkalinity. This means that the Kalkwasser you dose won't increase your pH that much at first.
However, while you might be tempted to simply dose enough Kalkwasser to increase your pH, doing so without watching your alkalinity will just cause any corals you have to suffer. Now, if you still really want to increase your pH in those circumstances, you're far better at using something like a CO2 scrubber that will increase your pH without affecting your water chemistry.
But, if you're maintaining proper water parameters, your tank will be fine without a perfect pH level. And pH is not the magic ingredient that makes all the difference between safe and happy curls. It's just one part of the recipe. Plus, if you made a cake with all sugar and no flour, it would be disgusting. But, as you add more stony corals over a period of a few months, you'll need to steadily increase the dosage of Kalkwasser to keep up with your tanks' calcium and alkalinity uptake.
Increasing your Kalkwasser dosing this way will increase your pH without it being at the expense of the overall recipes. So, if you want to dose the Kalkwasser, you should do so as long as you do it properly, with the pH boost being the icing on the cake, rather than trying to make the entire cake out of icing.
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