Kalkwasser Adds Calcium To Your Saltwater Aquarium
As any experienced saltwater aquarium keeper will tell you, you’re playing a balancing game with pH and calcium. Adding kalkwasser is a perfect way to regulate both.
Calcium is vital for coral and invertebrates in forming skeletons, exoskeletons, and shells. Calcium is also used to buffer water so the pH doesn’t swing too widely. A lot of marine life can handle pH outside their comfortable range but they can’t handle wild pH shifts.
Calcium is constantly being used up by your saltwater aquarium residents, precipitated by the pH, absorbed by certain substrates, and more. In order to keep your aquarium environment stable, you need to add calcium to your saltwater.
Although calcium is important to skeletal and shell growth, even more important is the pH of your water. Most marine life prefer an alkaline (as opposed to acidic) environment. For example, skeletal and shell growth can occur in low calcium but high alkaline environment, but the opposite is not true.
The optimal pH is 8.0-8.4. Seawater naturally contains 380 mg/L of calcium so maintaining 400 mg/L is optimal for calcium growth.
Kalkwasser
Kalkwasser is probably the best solution to not only add calcium to your saltwater aquarium but to also control the pH. Kalkwasser is German for lime water, which is synonymous with calcium hydroxide.
When you work with calcium compounds like calcium hydroxide or calcium oxide, these compounds can be caustic. They can cause burning sensastions to your skin. Definitely be careful not to get it in your eyes or breathe it in.
The two compounds commonly used calcium hydroxide or calcium oxide. Some people use calcium chloride but you’ll need an extra step to buffer the solution with bicarbonate so stick with the first two; they’re just simpler to use.
The general mix is 1 teaspoon per gallon. Make sure you use high quality water (reverse osmosis or distilled) when mixing your kalkwasser solution for your saltwater aquarium.
Also, don’t make too much at once. Kalkwasser solution, when exposed to carbon dioxide, forms calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate does not dissolve into the water and will appear like white flakes, which needs to be removed from your saltwater aquarium.
Adding Kalkwasser To Your Saltwater Aquarium
When adding kalkwasser, never just dump the entire mix into your saltwater aquarium. If your saltwater has a pH of 8.0-8.4, your kalkwasser solution has a pH of 12, drastically shifting the pH can kill your marine life quickly.
A great way to add kalkwasser to your saltwater aquarium is through your top off device (which replaces evaporated water). You don’t have to buy anything extra and it’ll slowly add kalkwasser solution to your environment.
Another way is to purchase a drip doser or metered pump. One advantage of this is that you can control exactly how much kalkwasser solution enters your saltwater aquarium at what rate. Another advantage is that you can use the auto doser to administer other supplements like iodine or magnesium.
There are calcium reactors. They eliminate the need for daily mixing and all the other headaches of calcium balancing but they’re not cheap. There aren’t any beginner models so getting the wrong one can be expensive. But if you get the right one, it’ll do wonders to simplify your maintenance and water quality.