Kalkwasser?

[John BertramParticipant]

As per part of our conversation on Facebook, you recommended discontinuing the use of kalk dosing.  What is the reason for that?  Kalkwasser is a pretty important alkalinity and calcium supplement in my tank and is pretty important for maintaining alk and calc stability.  A few of us have surmised that perhaps kalk contains extra silicates?  Is that correct or is there another reason it’s not advantageous to dose kalk and Nualgi at the same time?

[nualgiKeymaster]

Nualgi contains Calcium in bio-available form. That is why a weekly dose of Nualgi can replace a daily dose of Kalkwasser. Because the aquarist community is used to using traditional additives (which are absorbed only partially) it is a challenge for them understand nano scale products such as Nualgi. Please read our FAQ page explanation of “bio-available” and “nano”.

[nualgiKeymaster]

Nualgi contains Calcium in bio-available form. That is why a weekly dose of Nualgi can replace a daily dose of Kalkwasser. Because the aquarist community is used to using traditional additives (which are absorbed only partially) it is a challenge for them understand nano scale products such as Nualgi. Please read our FAQ page explanation of “bio-available” and “nano”.

[John BertramParticipant]

So, what do you recommend for maintain alkalinity and calcium levels?  I have a dosing pump supplying the tank with alkalinity supplement at night, but the kalk was maintaining my calcium levels.

[nualgiKeymaster]

We recommend you do not use kalk or alkalinity supplement but do monitor your parameters and reach out if something is out of whack!

[John BertramParticipant]

Hmmm.  With the amount of SPS corals I have in this tank, without supplement, I’ll be looking at maybe 5 to 6 dkh at the end of a week and a lot of unhappy corals.

[nualgiKeymaster]

Take a look at James Conrey videos of nualgi trial. He has plenty of corals. At the end of the day it’s your call .. You can gradually wean away… This is where science meets art !

[John BertramParticipant]

The idea of letting my alk crash is giving me the shakes.  Too many hundreds (or thousands) of dollars of corals in that tank to let that happen.

Good news though… I’m going to try it in my 25 gallon low-tech soft coral tank that doesn’t need any alkalinity supplementation and doesn’t need any sort of dosing.  That will probably be a better test bed since it has a little hair algae, cyano and other goodies.  It also has a clean up crew that can eat diatoms since the mantis shrimp in that tank doesn’t kill them for some reason.

[nualgiKeymaster]

We understand. That is why it is best to follow the conservative approach you suggest above. As you gain confidence, you will be able to move away from kalk and alkalinity dosing. Nualgi is a paradigm shift but everybody trialing it should take their time understanding it. That is why we supply 12 weeks of free sample.

[NualgiAquariumKeymaster]

Loving the feedback on nano-reef forum. We have updated our FAQs based on feedback on the forum. Thanks for trialing!

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