Update and much, much more!

I apologize for not getting a post out sooner. I have been busy with vacations and other various stresses in my life. Any how, I tested water yesterday and here are the results:

Calcium: 400
kH: 6
Nitrates: 0

This looks fine, but I am still working on getting the kH up. I also am planning on doing a water change later today/tonight of at least 10%.

I already got a post out on the commercial brand Kalk mix versus pickling lime. I just wanted to get a direct ingredient list comparison.

Here are the ingredients in Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime

Here are the ingredients in Kent Kalkawasser Mix.
They both have the same ingredient: Calcium Hydroxide. This makes me feel very happy about substituting Mrs. Wages for Commercial Brands. It will save me money and has no catch.

This is a quick post, I will get another one out later today or tomorrow with general tank news and pictures.

An Easy Way to Save Money

One common trick reefers will use to save money is to buy pickling lime rather than aqurium marketed kalkawasser. As explained in prior posts Kalk is a solution of Calcium Hydroxide and water. It has a pH of 12 and must be dripped slowly. Kalk is used to maintain calcium and alkalinity levels. The name brand kalk made by Kent Marine is quite expensive and if you buy at the LFS (local fish store) you can pay over $30 for less than 1 lbs. Pickling Lime on the other hand is about $2-3 a pound and it is the same chemical as the name brand product.

Mrs. Wages is the pickling lime of choice. It is pure and safe for your reef. The only downside is it hard to find. I have looked everywhere and have not been able to find it. You can order it online, but I try to avoid that because of shipping costs. Finally on one of my voyages up north I figured out where to get it: Walmart. There are other places to buy it but this is the only one where I have found that it is constantly carried. Now for some pictures:

When I went there were two types of containers, both hold one pound and are exactly the same products.

Container 1

Container 2

I bought 6lbs, which should last me for a while. The reason I bought so much is because Walmart is not in my area, and I don't know when I will be able to get some more. Here is how much I picked up.It will be interesting to see how long they last. One more use for kalk is to kill aptasia, which I will talk about in another coming post.