Sangokai Sangokai Balance chem KH

Product Description

Sangokai BALANCE chem KH

The chem Balance KH is a component of a reef care system. To operate it fully, you’ll need additional products. “You
can find more information and the system instructions here 

Brief Description

Sango chem-balance KH adjusts your carbonate hardness to an optimal level of 7.0–7.5°dKH while ensuring sufficient sodium balance with Sango chem-balance Ca-1. Stabilizing KH is an important practical task. Check the KH at least once a week and avoid letting it drop below 6.5°dKH.

Product Description

How much does sango chem-balance KH increase carbonate hardness?

Note: To prepare the sango chem-balance KH working solution, please follow the BALANCE instructions in the “Application” section. sango chem-balance KH is a 10x concentrate that must be diluted before use. You can find out how to do this in the BALANCE instructions.

Go to the instructions »Go to the BALANCE System instructions

The following dosage applies to the KH working solution:

40 mL of sango chem-balance KH working solution per 100 L of seawater increases the KH by 1°dKH.

Ideally, the sango chem-balance KH working solution should be dosed using a dosing pump or automatic dosing system to avoid significant KH fluctuations during daily dosing. Alternatively, you can, of course, dose the ready-to-use solution by hand. Please wait at least 30 minutes between dosing chem-balance Ca-1/Ca-2 and sango chem-balance KH to prevent spontaneous calcium precipitation and allow all active ingredients to distribute evenly throughout the seawater.

Note: When adding the sango chem-balance KH working solution drop by drop, a very brief milky cloudiness may appear. This disappears within a few seconds and is caused by the high carbonate content in chem-balance KH, which converts to bicarbonate within the normal alkaline pH range of seawater (just over 90% of the carbonate system in seawater exists in the bicarbonate form, and only 8% as carbonate). Therefore, this cloudiness is not a sign of precipitation and is not a cause for concern.

Since Sango chem-balance KH also helps stabilize the pH, dosing in the morning or at the start of the lighting phase is recommended. However, you can also dose at any other time of day, especially if you do not use a dosing system and, for example, are not at home during the ideal dosing time due to work.

You should always adjust the KH independently of the calcium level. Young or newly set-up reef aquariums, in particular, exhibit higher carbonate consumption relative to their calcium levels because, for example, autotrophic bacteria such as nitrifiers develop and use carbonates for their metabolism. Carbonate consumption can therefore occur independently of calcium carbonate formation by, for example, stony corals, making a separate, calcium-independent KH dosing necessary.

What does sango chem-balance KH do?

Carbonate hardness (KH), or alkalinity, in seawater is an extremely dynamic parameter and is of great importance for the successful maintenance of a marine aquarium. KH must therefore be continuously measured and effectively controlled.

Sango chem-balance KH is specifically designed to increase and stabilize carbonate hardness over the long term within the SANGOKAI BALANCE system.
Together with the boron system, the carbonate system accounts for the majority of pH buffering in seawater. Because carbonate (CO32-) can bind with acid equivalents (H+) and thereby be converted into bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) and even carbonic acid (H₂CO₃), the pH value remains relatively constant within a range that is optimal for seawater. If the carbonate content drops to a KH below, for example, 6°dKH, the pH/acid equilibrium cannot be optimally maintained and the pH value may fall.

Regardless of this, carbonates also play an extremely important role in the formation of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) as the skeletal material of stony corals, mussels, calcareous red algae, and calcareous sponges. Thus, the successful care of the popular small-polyp stony corals (SPS) did not achieve a breakthrough until the late 1980s and 1990s, when appropriate methods were introduced and established that were capable of correct calcium and carbonate deficiencies in seawater and maintain an optimal calcium balance over the long term (see the SANGOKAI Recommendations A-Z (SEA-Z) for more information).

To this day, we reef aquarists—regardless of nutrient supply—face the practical necessity of balancing calcium and carbonate consumption as much as possible to prevent fluctuations. The sango chem-balance system takes care of this task and offers a simple, effective, and precise way to adjust calcium and KH levels.

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