Kalk in ATO

[kthehun89]

Hey guys, so my SPS heavy Solana is requiring allot of two part to keep up with the calcium demand, and now i'm looking for an alternative. I've been doing some reading about kalk in the top off. I have an ATO with a 4g resevoir. My system is about 28g twv. Any help with kalk dosing? What sort of values do I need to calculate, like calcium consumption and evap. rates?

Thanks in advance!
Kristof

 

[spongebob]

Out of personal experience I would stick to 2part and get a dosing pump, you can find them for $50-60 each. Kalk significantly speeds up wear of your pumps and other equipment but it can be very effective. Also, i would not use it if your PH already runs high since it adds Alk as well as Ca.
In a nut shell(I am not a chemist but this is what I did with my tanks):

1. Get a 5g bucket and add 2 tsp of kalk, stir it carefully and cover with lid.

2. let it sit for about 2 hours+ (i'd do overnight) until the water is not cloudy anymore.

3. after letting it sit, carefully drain off the clear water trying not to disturb undissolved kalk at the bottom ( it reaches a saturation point and the excess ends up at the bottom)

4. clear water is your top off or drip, don't ever just dump it in to the tank/sump, it has to be added via drip or auto-topoff that systematically pumps throughout a period of time.

5. Follow this link to a calculator, fill out the fields and choose "lime water" from drop down, it will tell you gallon/day that you need to add.
Reef Chemistry Calculator

6. If your gallons needed exceeds amount of daily top off, then you can add a tsp of 5% table vinegar to the bucket when you make a batch of new top-off and that will increase the concentration on make it more potent ( long explanation in terms of chemical process)

7. You can use this is addition to dosing 2 part if needed.

8. TEST OFTEN, at least until you establish a system. Start slow and ramp it up as needed.

9. keep an eye on your magnesium

10. kalk binds phosphates and even though its desirable to keep them low, they are needed for coral nutrition and there is a possibility that corals may need to be fed in supplement to normal feeding. depends on your tank.

11. there is something about dosing too fast and water turn cloudy but I forget, never happened to me. Basically stop dripping if it happens

12. It will ruin your pumps unless you wash them in vinegar pretty much monthly. You'll see a coat of calcium on your heater, plastic parts and especially anything that produced any sort of heat.

hope this helps

 

[RBursek]

Kalk will not raise Ca mut helps maintain it if used for MU. SpongeBob sez 2tsp in his 5gl bucket, for max saturation it is 2tsp per gal of water, adding finigar will let you saturate higher but vinigar can cause algae problems.

 

[spongebob]

oops I meant tbs, good call

 

[RBursek]

SpongeeBob,
where can I get a dosing pump for $50-60?

 

[spongebob]

this is what i am ordering in a few months, once i need it
Two Part Accessories - English

check ebay periodically, and you'll find same stuff cheaper. Check craigslist and froogle, fs adds on forums, aquabid, etc.
Ross Flexiflo Patrol Enteral Dosing Pump

 

[lazyreefer]

Hello,

I two part dose Alk and Ca plus monitor Mag, I have a question about kalkwasser.

If you make up this saturation of limewater in a 5 gallon bucket, how much could a person get away with dumping into a 10 gallon ATO reservoir if you have 175 gallon system, without raising the PH to catastrophic levels ?? For example, is a "dixie cup" full of limewater too much to add to the ATO reservoir ?? Keep in mind my question assumes that there is a chance by accident that the entire 10 gallons in the ATO reservoir could be dumped into the system at once.

I know a dosing pump and/or drip method is best for what the purpose of kalkwasser is for, which is maintaining certain levels of Alk and Ca. But let's say all I want to do is slow down the loss of Alk and Ca, and I want to do that by either manually dosing limewater or putting it in an ATO reservoir for addition over the course of a few days. (obviously not the most proficient way but still for the sake of discussion) Is there a calculator that figures out how much saturated limewater you could add to a system of 175 gallons and not raise the PH higher than .02 or whatever the recommended amounts are to keep from killing your livestock ??

(what is the level of PH raise that you can get away with, and is that in a day, an hour.....????)

 

[Shawn D]

Hello,

I two part dose Alk and Ca plus monitor Mag, I have a question about kalkwasser.

If you make up this saturation of limewater in a 5 gallon bucket, how much could a person get away with dumping into a 10 gallon ATO reservoir if you have 175 gallon system, without raising the PH to catastrophic levels ?? For example, is a "dixie cup" full of limewater too much to add to the ATO reservoir ?? Keep in mind my question assumes that there is a chance by accident that the entire 10 gallons in the ATO reservoir could be dumped into the system at once.

I know a dosing pump and/or drip method is best for what the purpose of kalkwasser is for, which is maintaining certain levels of Alk and Ca. But let's say all I want to do is slow down the loss of Alk and Ca, and I want to do that by either manually dosing limewater or putting it in an ATO reservoir for addition over the course of a few days. (obviously not the most proficient way but still for the sake of discussion) Is there a calculator that figures out how much saturated limewater you could add to a system of 175 gallons and not raise the PH higher than .02 or whatever the recommended amounts are to keep from killing your livestock ??

(what is the level of PH raise that you can get away with, and is that in a day, an hour.....????)

I would use a minijet pump to pump 1 gallon of lime water in 1 min into my 90. Had it hooked up to my acjr controller and it would turn on at 12 and 3 in the morning. Dosing one gallon each time, 2 gallons of water is what I evaporated daily. Did this method for 2 years. I had my controller set to turn off dosing pump if ph got higher then 9. I also had lime water dump into a area in the sump where I had the most flow.

 

[lazyreefer]

Wow, that's alot more than I thought. You dumped 2 gallons of saturated limewater into your tank daily and never had the PH go up past 9 ???

In essence then, I could dump 2 gallons of limewater into my 10 gallon reservoir, which tops off a 175 gallon system, and have it all dump in at one time with no ill effects ?? Hmmmmm, I was under the impression that 39 ounces (slightly more than one quart) of limewater would increase my Alk from 8 to 8.2 but should not be dumped into the system at once but slowly dripped into the tank because it could raise PH levels too quickly. I got that from the above linked calculator which I have used prior. Two gallons of saturated limewater a day into 90 gallons, wow, that is surprising....what were your Alk and Ca readings regularly at ???

 

[Shawn D]

I took down my tank a couple of weeks ago and put all my stuff in storage, so I cant look at my log books to tell you what my reading were, but they stayed steady. Im not saying this is the right thing to do, but it did work for me. My ph was low during the winter months, because of obvious reasons, but during the summer months ph was well maintained, I did add mag to fresh rc saltwater when needed, but with that I had good sucess eith this method. I had a 30 gallon sump also.

 

[Shawn D]

found one of my log books
Ca 400
alk 3
mag 1400

 

[Shawn D]

no for lime water I did 1tsp I belive it was to 1 gallon of water and made 15 gallons in a 20 long at once. Used for 7 days, wahed out remaing water and left over pickling lime and then made another batch. Worked for me. I hated making it daily and trying to drip slowly from a 1 gallon jug nightly. So I tryed this.

 

[macawmagic]

i used to have a setup where i had an 18 gallon rubbermaid going to a float valve in the sump. I would dumb about 18 tbsp of kalk into the rubbermaid and then fill it with water. drop in a powerhead and let it mix. that would last me for the week. I washed it out about once every 6 months. had my tank like that for about 1.5 years before i bought a calcium reactor.