Other Ways to Dose Kalk

[MikeC]

That's the way I've seen 2 good reefers dose it. Always at night and at a slow drip rate. They both have/had large sps tanks that grew out of the water.

Well that's scientific enough for me lol
Come on brother did you really just say you know two guys.
So if I dose KALK at night my coral grow out of the water.

Just bustin 'them'

If Randy Holmes suggest http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/#5
replacing your evaporation with Kalkwasser, then how is only dosing at night going to be enough kalkwasser ?
You would still be using your ATO during the day so in a essence your only providing half the amount of KALK in a 24hr period.

Just saying!:kiss:

 

[duke62]

I'm a Ironworker not a scientist If I see someone light a match I will do it the same way but can't explain how it got ignited

 

[bklynreef]

Not hijacking the thread but I'm having the same issue with my Kalk stirrer and ato. My evaporation rate is a little over 6 gallons a day and I had a spike when using it that way with kalk and ato. Problem is the stirrer needs to work with the ato to push the water out of the stirrer. Only idea I can come up with is 2 ato's. One for day time top off on a timer and the kalk ato for night time kalk top off. Most of out evaporation is mainly during the day when our lights and pumps are work at full capacity. My two cents for what it's worth. But I think you can do the same thing but have it top off at night. Only thing is you need another ato and two timers.

 

[MikeC]

I'm a Ironworker not a scientist If I see someone light a match I will do it the same way but can't explain how it got ignited

What if it's raining out when you're trying to light "your" match or very windy?
You might not be able to get that match lit.
Point being because one person does something one way doesn't mean it's gonna work under different circumstances

 

[ReefWreak]

Not hijacking the thread but I'm having the same issue with my Kalk stirrer and ato. My evaporation rate is a little over 6 gallons a day and I had a spike when using it that way with kalk and ato. Problem is the stirrer needs to work with the ato to push the water out of the stirrer. Only idea I can come up with is 2 ato's. One for day time top off on a timer and the kalk ato for night time kalk top off. Most of out evaporation is mainly during the day when our lights and pumps are work at full capacity. My two cents for what it's worth. But I think you can do the same thing but have it top off at night. Only thing is you need another ato and two timers.

If I recall correctly (I haven't thought about this in a while) at some point it was recommended to just have your kalk stirrer on a timer, so that it stirred every 3 minutes. That way if your ATO kicked on, you'd have freshly stirred kalk going through.

I used to do kalk on a drip when I had my old 24g tank maybe 9 years ago. Had a calcium reactor on the last tank (120g SPS) and added a teaspoon of kalk to every gallon of topoff water. I still like the idea of using kalk with topoff though, and may try it on this nano, but this thing doesn't evaporate much more than a few mL per day with the cool LEDs and fully enclosed hood. I did buy kalk when I started the tank though, so I will definitely be adding it once I get some corals going.

 

[bklynreef]

If I recall correctly (I haven't thought about this in a while) at some point it was recommended to just have your kalk stirrer on a timer, so that it stirred every 3 minutes. That way if your ATO kicked on, you'd have freshly stirred kalk going through.

I used to do kalk on a drip when I had my old 24g tank maybe 9 years ago. Had a calcium reactor on the last tank (120g SPS) and added a teaspoon of kalk to every gallon of topoff water. I still like the idea of using kalk with topoff though, and may try it on this nano, but this thing doesn't evaporate much more than a few mL per day with the cool LEDs and fully enclosed hood. I did buy kalk when I started the tank though, so I will definitely be adding it once I get some corals going.

The best Kalk stirrers are the ones that stir 24/7
Avast Marine makes a great one. I think someone here was selling on almost 1/2 price too bad i had bought mine already :smoker:

 

[brick-brothers]

having 2 ato doesnt sound like a bad idea. I was trying to dose kalk last night through my bm, but for some reason the bm was pulling up the kalk.

 

[duke62]

How big is the container? Find a container the same size, mix it up and let it settle for a few hours and just use the clear liquid in the doser

 

[brick-brothers]

I have a 20g Xtr high ( Really 19g) as my ato reservoir. I have enough space in the cabinet to put another.

 

[bklynreef]

Im now doing as we speak 2 ato's on 2 seperate timers. Dose kalk an hour or two after lights out and the regular ato at lights on period. Btw since I took the kalk reactor offline 3 weeks ago my corals and koraline has not been the same and phosphates went up. Hooefully this is the solution and the cost was another used ato for a couple of bucks. Worth it for the system in the long run.

 

[jedimaster1138]

I have the Avast Marine kalk stirrer (the K1) that stirs the kalkwasser 24x7x365.

At the bottom of every hour, ie :30, a peristaltic pump draws up RO/DI water from my ATO reservoir, pushes it into the Avast stirrer, and out of the stirrer comes saturated kalkwasser right into my sump. This runs for about 5 minutes and it's just a slow drip of saturated kalkwasser.

I do NOT use kalkwasser in my ATO because my evaporation rates vary by the day and if the windows are open or not etc. It was just too dangerous. On a slow evaporation day I'd dose too little kalk because of not enough evaporation and dKH would then crash. On super hot July in the city days I'd evaporate 5 gallons of water and therefore dose a ton of kalkwasser and royally tick off my corals with a ton of alkalinity. So I use kalkwasser on purely a timer that has nothing to do with the ATO.

Also using the stirrer and pushing pump combo means no pump is ever in contact with kalkwasser, so the pump doesn't get beat up by the kalk.

I use 2-part in addition to the kalkwasser because kalk alone can't seem to keep up with my reef's needs for calcium and alkalinity (more so calcium...I have a lot of clams) The nice thing about the combination of both methods is that the kalkwasser almost gets Ca and dKH to where I need them, but not quite. So the 2 part finishes the job, but I'm not dosing so much 2-part as to spend a mint on supplies or overdose the tank with chloride and dramatically increase salinity or otherwise imbalance things.

Kalk being cheap is a good thing too.

Once or twice a week I put 3-5 spoons of kalk (powdered Calcium hydroxide from BRS) into the strirrer to replenish and once every 4-6 weeks I pull the stirrer out and clean it out.

My ATO works like any other ATO - it tops off based on need, but as it only tops off with pure RO/DI, there's no danger danger danger.

 

[Mattl22]

Jedi what timer r u using I like ur set up

 

[brick-brothers]

I have a BRS 50mil per minute doser and 2, 5gal containers that I alternate from.

I figured out how manny gallons a day I am evaporating and attempt to replace that amount with the doser.

There are 3785.411 mil in a gallon

Dosing for 30 sec every 10 minutes on the APEX thru out a 24hr period. (which is nice and spread out not messing with your pH)

My APEX setting is 000/00:30/09:30 =25mil
which =150 mil per hour and
=3600 mil per 24 hours (which is a little less than a gal)

This can be adjusted to your evaporation needs with a little math.
Im currently using 1/4 cup in my 5 gal container.
You make up 2 containers so one can settle while the other is being used.

P.S. I also have my ATO set up separately just incase I have more evaporation on certain days in the summer.
I also don't have to worry about any ATO pump gunning up from KALK.

for your kalk commands, what else did you add to the program?
like Fall Back off/on? Set Off/on? Etc..
I forgot I have 1 brs doser that I can used the same way until i get new heads for my bm. For some reason 2 out the 3 is acting up

 

[MikeC]

for your kalk commands, what else did you add to the program?
like Fall Back off/on? Set Off/on? Etc..
I forgot I have 1 brs doser that I can used the same way until i get new heads for my bm. For some reason 2 out the 3 is acting up

My current set up looks like this:

Fallback OFF
If Outlet ReturnPump_6 = OFF Then OFF
OSC 000:00/000:45/009:15 Then ON
If pH > 08.38 Then OFF
If FeedA 000 Then OFF
If FeedB 000 Then OFF
If FeedC 000 Then OFF
If FeedD 000 Then OFF

 

[Dee From Brooklyn]

I use Gallon glass container with a lid