anyone dosing kalk like this?

[Eduardo Cavalcanti]

"While it's best and less time consuming than manual additions to utilize a dosing pump for the daily addition of kalkwasser, I have devised a simple manual approach to kalkwasser additions that I employ it in some of my Monaco style aquariums. I have determined that it is safe to add, all at once, the following dose per 150 litres of aquarium water:

1 ml (= 1/4 teaspoon) of dry calcium hydroxide powder, mixed first in a container of water (about 500 to 750 ml of water is sufficient).

Be careful not to exceed 1ml calcium hydroxide per 150 liters of aquarium water! Overdose of kalkwasser raises the pH too high and can kill fish and invertebrates"

Julian Sprung

 

[madrefkepr]

I have in the past, with no adverse effects. I must have read the same book.

 

[esmithiii]

alô Eduardo. Bem vindo a Reefs.org!

Dosing is a much more healthy approach. If you can set up something to drip the kalkwasser, it is worth doing.

Ernie

 

[liquid]

IIRC, Anthony Calfo also has dosed kalk in a similar fashion. I'm gonna "marked for archiving" this post as I've not seen someone do it this way recently and I don't believe we have it in our archive.

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

With sincere respect to Julian Sprung, I don't see how this is a very good way to dose Kalk. At the very least, I would slowly drip it in using an airline and tying it in a knot. If you're using a pH meter on your reef tank, you will see how much even a tiny bit of saturated calcium hydroxide (this recipe is approximately 1 teaspoon per gallon) can raise the pH. This recipe calls for about 1/8 of a gallon of Kalkwasser for about a 40 gallon tank. If you're topping off solely with Kalkwasser, and a lot of people need to in order to keep up with calcium demand, you would have to add this amount several times a day in the typical reef tank. In my very humble opinion, it's much easier to fill up a larger container and utilize a float switch/valve setup to dose the Kalkwasser continuously.

 

[madrefkepr]

I agree with Matt. Dosing kalk in this manner is just not practical, unless you have very little calcium demand, and very little evaporation. When I was doing it this way, I was adding about twice this amount 2 times a day in a 65 gallon, and still had to add another gallon of plain ro/di water. By the way, if you add vinegar to your mix you will greatly reduce the pH spike. Even though I used this method for a few months, and had no problems, it's still better to just drip it in, in my opinion.

 

[Anonymous]

When I first set up my reef and had not yet put any ca system on it I used this method for a couple months. Seemed to work ok.