#'s for dripping Kalk

[Silver]

I know this is a general question but I have a 90/ reef with a 20/g refuge and a 29/g sump. With some small sps frags and assortment of soft corals.
? is I have a feeder doser that I want to drip Kalk into the refuge it drips from 1 to 195ml/h. I have no idea where to start the drip off at.
My calcium is at 300 right now.
I am looking for people that use these things now and can give me a ball park where to start.
Thanks

 

[philakapd]

I did a little research and believe I have your answer. You need one to three teaspoonsful per gallon of water. Don't take my word for it. Please go to this website and READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE!!! It is full of excellent info from some big Dr. type person.

One teaspoonful is 5ML.
30ML is one ounce of fluid

PD


http://www.aquariacentral.com/articles/calcium.shtml

 

[speck]

Hi Ho Silver...away

One thing about dripping kalk, is not dripping it too fast. If you do, you could cause your pH to go up too fast . Alot of people, me included, drip kalk when the refugium light is off in hopes that the co2(lowers pH) produced by plants, and kalk(raises pH) will balance each other out.

I dose Kalk at ~1 drip/second, which with my dripper is about 1.3 liters/hr. My pH rarely changes more than .2 that I have seen.

 

[danmhippo]

You should set your kalk so that it will replenish the quantity your tank evaporate per day. My tank is not too off from yours and loses 1G per day. Your tank is smaller than mine, so let's use a ball park number: 2 liter

2 liter = 2000 ml
2000 ml per day evaporation = 2000/24 = 83 ml/Hour

Set your doser at that rate or smaller and experiment on your own.

Good Luck

 

[Mac1]

Excellent Summation Hippo! Far less wordy than what I would have written. I also have a 90 Reef, 29 Gal 'fuge, but a 55 gal Sump, a good assortment of SPS, and a boat-load of fan's.. I lose about 2-2.5 Gal's a day. I also have a Neilsen style Reactor system (built it for 10 bucks!), that automates the mixing of the Kalkwasser for me, and has done a great job maintaining things in the tank. This is really the way to go BTW, if you're using Kalk (the Reactor that is).

1. It works on overflow principle in the reactor vessel, so kalkwasser never comes into contact w/ the pump (or that silicon tubing inside of it).. this increases the life of your pump.
2. Constantly fresh supply of Kalkwasser, always at maximum concentration.
3. Loads easier to plug-in a powerhead than mixing and decanting regular kalkwasser the old fashioned way.

If you're planning on using Kalkwasser long term, I would definitely look into building/buying one. Do a quick search on this or any other board, for Kalkwasser Reactor and Neilsen Reactor, and I'm sure you'll come up w/ a ton of hits.

- Mac

 

[Anonymous]

I did a little research and believe I have your answer. You need one to three teaspoonsful per gallon of water. Don't take my word for it. Please go to this website and READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE!!! It is full of excellent info from some big Dr. type person.

One teaspoonful is 5ML.
30ML is one ounce of fluid

PD


http://www.aquariacentral.com/articles/calcium.shtml

Excellent link - thanks!

 

[Sue Truett]

I drip kalk. exclusively in both my 180 and 120g tanks. I keep sps corals and clams only. I am able to drip kalk. and only boost as needed and keep my calcium @ 460ppm. and my alk. @ 11.12dKh. I do use the kalk. as evaporated water as I do also loose a lot of water in my 120. Wish I could get the 180 to evaporate as much, but it doesn't. I use 1 tsp. of kalk. per gallon of ro/di water. I let it drip as needed but I make sure that the Kent float switch never gets clogged so that the entire bucket of kalk. doesn't get dripped in all at once. Great article too!!

my 180 ecosystem sps/clam tank:
http://berlinmethod.com/suet/
my 120 ecosystem sps tank:
http://suetruett.homestead.com/home.html
www.marshreef.org/members

 

[Silver]

Isn't there such a thing as to much calcium? buy dripping all day and adding just calk for evaporation don't you take the chance of getting calk levels to high?
Thanks for all the info people

 

[Mac1]

Yes, you can drip too much. The Kalkwasser will precipitate when coming into contact with the system water (white clouds/snow). This is when you know it's time to cut back on the kalkwasser, or lower the concentration at which you're dosing.

- Mac

 

[trigger0214]

The Kalkwasser will precipitate when coming into contact with the system water (white clouds/snow)

It is fun to watch though....It happened to me when I first started adding calcium. I was attempting to drip feed some liquid calcium supplements before switching to Kallwasser.

I experienced no negative affects and the snow melted, as it where.