kalk dosing advice

[madrhino]

Hey guys,
I've just started dosing my tank with kalk using a med doser into my sump from a 4g. bucket into my sump. The next day i notice a film on the top of my sump water in my sump. Am I dosing too much ao is this normal. The doser is set at 295 ml. an hour. Is this too much for a 125g. reef tank? Thanks for any advice or feed back.
-J

 

[Mac1]

OK, lemme see if I got this straight

The 4Gal bucket is your Kalkwasser reservoir, and you use the dosing pump to pull from there, into your sump. Right so far?

Make sure you've got a lid of some sort on the 4gal bucket - Kalkwasser reacts w/ CO2 to form n insoluable form of Caclium (forget the name of it, but it's basically limestone). It doesn't have to be an airtight seal, but as close as you can get it would be preferred. That might be what you were seeing as the white film on your tank. If not... then I'd have to suspect your either dosing a boatload of milky Kalk, or something else is going on. Your Dosing pump isn't sucking the crap out of the bottom of the bucket, is it?

Have you tried measuring your Alk and Ca? If you are overdosing, that will be seriously elevated.

It doesn't sound to me like your dosing rate is too high. It should match your evaporation rate, so that you're not altering the salinity.

- Mac

 

[SPC]

The next day i notice a film on the top of my sump water in my sump.

-Try dosing your kalk in a turbulent part of your sump. I suspect that the kalk is precipitating out at the surface before it has a chance to mix with the sump water.
Steve