A
Anonymous
Guest
On my previous tank, I had a DIY kalk reactor, which was a 3 ft tall. 6" dia clear PVC tube with a rounded cap on the bottom, and a hose barb opening near the top. Glued along the inside was a 1" PVC tube that extened to about 6" from the bottom. I then placed a small rio powerhead near the bottom, facing down.
This contraption was then filled with fresh water, and I made a floating shaped syrofoam cover to float on the surface of the water (which was level with the top outlet). I ran a hose from the dosing pump down through the smaller interior PVC tube so that the fresh water being pumped from the dosing pump entered near the bottom of the interior mass of water.
So with that all set up, I simply dumped a bunch of kalk powder in, which sank to the bottom, then ran the rio pump intermittently (via a digital timer) to keep the kalkwater mixed up. As the dosing pump added fresh water, the mixed kalk water would overflow out the tube opening & down into the sump. The only problems I had were some calcium encrustation around the tube overflow.
Anyhoo, I was just wondering what other innovations re kalk dosing are out there. Anything particularly simple, clever, and/or foolproof? Anything easily scaleable from nanos to large tanks? Hows about easy to leave for several weeks worry-free?
One thing I was thinking about would be incrementally mixing kalk powder into tank water via a special mixing chamber with kalk powder dosing (instead of kalk water dosing)... Are there any devices out there that doses powder? Auto-fish-feeders, perhaps?
This contraption was then filled with fresh water, and I made a floating shaped syrofoam cover to float on the surface of the water (which was level with the top outlet). I ran a hose from the dosing pump down through the smaller interior PVC tube so that the fresh water being pumped from the dosing pump entered near the bottom of the interior mass of water.
So with that all set up, I simply dumped a bunch of kalk powder in, which sank to the bottom, then ran the rio pump intermittently (via a digital timer) to keep the kalkwater mixed up. As the dosing pump added fresh water, the mixed kalk water would overflow out the tube opening & down into the sump. The only problems I had were some calcium encrustation around the tube overflow.
Anyhoo, I was just wondering what other innovations re kalk dosing are out there. Anything particularly simple, clever, and/or foolproof? Anything easily scaleable from nanos to large tanks? Hows about easy to leave for several weeks worry-free?
One thing I was thinking about would be incrementally mixing kalk powder into tank water via a special mixing chamber with kalk powder dosing (instead of kalk water dosing)... Are there any devices out there that doses powder? Auto-fish-feeders, perhaps?
