Mixing Kalk with Vinegar?

[ChrisBuono]

http://www.reefscapes.net/articles/breefcase/kalkwasser.html

I anyone doing this? What are your results?

[jallard]

naw im not crazy about adding vinegar to my system...

[Rainer Feyer]

Chris,

before I made the Kalk reactor, I used to use vinegar - adding it at 15ml to 1g of Kalkwasser. I never took the time to titrate the solution in order to find the quantitative benefit of vinegar, but, it certainly never harmed anything I know of.
Since the vindegar chemically does improve the catalitic conversion, I would imagine it has to be beneficial to some degree.

However, since I made the kalk reactor it is 1-not possible to add it, and 2-not necessary. The kalk reactor, as an added benefit to not having to mix anything repeatedly, also makes the most of the kalk, i.e.: the least waste. It converts what it needs to make the 12+ pH, leaves the rest untouched, to be used when more RO/DI flow through the reactor.

Does this help?

[ChrisBuono]

Yeah, thank.

What kind of Kalk Reactor do you use?

[Rainer Feyer]

Chris,

the reactor is home made - something like $35.00 in parts.
It is a 5g container and supplies, easily, bopth of my tanks with an ATO - Automatic top off system utilizing peristaltic pumps and shut off valves (two each).

I believe my gallergy has pics of it; if not, I can add next week. Since I am at home I can't check my gallergy due to theiability of anyone to prvide us with broadband on our street :(

[ChrisBuono]

I started dosing kalk this past weekend. So far my pH has gone from 7.95 to 8.15. My calcium level has gone from 380 to 420. Alkalinity seems to have stayed about the same.

Plus, I'm still dosing B-Ionic.

Mostly good news all around, but I still would like to get all three levels up a bit more.

[Rainer Feyer]

Even though I have Kalk going in with a reactor, I still dose Calcium AND Alkalinity (home made, 2 part) with an occasional addition of Mg++ to allow the reactions to occur smoothly.

Also, rather than having a set number of pH, I believe it may also be important to have a steady pH

[michaelg]

I don't have a kalk reactor, but just a bucket that I'm always adding kalk to... I almost always throw in a shot of vinegar. It drops the pH a little, and helps a little more dissolve.

[ChrisBuono]

Good to hear. At least I know I'm not doing anything too wacky.

[ChrisBuono]

As a bit of an aside here, can kalk be mixed with saltwater? I don't have enough evaporation to account for what I'm dosing, so I end up diluting my tank water (lowering the salinity).

[michaelg]

Not sure I understand your question? You mean like adding it to water change water? A fan will help with the evaporation :)

[ChrisBuono]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10956546#post10956546 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by michaelg
You mean like adding it to water change water?

That might work too, but I was thinking of making up just a couple of gallons of 1.025 salinity water just for mixing in kalk and drip dosing.

The problem I'm having is that at 2 drips per second, I dose about two gallons per day. I end up a gallon too high in my sump. Not a huge deal, but that throws off my in-sump skimmer. Plus, my salinity gets lowered to 1.024 or even 1.023 over the course of a week.

[burris]

no, you can't add lime to saltwater. It'll cause magnesium and other stuff to precipitate out. The solution is to increase evaporation or use some other method to increase Ca/KH.

[Rainer Feyer]

Chris,

I have a question: why do you not have enough evaporation? Is your tank closed on top (glass cover etc)?

Just curious,

[ChrisBuono]

My auto-topoff may compete with the kalk drip, but all I know is that with dripping I net about a gallon per day gain.