kalk in topwater
 

I wondering if i can drop some kalk powder in my top off water i usally go through 4-5g of r/o a day. I'am thinking i candrop some in give a good stir and repeat next day or am i better off building some sort of drip?

thanxs

It is my knowledge that kalk needs a good 12 hours to become effective. I would set up a drip, but would pretty much need to drip 24-7. When I replaced 1 gallon a day in prior tank, I would drip one drop every 3 seconds on a 24-7 cycle to keep tank at the proper levels. So I would imagine you will have to increase considerably to keep up.... I am no pro, but do drip kalk currently, not for all my make up water though, still have to add 1/2 gallon of ro/di per day. Good Luck..

From what I understand Kalk needs to be dripped to avoid a spike in PH levels. Your best bet is to build a drip system using a 5 gal container and set the drip rate to replace evaporation and that will serve as your daily top-off.

If you check a certain website known for selling "it", you can do a search for feeding pumps, iv pumps, or dosing pumps. I got a feeding pump for $60 shipped and I have a 13gal garbage can, that I mix everything in. I don't have to worry about making more RO/DI water for 4-5 days, sometimes 6. This is by far the easiest and safest way to maintain your water level. You can set how many milliliters an hour you'd like to dose and it usually takes a day or two to dial it in.

All of my top off water is kalk... You can run around 2% total tank volume of saturated kalkwasser with out much worry. (saturated is 2 tsp per gallon).
I dose mine only at night when the main lights are off and the ph is dropping. The Kalk keeps the PH above 8.3 over night and I have never had a problem in almost 3 years with my budget system.

I use a Toms "Aqua lifter" pump connected to a Intermatic DT17 digital timer. (cost of both is around $30 total).

The timer comes on for a couple minutes per hour for 12 hours (lights out time) and that will add right around 2.25 gallons of kalk. I have always kept the resevoir limitied to 3 gallons in case it every "stuck" on. It would cause a PH spike but not kill the tank. It has never happened however...

I have a similar setup on a 12g aquapod. I use a dosing pump for 1 minute every 12 hours to add .5 cup of limewater. Its controlled by a aquacontroller jr. Works great and looks good since i don't have a sump underneath

you would be better off dripping but you can do as you mentioned, just don't add too much at once. I drip 4 gallons a day but if you add 4 gallons at once of saturated limewater everything will die due to the ph spike. If you want to add a teaspoon to your 4 gallons of top off water shake it up and add it that will be fine. Or you can do the "slurry" method just add a teaspoon to a couple cups of water, stir it up into a slurry then add it to your sump.

If I do a slurry that raises my ph by about .10 in a 200 gallon system

I would not dump the slurry in the sump all in one shot like that, the 2 teaspoons is equivalent to 1 Gallon of saturated kalk.

Sort of a wide departure from "better off dripping" and will certainly cause a ph shock at least locally to the sump and it will also cloud the water.

the slurry is not the best way to do it but it is one of the ways listed in Randy's article on methods of dosing limewater. It does not cloud my water

I mix up one teaspoon to 1/2 or 1 gallon of water. (Whatever amount I need) Then I dump it straight into my 55gal. Never had any problems.

thanks for all the ideas guys I'am thinking i'll build a 2 gallon drip to start. once i add the kalk can i just give it a 10 sec blast with a power head and then it's good untill the drum is empty? So i would need to clean it out and mix up some more and start again right?

by the way I'am not trying to use the kalk mix to replace my top off unit i would still use this as well so I don't have to try and match the evp rate or if i wasn't around to restock the kalk water the tank param won't swing

I drip 24/7 and all my top off is dripped this way. Talk to an EMS person and see if they'll give you one of their drip hoses for IV bottles. I lose about 5 gal per week evap, and a drip every 7 seconds keeps me good for a week.

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