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-   -   How to dose Kalk (https://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1281088)

REEFY1 12/28/2007 11:52 PM

How to dose Kalk
 
How do you go about dosing kalk w/o a reactor?

flyguy7150 12/28/2007 11:57 PM

i have mine dripping from a 5 gallon bucket

tmz 12/29/2007 12:17 AM

There are several alternatives. The following are two that I have used.
Gravity fed drip from a still resevoir. A five gallon salt buckett with an outlet about an inch and a half off the bottom ( rigid airline tubing firmly fitted in a small drilled hole glued around the edges on the outside with Plumber's Goop) is used as a still resevoir. A length of flexible airline tubing is fitted over the protruding rigid tube and a plastic airline valve on the other end of the flexible tubing provides a control for the drip rate. The buckett is filled with saturated limewater( 2tsps per gallon of ro/di water) and stirred vigorouslyly at least two hours before dosing to allow impurities to precipitate out.The bluckett is tightly covered to prevent a lot of interaction with the air which will allow the limewater to interact with CO2 and form unuseable carbonate.The buckett is placed above the sump and the limewater is dripped at night into a high flow area since it's high ph (12.5) will offset the normal nightime ph drop in a reeef aquarium. My 400g system used about 4 gallons a night for top off( over a 6 hour period) so I filled this buckett and stirred once a day. It is important not to dose too much limewater in a short period of time or you can spike ph and cause a precipitation event. Aproximately one quart per hundred gallons in an hour is pretty safe.

Dosing pump and still resevoir. I use a 30gallon Brute garbage can and fill it every five or six days with saturated limewater. I stir it vigoruoiusly cover it and dose it with a liter meter dosing pump. The limewater loses very little strength over the course of the week withourt stirring as long as there is a little extra lime at the bottom of the barrel.

Care should be take to avoid dosing the slurry on the bottom of the reservoir, since it contains precipitated impurities. it may also contain unused lime wihich can be stirred into solution the next time you mix.

bertoni 12/29/2007 12:42 AM

I use a peristaltic pump, which delivers a stream of drops at a controllable rate. It's part of an autotopoff system.

sjm817 12/29/2007 01:03 AM

Basically, start out with an auto topoff setup. I use a dual float switch and an Aqualifter pump. Once you have that, just add up to 2 teaspoons/gallon to your topoff container and mix it in. The amount you need is dependent on your tank requirements. You want to have the topoff set up so that it pulls from a little off the bottom so that it doesn't pull the settled lime.

shikhyung 12/29/2007 05:41 PM

flyguy, I guess you do not dose 5 gallons a day, so wonder how do you control the drips that it won't drain your 5 gallons in a shorter time? Shin.

flyguy7150 12/29/2007 06:20 PM

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11479526#post11479526 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by shikhyung [/i]
[B]flyguy, I guess you do not dose 5 gallons a day, so wonder how do you control the drips that it won't drain your 5 gallons in a shorter time? Shin. [/B][/QUOTE]

One of those simple IV drip control things, it has a little wheel on it to close or open the tubing as you please. I drip about a gallon a day

shikhyung 12/30/2007 12:49 AM

Gravity feed requires air as a pressure, so if we air tight, it could not be dripped at all, correct?

tmz 12/30/2007 03:03 AM

Air tight would pevent all interaction with the air and the CO2 in it. However,a bit of carbonate formation is not a major worry. If you use a reasonably tight lid it will drip and you will limit air exchange . In a still reservoir a flim will form at the top which it is thought will help seal off the water underneath it.

StrategicReef 12/30/2007 04:01 AM

Do you guys know those $250 kalk stirrer, what good do they do, I can't figure it out, seems like the volume is so small you have to add water and powder like everyday.

tmz 12/30/2007 12:01 PM

They are filled with many days worth of lime(kalk). The water will only hold 2 tspns per gallon. The rest sits on the bottom (with the precipitated waste) to be strirred in when new water is fed in replacing what is dosed. The precipitated materials don't go back into solution but the unused lime does. In this way they maintain a constant dose of fullysatlurated limewater(ie tspns per gallon).

salty55 12/30/2007 08:41 PM

don't mean to hyjack but, I have been pondering kalk dosage myself. so, if you have a kalk stirrer with several days of powder in it, when do you know when it's depleted? since there are still impurities that stay behind that looks like the powder.

tmz 12/30/2007 09:12 PM

I would figure my consumptoiopn and go off that. Or example, if you are dosing 1 gallon per day then I would add at least 14 tsps per week.
Initially I would add more to insure there was always extra on the bottom.

StrategicReef 12/31/2007 01:46 AM

Do you hook up let the dosing pump to pump freshwater into the stirrer/reactor, the reactor will overflow some lime water out, is that how it works?

tmz 12/31/2007 01:52 AM

Yes, I believe that's how it works. I use a still resevoir with a dosing pump and find it quite satisfactory.

bertoni 12/31/2007 02:21 AM

Some people connect the limewater reactor to an RO/DI system on a float valve or two. I think it's a bit dangerous, but it can work.

REEFY1 12/31/2007 03:02 AM

OK, im using a trash can mixed the kalk up for 2 hrs and put my osmolater top-off pump about 2 inches from the bottom seems to be working so far !!!!

tmz 12/31/2007 10:41 AM

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11489183#post11489183 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by REEFY1 [/i]
[B]OK, im using a trash can mixed the kalk up for 2 hrs and put my osmolater top-off pump about 2 inches from the bottom seems to be working so far !!!! [/B][/QUOTE] :) Sounds good. You only need to mix the kalk briefly and let it sit for a couple of hours before dosing. Sorry if my earlier post may have been misleading.


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