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Simple Kalk Dosing - Opinions Wanted

jimroth

jimroth

For several years I just mixed up the solution in a fishtank and delivered it with a hospital feeding pump. Works fine, I grew a lot of SPS with that setup. All the nillssen reactor stuff is either hooey or fine-tuning, depending on your perspective.
 
GregW

GregW

M

mladencovic

The cheapest one is the gravity fed like described in the previous posts. Simply make a mix and let it slowly drip. The amount of Kalk used is the exact one needed for the concentration that will be delivered to the sump/tank. Good point is that it is cheap. Bad points are that the dripping might to be adjusted often, the line could be easily clogged, and the dosing is not controlled by pH, Ca/Alk concentration, or top off of your system. Also, the simplest version of this will use the rigid containers (I used soda bottle) which will mean the free access of air to the mixture which will quickly reduce the effectiveness of your mix. That means that you will have to make a new mix every day. The solution to that will be to keep the mix in flexible containers - bags that will be hermetically sealed and will have only output through the dripping line - just like IV or blood transfusion bags. If I have understood Greg's version correctly, it is just a bit more expensive version, where gravity is "eliminated" and peristaltic pump is used for precise dosing.

Second version is to tie the Kalk dosing with your top-off water system. The article you quoted is basically something like that, but the design is very bad! First of all there is free access of air to that bucket, which means that after several days that mix is useless (unless you have a huge system that will consume buckets of Kalk mix in just a couple of days). Second, the top off pump could easily be clogged by the kalk slurry even though it sits on the egg-crate above it. Also, there is nothing to stir the Kalk slurry at the bottom, which means that most of it won't be used and will be sitting at the bottom and will not mix properly with the top-off water, and after a while will "cake" at the bottom.

The solution for this version is what is called a Kalk reactor, and if you add a stirring mechanism - Nielsen reactor. In simplest terms, you have airtight containere that you partially fill with the Kalk, in the amount that will be used for longer period of time, and rest is your top-off water. Then, you connect two water lines to this reactor: one line brings water from the top-off pump (and top-off water reservoir), and another one goes out into your sump/tank. You usually make the end of the "in" line lower then the start of the output line (ideally it should all the way on the top) so that you reduce the amount of air in the reactor, but it is not necessary. This container can be anything you like. i made mine from 1 gal apple juice bottle. Stirrer can be another pump, or a stirring rod, or rotating magnetic field driven stirring "pills". However, since you stir it only a few times a day, what I did is to simply shake my bottle every now and then. Really quite simple.
 
D

DaveK

I was going to post something similar to what mladencovic posted.

I generally agree with the post. The design in the article is poor, and what you really want to build is a Nielsen reactor. As noted this reactor is air tight, and this is important when dealing with kalk.

If you feel rich or don't want to build anything, it is possible to purchase a Nielsen reactor. Several manufacturers make them.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
We ended up buy a neilsen reactor (which is quite a simple design and with a little patience and an ouce of DIY blood in your body you could easily make one). The whole "mix this every day otherwise the stuff quickly becomes useless when exposed to air" aspect of kalk made it something I didn't want to deal with. We're not the "do this every day or else" type and I wanted more consistancy for my system than that would provide.
 
S

Singlemalt

Thanks for the explanation. It didn't sound right to me but I didn't know what exactly was wrong with the design. Now I do!!!

Lou
 
jimroth

jimroth

A while back Randy Holmes-Farley did some tests which revealed that the solution does NOT become useless when exposed to air. In a container situation, the kalk exhausts the CO2 in the air layer immediately above the solution, and then the solution is effectively protected fom exposure to CO2. For some years I use a styrofoam float to protect the solution, but stopped when I read this.

Anyone dosing kalk in this fashion should investigate the value of adding white vinegar...
 
blange3

blange3

jimroth said:
A while back Randy Holmes-Farley did some tests which revealed that the solution does NOT become useless when exposed to air. In a container situation, the kalk exhausts the CO2 in the air layer immediately above the solution, and then the solution is effectively protected fom exposure to CO2. For some years I use a styrofoam float to protect the solution, but stopped when I read this.

Anyone dosing kalk in this fashion should investigate the value of adding white vinegar...
Click to expand...

I've been dosing this way for sometime and it has been quite effective. I was going to post the Randy Holmes stuff yesterday but didn't have the time. I have a lid on my 14 gallon drum and scum that forms on top of the water further blocks the CO2.

I posted my variations of the process on Sk8r's thread. I think his write up was quite good because it clearly defines the limitations of this process. You can maintain a steady supply of CA and Alk up to what your evaporation will support. If your demand exceeds this supply, then you need to supplement. But with the topoff Kalk, you minmize the swings between replenishment doses.
 
M

mladencovic

blange3 said:
jimroth said:
A while back Randy Holmes-Farley did some tests which revealed that the solution does NOT become useless when exposed to air. In a container situation, the kalk exhausts the CO2 in the air layer immediately above the solution, and then the solution is effectively protected fom exposure to CO2. For some years I use a styrofoam float to protect the solution, but stopped when I read this.

Anyone dosing kalk in this fashion should investigate the value of adding white vinegar...
Click to expand...

I've been dosing this way for sometime and it has been quite effective. I was going to post the Randy Holmes stuff yesterday but didn't have the time. I have a lid on my 14 gallon drum and scum that forms on top of the water further blocks the CO2.

I posted my variations of the process on Sk8r's thread. I think his write up was quite good because it clearly defines the limitations of this process. You can maintain a steady supply of CA and Alk up to what your evaporation will support. If your demand exceeds this supply, then you need to supplement. But with the topoff Kalk, you minmize the swings between replenishment doses.
Click to expand...

Scum on the top of the water surface will be effective only if there is no stirring of the water. If there is no stirring of the water (mix) then the slurry at the bottom will not efficiently supply the Kalk to the new water added to the mix (top-off). After a while, the concentration of Kalk in the mix will drop from saturated concentration to much, much smaller concentrattions. I HAVE MEASURED THAT !!!
 
C

Carlo

I'd have to agree with mladencovic.

Also if you know Randy's setup you'll know he doesn't use a pump but manually stirs things up BUT he does keep his kalk bucket tightly covered.

In the same article (if it's the one I think it is) you'll see the degradation of keeping the kalk exposed to air. It's not hard to create a container that is airtight so why even worry about the air.

You can make a kalk reactor out of an Instant Ocean or Seachem 160 salt mix pail. I like these brands for this just because they have the screw on lid which makes it easy to use. You can drill two small holes in the top and feed one down to the bottom (in) and have one about an inch from the top (output) and have a pretty decent Kalk reactor that will last most people a long time between fills. All you need is a small pump and some airline tubing.

Carlo

PS when you drill the holes above if you do it right the airline tubing will fit real snug in the holes so no air gets in.
 
GregW

GregW

Carlo said:
You can make a kalk reactor out of an Instant Ocean or Seachem 160 salt mix pail. I like these brands for this just because they have the screw on lid which makes it easy to use. You can drill two small holes in the top and feed one down to the bottom (in) and have one about an inch from the top (output) and have a pretty decent Kalk reactor that will last most people a long time between fills. All you need is a small pump and some airline tubing.

Carlo

PS when you drill the holes above if you do it right the airline tubing will fit real snug in the holes so no air gets in.
Click to expand...

How much calcium hydroxide would you add to a five gallon bucket?
 
T

tcollins

Read the thread on RC, read the comments on this thread. How do explain his success, if he's testing and it's proving out?
 
C

Carlo

You can add as much as you need. I typically add between a pound to two pounds at a time depending on how often I fill it. The cool thing about Kalk reactors is that if the "can" is big enough it really doesn't matter to much.

For example you could probably fill it 1/4 up with powder and still have plenty of room for it to settle. As long as the container is air tight the kalk powder will be fine. The key from my experience is not to over stir it like many people tend to do. If you use a powerhead (not the best route) you would probably want to stir it once a day (not hourly) during the period of your highest pH which is normally when lights are on (photosynthesis going on) and then wait about 2 hours before letting it drip so it has a chance to settle.

You can also use the magnetic stirs or other mechanical stirring mechanism 24/7 if they are the type that move slowly. They basically move just enough to get the job done but not enough to really stir things up a lot.

I've played around with different cheap setups and found you can use a cheap aqualifter pump as something of a stir pump. Basically pull water from the top and "blast" it back down at the bottom under the powder. It's not ideal but works without stirring things up to much in the pail. Downside is the $12 pump only lasts 4 or 5 months doing this and typically fails.

Most "pumps" aren't ideal for mixing kalk as they "gum up" in time and fail sooner or later. Best bet is some type of mechanical stir mechanism. I bought a "replacement motor" for an Aqua Medic 1000 Kalk reactor and used that.

There are many ways of doing kalk so I'm not claiming this is the best way or anything. It's just cheap and works pretty well. Once you have the basic idea down you can come up with some creative DIY methods using anything from buckets to 6-8" PVC or just purchasing a prebuilt unit like an Aqua Medic or similar. The main thing is just to keep it airtight as much as possible so you don't waist the kalk powder.

Carlo
 
blange3

blange3


Scum on the top of the water surface will be effective only if there is no stirring of the water. If there is no stirring of the water (mix) then the slurry at the bottom will not efficiently supply the Kalk to the new water added to the mix (top-off). After a while, the concentration of Kalk in the mix will drop from saturated concentration to much, much smaller concentrattions. I HAVE MEASURED THAT !!!
[/quote]

The only stirring involved occurs when I replenish and I replenish with water that has kalk in it. I do not expect to get anything out of the slurry. I'm dosing settled kalkwasser that pretty much turns over every two weeks. Every few months I run it out, flush the bucket and start over. It's been working well for over a year.

It's a question of how much supplementation you want from a given amount of topoff and how much do you want to spend. You reach a point of diminishing returns with technology. The concentrations may stay higher with a kalk reactor, but it is a more complicated and costly solution IMHO.

As I have posted in other threads, I've moved back into the frequent water change camp supported by simple supplementation methods. I have a bucket of kalk that doses throughout the day that I topoff about 2x a week, that has helped maintain a better ph than I had before and has reduced the frequency and amounts of additional supplementation required. I'm a happy camper!
 
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