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Kalk dripping

MadReefer

MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
I am thinking of dripping Kalk to keep the calcium constant. It is currently 360ppm but after a water change it is 400ppm. I have Kalk and an IV drip bag. I was planning on hanging it from the DT and drip it into the sump. Is this a good idea? I don’t have money or space for a reactor. I keep mainly LPS with very few SPS. What would be a good mix ratio and drip rate?

Thank
Mark
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
For Kalk, "they" say that you should mix it and then let it settle. Then pour off the clear liquid into your top off device. If you're trying to super-saturate your solution "they" suggest using vinegar (blah blah blah, look that one up).

Drip it slowly so that it takes most of the night to get through your top off quantity. Figure out how much you'd need over the course of a week to keep your Ca/Alk stable and divide that by 7 to get the quantity per day you'd want to drip.

The details are going to be specific to your particular tank setup and utilization.
 
GregW

GregW

I tried that once but the thingamajig that controls the drip would always clog with undissolved kalk and would also have to be constantly adjusted as the volume of fluid dropped. I've been using a hospital dosing pump that I got from eBay for $70.
 
S

stcreef

you can use it to maintain your calcium. First get your parameters where you want them. Then wait exactly 24hrs or 48 hrs and measure again. See how much they dropped in 24 hrs. This is your consumption. You can then use the following calculator to figure out how much you need to drip to make up for the consumption.

http://jdieck1.home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chemcalc.html

use limewater in the dropdown. So say you want to maintain 440ppm in a 150 gallon system. after 24hrs it drops to 420ppm. From the calculator you would need 3.68 gallons of lime water per day to make this up.

two teaspoons of kalk per gallon of RO is saturated.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Greg, were you letting it settle out and using only clear water in your IV bag?
 
MadReefer

MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
STCREEF, When performing those calculations looking at the gallons of water in the system is it DT plus sump? I have a 75 gallon DT and 30 gallon sump. So the calculation would be for a 105 gallons?
 
S

stcreef

You are correct. It is for Total Volume. Because all of the water needs adjusting. Although you have sand, rock, equipment and your sump isnt filled to the top. So you do have less than that in actual volume.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Tom (resisting the desire to call you Steve), wouldn't you then also need to theoretically subtract out the rock volume?
 
MadReefer

MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
If there is no chnage in calcium in 24hr period then what? I know in the past it would take several days to a week before the Ca dropped some.
 
R

REEFLECTIONS

and an f.y.i... in my tank, approx 150lbs rock = approx 30 gallons of displacement, so my 75 gallon tank has only 45ish gallons of water.
 
S

stcreef

If you dont measure a change in 24 hrs, then go 7 days then measure the diff. Using the example above for 150 gallons, if you want to maintain 440ppm then after 7 days its 420ppm, you would need to add 3.68 gallons of limewater over 7 days or 3.68/7 equals 0.53 gallons per day to maintain.

Also be aware that after you monitor for your consumption, you'll have to manual correct back up to the values you want to maintain, then start your drip. The calculation is to maintain a value based on your consumption. So in the example above, if you started dripping with out manually correcting, your system would maintain at the 420ppm. Does that make sense?
 
MadReefer

MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
I want to maintain 400/410 so will do a water change in a few days as its due soon anyway. Then will start to monitor and address using Kalk. Thanks
 
C

chase33

stcreef said:
...So say you want to maintain 440ppm in a 150 gallon system. after 24hrs it drops to 420ppm. From the calculator you would need 3.68 gallons of lime water per day to make this up.

two teaspoons of kalk per gallon of RO is saturated.
Click to expand...

What if you aren't evaporating 3.68 gallons per day? Will you then need to use another media to make up the difference, meaning add the total amount of gallons that evaporated and then use something other media, or is there another method of getting back to proper levels without adding 3.68 gallons of water? Maybe I'm missing something.
 
S

stcreef

If when you calculate your needs the volume exceeds your evap, then you can use what you can to make up for the evap then supplement with something else.
 
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