jedimaster1138
Community Member
Hey Randy
So I use an Avast Marine K1 kalkwasser stirrer and their 25 ml/min peristaltic pump to dose kalkwasser into my sump every hour, completely independent of evaporation. I don't depend on evaporation and the need based ATO to dose kalkwasser because I just don't trust my evaporation rate to be anything at all regular or predictable. Apartment living in NYC, the land of big temperature swings. Anyway, so:
ATO, tops off as needed via sensor, with just pure RO/DI water
Kalkwasser, via K1 and peristaltic pump, hourly, currently 4 minutes / dose, thus 100 ml / dose, or 2400 ml / day (approx)
2-part, the BRS stuff, every 3 hours per ion, amounts currently up for debate
Reef is 120g, a fair amount of SPS and a lot of clams, 6 T. maxima and 1 T. derasa at the moment. So my tank eats a lot of calcium carbonate. I've found that I can't maintain dKH or calcium levels without using both kalkwasser and 2-part. However, this is where the question lies...
Given those parameters, how often do you think I should be adding calcium hydroxide powder to my reactor? I'm wondering if I'm simply not adding enough to fully saturate the solution and thus I'm not getting full bang for my buck from the stirrer and the solution. There's a pH probe in the stirrer, which I sorta use as a guide for when to add more powder, but I don't totally trust that probe to consistently tell me 12.4 vs 11.9 given such a high level and the issues with an electronic pH probe at that pH...
I think I could also up the dosing TIME of the kalkwasser, ie more than 4 minutes per dose, possibly as high as 7 minutes, but at some point I can't go any higher without exceeding normal evaporation on a slow evaporation day...IE diluting the water too much, or raising the water level and fouling up the skimmer's head...
One of the reasons I like kalkwasser dosing on a schedule, as opposed to through the ATO, is also because it's had such a positive effect on pH. For 2 years i had horrible problems with low pH (again, yay NYC apartment living - sealed up apartment + 2 humans and a golden retriever = high CO2 in the air)
Right now I add probably 5 tablespoons of calcium hydroxide a week. I'm really starting to wonder if I should be adding 2-3x that much.
Any thoughts? TIA
joe
So I use an Avast Marine K1 kalkwasser stirrer and their 25 ml/min peristaltic pump to dose kalkwasser into my sump every hour, completely independent of evaporation. I don't depend on evaporation and the need based ATO to dose kalkwasser because I just don't trust my evaporation rate to be anything at all regular or predictable. Apartment living in NYC, the land of big temperature swings. Anyway, so:
ATO, tops off as needed via sensor, with just pure RO/DI water
Kalkwasser, via K1 and peristaltic pump, hourly, currently 4 minutes / dose, thus 100 ml / dose, or 2400 ml / day (approx)
2-part, the BRS stuff, every 3 hours per ion, amounts currently up for debate
Reef is 120g, a fair amount of SPS and a lot of clams, 6 T. maxima and 1 T. derasa at the moment. So my tank eats a lot of calcium carbonate. I've found that I can't maintain dKH or calcium levels without using both kalkwasser and 2-part. However, this is where the question lies...
Given those parameters, how often do you think I should be adding calcium hydroxide powder to my reactor? I'm wondering if I'm simply not adding enough to fully saturate the solution and thus I'm not getting full bang for my buck from the stirrer and the solution. There's a pH probe in the stirrer, which I sorta use as a guide for when to add more powder, but I don't totally trust that probe to consistently tell me 12.4 vs 11.9 given such a high level and the issues with an electronic pH probe at that pH...
I think I could also up the dosing TIME of the kalkwasser, ie more than 4 minutes per dose, possibly as high as 7 minutes, but at some point I can't go any higher without exceeding normal evaporation on a slow evaporation day...IE diluting the water too much, or raising the water level and fouling up the skimmer's head...
One of the reasons I like kalkwasser dosing on a schedule, as opposed to through the ATO, is also because it's had such a positive effect on pH. For 2 years i had horrible problems with low pH (again, yay NYC apartment living - sealed up apartment + 2 humans and a golden retriever = high CO2 in the air)
Right now I add probably 5 tablespoons of calcium hydroxide a week. I'm really starting to wonder if I should be adding 2-3x that much.
Any thoughts? TIA
joe
