Kalk without relying on ato?

Balz3352 · Jun 24, 2016

Hey guys,

Im wondering if it is possible to run kalk reactor without relying on ato. I just set up a 215 and want to do kalk until I set up /need my calcium reactor. Im not a huge fan of the idea of relying on ato for kalk but am completely new /never used kalk. Only done 2 part on my biocube.

Thoughts?

WetWhistle · Jun 24, 2016

It is doable under some situations. How old is your tank? What is your ratio of hard corals? Like SPS dominant, Mixed or LPS. I find reactors are good if you have heavy calcium\ALK needs but you can use them with lower needs you just need to do lower doses of kalk. If your ALK and calcium needs are low you are better off manually dosing at night in small amounts in my opinion. As you can keep a eye on things better.

Balz3352 · Jun 24, 2016

Tank is new. I'm toying with the idea of kalk until my demand is too great for it. Hopes are for a mixed reef.

I also like things as automated as possible. Plus I work nights so dosing them is impossible all the time.

jedimaster1138 · Jun 24, 2016

That is how I dose kalkwasser - completely independent of the ATO. I dose it hourly at the bottom of the hour. I still have the ATO (Tunze Osmolator) taking care of any top off on demand.

The kalkwasser is made with an Avast K1 stirrer. The pump draws RO/DI water from the ATO reservoir and pushes it into the stirrer, forcing saturated kalkwasser out a hose over the sump.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jun 24, 2016

It is certainly possible to use a dosing pump to drive limewater from a reservoir or through a reactor.

Without a slow dosing pump (or a faster pump of a frequent but short timer), I do not see how you'd accomplish it and dose it slowly enough.

LakeCityReefs · Jun 24, 2016

BRS sells a kit and there are lots of DIY techniques out there. Just remember slow and steady so that you don't affect PH. check out this DIY bucket https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-quick-and-easy-kalk-drip-bucket.54984/

shollis2814 · Jun 24, 2016

I have one of those reptile drip jugs that holds about 1/2 gallon. I mix up my kalk in the morning, let it settle in, then adjust the valve to about 1 drip/second into my sump overnight.

WetWhistle · Jun 24, 2016

If you have a controller like an Apex I have used the timer function to turn on and off a Tom Aqualifter pump with my reactor. I had it turn on and off a few times a day. A regular timer will work if you don't have a controller but I worry it would break and stick on. It took me a little time to dial in my needs but it did work.

Balz3352 · Jun 24, 2016

I have an apex.. I also have a dos waiting for me to setup

Balz3352 · Jun 24, 2016

jedimaster1138 said:
That is how I dose kalkwasser - completely independent of the ATO. I dose it hourly at the bottom of the hour. I still have the ATO (Tunze Osmolator) taking care of any top off on demand.

The kalkwasser is made with an Avast K1 stirrer. The pump draws RO/DI water from the ATO reservoir and pushes it into the stirrer, forcing saturated kalkwasser out a hose over the sump.

Do you have any pics of your setup sounds like exactly what im thinking

jedimaster1138 · Jun 24, 2016

I don't have any pictures really, but it's all pretty simple.

There's a reservoir of RO/DI water, probably 15 gallons or so. The pump for the Tunze ATO is a submersible and sits at the bottom of that and pulls out water as needed and tops off the sump.

As for the kalkwasser, I use an Avast peristaltic pump run by the Apex. That pump moves around 25 ml/min, so not very much, though faster than those ultra slow BRS pumps that are 1.1 ml/min. Not that it matters. Anyway, on the intake side of that pump, the hose starts in the bottom of the RO/DI reservoir. The output of the pump is attached with a push connect fitting to the input side of the Avast K1 Kalkwasser Stirrer. You can probably see in the picture how that works. So then RO/DI is pumped into the Stirrer and enters about 2/3rd's of the way down thanks to a long piece of rigid tubing. This forces saturated kalkwasser out through the output fitting of the K1, which is a 1/2" hose barb fitting. This hose runs back to my sump, dangling way up above the water line. I dose it into the drain area because it's the most agitated section and I figured the more mixing, the better.

I dose kalkwasser at xy:30 of every hour. The time on is usually about 5 minutes or so but I tweak it depending on alkalinity readings which I try to test often.

The K1 also has the motor that turns the stir bar itself. This is on 24x7x365.

I add calcium hydroxide powder (BRS brand) 2x a week into the stirrer. Every month or 6 weeks -ish I pull the stirrer out, dump all the slurry on the bottom, hose it out in the sink etc. As you can imagine, when I put it all back together I pre-fill the stirrer with fresh RO/DI along with fresh powder so it's essentially primed for the next schedule dose.

One big tip I have - start slow with the dosing time for a few reasons. First, duh, you have to watch your alkalinity levels. Second, depending on how much you are dosing, at least my mentality is that I don't want to dose so much kalkwasser that the demand based ATO never fires. It takes a little experimentation to get it right, but i basically just want the kalkwasser to almost keep up with evaporation, but not completely. My reasoning is that because of NY weather and the oddities of the temperature and humidity in my apartment, evaporation can be weird. That's why i don't use kalkwasser via the on - demand ATO.

GainesvilleReef · Jun 27, 2016

I dose saturated kalk solution with a parastaltic pump as well and it works great. Jedimaster's big tip at the end is an important one. I determined my evaporation rate and won't dose kalk above 60% of that rate for a safety margin. I dose 2 part for what I need above it. The reason I still dose kalk, even though my demand has exceeded what I can supply safely, is it helps me maintain a better ph for my tanks in the basement. Good luck.

jason2459 · Jun 27, 2016

I started dosing limewater separate from my ATO a few months back. pH stabilized at a higher level then before when it was part of the ATO. I dose via a spectrapure standalone peristaltic pump. It runs for 1 second every couple minutes 24/7. It's a little under what my evaporation rate is for the slowest evap times of the year. Evaporation rates can very to watch it.

Balz3352 · Jun 27, 2016

Thanks guys. Looks like I really need to watch my evap but of course this is probably the highest evaporation time of the year.

Mortie31 · Jun 27, 2016

I use a similar system to the guys above but I wanted to be really safe, and reduce overdosing risk to a minimum , in case of a pump sticking on, I use a second RO chamber that is 4 litres, every 6 hrs one dosing pump pumps 1.5L from my ATO container (25L) into the second chamber and then a second dosing pump, pumps 200- 300ml every hour on the hour, from this second chamber through my kalkstirrer and into my sump. In theory this should avoid a catostrophic overdose which could occur dosing straight from your RO container. As soon as I buy a controller I will have my second dosing pump ph regulated to really make sure I can't overdose.

jason2459 · Jun 27, 2016

Oh, well my failsafes are quite complex so didn't really go into it. Needless to say it involves multiple pH probes, Salinity probe, multiple float switches, and pressure switches.

jedimaster1138 · Jun 27, 2016

Yeah watching salinity is key too. That's another reason why you have to watch how much kalkwasser you dose. Too much and along with spiking dKH up, you're going to drop salinity with all that RO/DI.

I also use 2-part to supplement the sorta "baseline" of alkalinity and calcium that's added via kalkwasser. The beauty of the entire system is that the kalkwasser both helps keep pH up and adds enough calcium/alkalinity that I'm not dosing gallons of 2-part, either.