Kalkwasser Question

[Snoopdog]

I know a lot of you have been dosing Kalkwasser for 30+ years, or 40+ years for that matter. I need to draw on that expertise. So with a 69 gallon tank and maybe 5 gallons of water in a 10 gallon sump, 2 gallon refugium, minus sand and rock I guess I have about 70 gallons of water, near about. If I was lightly dosing kalk in a 2.5 gallon ATO with maybe 1/2 a teaspoon per gallon of that water and something went wrong and all of it dosed, how bad would that affect a tank? I am trying to find worst case scenario before I invest in more safety measures.

Second question, it has been 10+ years since I have had a tank but back then I did dosed kalkwasser, I do not remember that much about it though. I mixed my first batch this week in my ATO, which is glass. What I did is I mixed 1/2 a teaspon in a container and let it sit 8 hours. The spout for this container is about 1 inch from the bottom. I drained that mix which was clear at the time in my ATO. In the ATO is was mildly cloudy, not bad. A day later that mix was very cloudy, and a bad opaque film was on the ATO, also a film on the side. There is nothing stirring it up, it just happened. Is that normal?

 

[ReefLab]

I know a lot of you have been dosing Kalkwasser for 30+ years, or 40+ years for that matter. I need to draw on that expertise. So with a 69 gallon tank and maybe 5 gallons of water in a 10 gallon sump, 2 gallon refugium, minus sand and rock I guess I have about 70 gallons of water, near about. If I was lightly dosing kalk in a 2.5 gallon ATO with maybe 1/2 a teaspoon per gallon of that water and something went wrong and all of it dosed, how bad would that affect a tank? I am trying to find worst case scenario before I invest in more safety measures.

Second question, it has been 10+ years since I have had a tank but back then I did dosed kalkwasser, I do not remember that much about it though. I mixed my first batch this week in my ATO, which is glass. What I did is I mixed 1/2 a teaspon in a container and let it sit 8 hours. The spout for this container is about 1 inch from the bottom. I drained that mix which was clear at the time in my ATO. In the ATO is was mildly cloudy, not bad. A day later that mix was very cloudy, and a bad opaque film was on the ATO, also a film on the side. There is nothing stirring it up, it just happened. Is that normal?

It would raise your dKH about .4 which is a decent size swing IMO. That’s if all 2.5 gallons with 1.5g (1/2 teaspoon) were to be dosed all at once
The film is normal.
id recommend dosing saturated Kalkwasser via a dosing pump and letting your ato make up for the rest of evaporation. Safer and let’s you be more in tune with your tanks consumption

 

[Snoopdog]

id recommend dosing saturated Kalkwasser via a dosing pump and letting your ato make up for the rest of evaporation. Safer and let’s you be more in tune with your tanks consumption

And that may very well happen.

 

[YankeeTankee]

Starting with kalk at .5 tsp/gal in ATO is reasonable, nothing to be too worried about. You dont need to stir kalk contrary to what many think but you should definitely keep it covered.

 

[Snoopdog]

Starting with kalk at .5 tsp/gal in ATO is reasonable, nothing to be too worried about. You dont need to stir kalk contrary to what many think but you should definitely keep it covered.

I think that is the problem, this is a Red Sea Max e260. The ATO is basically a glass aquarium sitting on the sump. The entire ATO unit is open. Is this what is causing the Kalk to turn cloudy after a day?

 

[Yevoc]

My first reef tank I had a ATO failed and dump a week's worth of Kalk in a 75g overnight.

It dropped the salinity as well.

Oddly it didn't kill anything. The tank was starter fish and corals. A certain amount of tank water over flowed the sump.

The water was ghostly white. It was likely precipitating because the DKH was like 6 and the Cal was off the chart.

I wouldn't suggest it but it didn't turn out as bad as it could have.

 

[josephxsxn]

I would get a PH controller and throw your ATO on that if your dosing Kalk in your topoff. This way you can at least have an upper limit if your ATO sticks on were the probe cuts the power.

 

[YankeeTankee]

I think that is the problem, this is a Red Sea Max e260. The ATO is basically a glass aquarium sitting on the sump. The entire ATO unit is open. Is this what is causing the Kalk to turn cloudy after a day?

Kalk gets degraded by CO2 in the air and a crust will form, this takes much longer if covered, which is why you should cover it.