Kalkwasser saturation and kalk stirrer

Acroporaaddict · Aug 10, 2018

I'm setting up a new tank and plan on using kalkwasser to supplement alkalinity and calcium. My setup consists of a Avast K1 kalk stirrer, 50ml/ min BRS dosing pump, 5 gal ATO reservoir and an Apex to control it all. I plan on starting out by running the stirrer for 5 minutes every hour. The dosing pump will turn on 10 minutes after the stirrer shuts off and will run for 30 second, thus dosing 25ml of limewater every hour. First, Does this sound like a good plan? Secondly, if saturation for Kalkwasser is 2 Tbsp/ gal can I put 10 Tbsp of Kalk powder into the stirrer so the dosed limewater remains at full saturation for the length of time it takes to empty the 5 gal ATO reservoir?

Acroporaaddict · Aug 10, 2018

I should note that any evaporation over the 25ml/ hr will be taken care of via Neptune ATK auto top off connected to it's own separate 5 gal ATO reservoir

Randy Holmes-Farley · Aug 10, 2018

Reactors often produce less than saturated effluent, but they always put in a bunch of extra solids to last a while.

Acroporaaddict · Aug 10, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Reactors often produce less than saturated effluent, but they always put in a bunch of extra solids to last a while.

Thanks for the quick response Randy. How is the saturation of limewater measured? PH? Alkalinity? What are the values so I can test and get an idea how efficient the reactor is? So no problems putting 5 gal worth of Kalk powder into a reactor that has estimated capacity of 1 gallon?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Aug 10, 2018

The best way is by conductivity. Saturation is about 10.3 mS/cm.

pH can be used crudely. Instead of absolute measurement, compare the pH to truly saturated limewater (say, 2 tablespoons solids in a cup of RO/DI). A lower pH in the effluent by 0.3 pH units is about a factor if 2 in potency.