New Kalkwasser

[Brian barranco]

I recently bought Kalkwasser from brs . I have a question. My water in my tank evaporates only one gallon a week or so. Innovative marine 30L Would Kalkwasser keep my parameters stable ? Can someone explain how the rate of evaporation and dosing amount.

 

[Brian barranco]

Bump.

 

[Saltyreef]

They would help keep the parameters more stable. You cant really rely on it in an ATO other than helping your 2 part dosing not consume as much and more stable between doses.
If you need to raise cal and alk you should start 2 part dosing. Seeing as your tank evaps 1 gallon a week, i would not recommend kalk

 

[Brian barranco]

They would help keep the parameters more stable. You cant really rely on it in an ATO other than helping your 2 part dosing not consume as much and more stable between doses.
If you need to raise cal and alk you should start 2 part dosing. Seeing as your tank evaps 1 gallon a week, i would not recommend kalk

Over summer . It would do like 3 gallons of rodi water . I do have the starter pack . With all three. Cal, mag, alk.

 

[Brian barranco]

They would help keep the parameters more stable. You cant really rely on it in an ATO other than helping your 2 part dosing not consume as much and more stable between doses.
If you need to raise cal and alk you should start 2 part dosing. Seeing as your tank evaps 1 gallon a week, i would not recommend kalk

Well the tank is around 18-20 gallons. Due to the rock and aio sump/ filter is only filled to the chambers . Isn’t really a 30 gallon tank.

 

[BeejReef]

The trick is to know your daily alkalinity and calcium consumption AND your daily evaporation.

From there, it's just a matter of calculating the dose of "saturated limewater"

Reef Chemistry Calculator

There are two approaches I've tried.
1) knowing my average evap, tank volume, consumption, and ATO container volume, you can brew up less than fully saturated kalkwasser top off to meet your demand. This requires a spreadsheet. The up side is you can do this right in your ATO reservoir.

2) mix up fully saturated kalk water and dose it via the drip method or a dosing pump.

#2 is far easier to set up. It's also much easier to adjust. The caveat is you need two reservoirs.. one for just RODI, one for kalk solution. Presumably, you won't start out needing your full evaporation loss replaced by fully saturated kalk. You still need pure RODI reservoir to keep your water level right.

Your evaporation rate is the controlling factor and what will eventually limit you from using kalk as the only alk/calc additive. You can't dose more than you evap.

Ballpark, you can probably use just kalk until your system starts demanding upwards of 1.5dkh of alkalinity a day.

 

[Saltyreef]

Agreed. You need to find your average consumption without dosing or running kalk. This can be done quite easily testing at the same time daily for 5 days and then averaging your reading to find your average daily consumption.
Kalk in the ato is the least favorable method unless youre lazy like me.
I mix up fully saturated kalk into my ATO because even at my evap rate, it will never stop being consumed. I still need to dose quite heavily even evaporating 5gallons a week.

 

[Brian barranco]

The trick is to know your daily alkalinity and calcium consumption AND your daily evaporation.

From there, it's just a matter of calculating the dose of "saturated limewater"

Reef Chemistry Calculator

There are two approaches I've tried.
1) knowing my average evap, tank volume, consumption, and ATO container volume, you can brew up less than fully saturated kalkwasser top off to meet your demand. This requires a spreadsheet. The up side is you can do this right in your ATO reservoir.

2) mix up fully saturated kalk water and dose it via the drip method or a dosing pump.

#2 is far easier to set up. It's also much easier to adjust. The caveat is you need two reservoirs.. one for just RODI, one for kalk solution. Presumably, you won't start out needing your full evaporation loss replaced by fully saturated kalk. You still need pure RODI reservoir to keep your water level right.

Your evaporation rate is the controlling factor and what will eventually limit you from using kalk as the only alk/calc additive. You can't dose more than you evap.

Ballpark, you can probably use just kalk until your system starts demanding upwards of 1.5dkh of alkalinity a day.

Okay. So in a day I use up .4 dkh. What’s your opinion. Think kalk would do it or manual dosing ?

 

[BeejReef]

Okay. So in a day I use up .4 dkh. What’s your opinion. Think kalk would do it or manual dosing ?

Oh yeah, easy... Unless you evap almost nothing. Kalk will take you at least as far as 1.5dkh a day