Poll: For those that dose Kalk

[ectoaesthetics]

Just trying to get an idea of how common it is to use vinegar with Kalk. The list of benefits make a lot of sense and wondering how many folks out there are doing it. Any issues?

 

[sghera64]

I used to use only Kalk. I got tired of seeing so much Ca(OH)2 go to waste and coat the inside of my reactor that I began to "taint" my RO holding tank with HCl to the tune of about pH 3-4. That, I believe, lowered the pH enough to reduce the amount of CO2 that would remain in my RO water by pushing the bi-carbonate equilibrium more towards carbonic acid and towards CO2 (gas). It did seem to work.

After reading others were increasing alkalinity by adding carbon to the system (respiration of which I presume creates two moles of CO2 and then bicarb), I decided to add about 20 mL per day to my kalk reactor via a dosing pump. From past experience, my tank would take about 70mL per day to feed bacteria and this 1/4-dose seems to work without causing cyano blooms. With a additional HOAc going into the reactor along with the HCl, my pH remains about 8.1-8.25 [note I have a CO2 reactor too], Ca around 450ppm, Alk about 8.7 dKH. Previously, I was struggling to maintain Ca above 380ppm.

 

[hbrochs]

Adding vinegar allows you to increase the saturation of Kalkwasser. In other words you can get more Kalk powder to dissolve into the same volume of water. I don’t do it because the vinegar is also a form of carbon dosing. I don’t want to combine two activities because I always need Kalkwasser but I’m not always wanting to carbon dose.

 

[trio91]

Never really saw a need to add vinegar to my kalk.

 

[dantimdad]

Used to add vinegar but, I just got tired of mixing it. LOL.

I probably will go back to it because it causes a more saturated solution. Not sure yet.

 

[cracker]

I did this for a sort time just to icrease the kalkwasser dissolved but stopped because I wasn't evaping enough & went to dosing .

 

[Don Lidtke]

I had no idea you could do this so I am not sure how to vote.

 

[Wiskey]

I use a Kalk reactor hooked up to my top off pump. I have configured my Apex not to allow running the top off pump any more than 1 min per 15 min to prevent a runaway, PH over 8.5 will also kill top off. I have two sensors to measure water level. The main level sensor is an Avast pressure sensor, this has been the best water level sensor I've ever used. The emergency switch is an Apex Optical sensor. If that ever trips then top off is disabled until manual intervention, I also get a text and an email about the situation.

I have not used vinegar, but if I find my ALK hangs below 7 then I'll put my CA reactor back on.

Whiskey

 

[dragonfish]

FOLLOWING

 

[Bob Lauson]

I designed my own 5 gallon kalk reactor with a stirrer. I actually keep the reactor with supersaturated kalk meaning I add about 2 cups of kalk to the reactor. The stirrer runs 30 seconds prior to dosing via a dosing pump to get the kalk suspended. I dose the kalk into the aquarium based on pH so I keep the pH between 8.25 and 8.35 with redundant pH probes. The reactor has a RO/DI water supply plumbed to it to keep it full. About every 2 months I have to add more kalk to the reactor. System works great and have never had an issues. In my 180 gallon aquarium, the Calcium stays around 480 ppm and the alkalinity runs between 7.5 and 8.5 dKh.