Question on Dosing Kalk - Tank Redo

[LPSGUY]

I'm redoing my display. Its a 125g, tied to an 80g frag tank, and 40g sump. So roughly 200g of total water. I had a major tank crash when I was away on business months ago so I'm redoing everthing.

In revamping things I decided I want to start dosing Kalk. But I have a question. I dont want to dose into my ATO, I want to dose directly to my sump. How many do this? Any downside to this?

I'm thinking of getting a dosing pump from BRS and dose over a 24 hour period consistantly. I'm thinking I dont need all my make up water kalk only a portion and this gives me the flexibility to control more or less kalk going into my system.

Am I on the right track?

 

[Mike O'Brien]

Not many systems can rely on limewater alone for very long. In most cases you will need to replace all your evaporated water with limewater. You can dose it from a still reservoir with your ATO. Best bet would be to use the peristaltic pump so you have a slow feed.

 

[YodaHart]

Not many systems can rely on limewater alone for very long. In most cases you will need to replace all your evaporated water with limewater. You can dose it from a still reservoir with your ATO. Best bet would be to use the peristaltic pump so you have a slow feed.

I agree. You'll want to use a kalk reactor. Make sure to control it with a pH probe, too. You don't want to keep dosing kalk if your pH is too high.

 

[LPSGUY]

Mike, I here you. My only problem with using a perastaltic pump to replace all the evap water is the evap is so much different every season and sometimes day to day. My tanks are in the basement and the basement temps fluctuate so much due to living in Northern Ohio it's unbelievable. I'm sure I can get it close though and maybe just have the ATO draw from a resevoir just in case?????

 

[Mike O'Brien]

Sure you can draw from the reservoir, just be sure to let it settle before you turn the ATO back on. And just make sure you are drawing the water from an inch or two off the bottom of your reservoir. Sure a reactor would be nice, but a still reservoir works just fine as well.

 

[mike007]

Some have great results with using kalk others do not. I have found that since a got my dosing pump i do not need to add kalk. When i was dosing kalk i would drip it in slowly at night to the dsp tank. I really didn't see any results i still had to dose for calcium and alkalinty.