Is Kalk all it’s cracked up to be?

[Mark Ma]

Thanks for your sharing, I just want to follow your idea. But some questions.

Refer to the post from "Kalkwasser – Feeding Your Tank What It Desires"

It mentioned that it should use "2 tsp of kalk per gallon", but in your post, you mentioned that it should be "1 cup of kalk based on 10.5 gallons".
That's quite different and confusing me.

If you try to top off 10.5 gallons water per week, you should use 21 tsp of kalk, but you just take 1 cup.

Besides, I'm not live in United States, I have no idea what's the size of "tsp" and your "cup", I just google it, it seems that 1 tsp means 5ml. Is that correct?

 

[Mark Ma]

Okay, I got the points, 48tsp = 1cup.

I just reading the post, in my country there is no kalk reactor for sell.
So here's my plan, may you give some suggestion?

1. Take a 1Gallon container
2. Add 2 tsp to it
3. Manually mixed it
4. Wait +8 hours
5. Take out the clean water from the top to other container
6. Set up timer to dip it per hour
7. Suppose every day dip for 0.15 Gallon, then every 7 days repeat step 1~6

 

[DeeFromBrooklyn]

bulk. reef doser

Have considered the bulk reef supply Doser. It drip doses at a rate of 1ml per minute..

Question instead of putting the KALK in line with the ATO, does anyone drip KALK?

I am concerned that because I don't let the ATO turn on until I am home that will cause swings and want to drip kalk instead.

I bought a DIY Kalk reactor but never hooked it up because I don't trust my ATO. My reason is I had another ATO get stuck in the on position which caused SG Calk and Alk to drastically drop.

If anyone has another ATO they recommend great but for now I am using the Avast DIY ATO: AVAST Marine Works - Top-off Kit - Product Details without the mechanical float.

"Z"

 

[Gwitness]

GREAT DISCUSSION and NOW I am about to switch over to Kalk and I just want to make sure my plan will work!! I have a tunze ATO and I will have a 10 gallon tank as my r/o top off tank.....My plan was to mix Kalk in a two 5 gallon buckets so they can sit for a day and then dump them into my 10 gallon tank and from there my ATO will pump that into my sump......in the meantime of that I will mix up 2 more buckets full of Kalk so they can be sitting there and ready on stand by to refill my 10 gallon tank again......I know I will have to play with the amount of Kalk once I test my water and see how much my tank will be using....Will this way work also??

 

[FlyinBryan]

Gwitness that's exactly what I do! I mix BRS Kalk into a 5g bucket and let the Tunze ATO take care of the rest. I started this about a year ago and the results have been amazing!! I'm finally able to keep clams in my tank! Plus my sps and LPS all grow like crazy. LFS will tell you that "everyone is getting away form Kalk, that's old school". That's of course they need to sell their bottles of 2part or a bottle of 'coral turbo growth' or whatever.
Kalk, when doused properly, gives tanks amazing stability!! I travel a lot so I just line up 5g buckets ready to go and just have girl move pump from bucket to bucket. But when I get home I just sit and gawk at how well the tank has been going while I was gone.
Note though, kalk will burn through Mg so keep an eye on that. But for that I also use BRS 2part mag.

 

[Gwitness]

Flyin Bryan....okay that sounds perfect then man!!! I know kalk gets a bunch that settles and hardens at the bottom of whatever you mix it in, should I just dump that into my 10 gallon also or should I just keep the build up in the bottom of the bucket?? If that even makes sense!!!

 

[Gwitness]

And do I need to keep a lid on my h bucket after I mix because of carbon dioxide getting to it??

 

[mcarroll]

Gwitness: Check out post #191 and especially read the link there on mixing vinegar with lime (kalk) - it also has a great general primer on limewater (kalkwasser) in general.

In a nutshell, you want to mix as close to not-at-all as you can, and then keep the container well-sealed after that. But read that link!

Hope this helps!

-Matt

 

[Mark Ma]

No body reply, anyway, I start my plan.

I take 2L bottle to mix 1 tsp CaOH, it looks very messy. I stay it tonight. Then I will take into the 4L bucket and dip it into the tank every second.

Now my KH is 6.1, tested by Salifer.

 

[FlyinBryan]

Gwitness nah, no cover. I just dump that bottom stuff right into the toilet and flush it. I run the pump a little bit about that stuff. Once in a while it'll pull that bottom stuff but it's no big deal. Tanks recovers just fine. Now, some guys get really wound around the axle about really minor details, I don't. I take a much more laid back approach to my tank and it's thriving just fine. So the carbon thing, don't worry about that. It'd have to sit for several months before it could really have an affect. Even if it were sooner it's not going to have that big of an affect on kalk at all.

 

[Dan_k]

What happens when the reactor starts to get empty? I know you would just top it off but you can't fill it with 3/4 rodi and a cup kalk can someone help me with that part and when you do figure out the correct measurement and you make up new kalk water can I just pour it in or do I have to wait a certain amount of time

 

[mcarroll]

Okay, I got the points, 48tsp = 1cup.

I just reading the post, in my country there is no kalk reactor for sell.
So here's my plan, may you give some suggestion?

1. Take a 1Gallon container
2. Add 2 tsp to it
3. Manually mixed it
4. Wait +8 hours
5. Take out the clean water from the top to other container
6. Set up timer to dip it per hour
7. Suppose every day dip for 0.15 Gallon, then every 7 days repeat step 1~6

Most people use way too much lime powder to acheive saturation...which doesn't hurt anything, but makes it a little hard to know if you're using your lime efficiently.

If my calculation is correct, about 1.5-2 grams of lime is all that will dissolve in a liter of RODI water.

What happens when the reactor starts to get empty? I know you would just top it off but you can't fill it with 3/4 rodi and a cup kalk can someone help me with that part and when you do figure out the correct measurement and you make up new kalk water can I just pour it in or do I have to wait a certain amount of time

I would suggest checking out the links I posted in post #191.

I hope this helps!

-Matt

 

[DeeFromBrooklyn]

Over use of kalkwasser leads to alkalinity and ph nightmares. Take your time, do your homework and remember to test water befor and after additions of kalk. Nothing good happens overnight but bad things can happen very quickly

 

[Aquarium Art]

I personally use kalk and have nothing but success with it , as long as you have a float switch there should be no problem

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Ok...so I've read this thread from start to finish (as well as the articles in post #191). I am a reasonably intelligent guy (or at least that's what my wife let's me believe), but I am challenged in the area of chemistry so...can someone help me with a few questions? First, let me tell you my plan.

I have 2 large systems in which I plan to start using kalk: a 180 and 120. The 180 is a mixed reef and the 120 is a nem propagation tank (with some LPS). My ATO on each system is a dual float-valve switch controlling a small powerhead (70-100 gph) that sits in 3 and 2 gallon trashcans respectively (my ATO reservoirs). I keep a container of RODI that is continually filled from which I top of my ATO reservoirs. Still with me? My plan is to add kalk to the large RODI reservoir and then pull my ATO water from there until empty (or near empty)...which means the reservoir will get filled about once every week to week and a half.

I was originally planning to add a mj1200 pro to my RODI reservoir to keep the kalk mixing (basically a large kalk reactor), but after reading the articles, I understand that stirring the kalk is not a good idea bc it will cause it to make calcium cartbonate??

So...my plan now is to just add the kalk directly to the RODI reservoir at 2 tsp per gallon and then add to ATO from there.

My questions:

1) Should I be mixing this with vinegar prior to adding it to the RODI?
2) I am a vodka doser...can I use vodka instead of vinegar?
3) I am terrible at converting liters and ml to tsp and gallons...can someone help me figure out how much kalk and vinegar (respectively) should I be adding per 5 gallons of RODI?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Bump for the question

 

[backpack]

1 no
2 no
3. 5ml per gallon of Kalk so 5x5=25ml

 

[mcarroll]

Ok...so I've read this thread from start to finish (as well as the articles in post #191). I am a reasonably intelligent guy (or at least that's what my wife let's me believe), but I am challenged in the area of chemistry so...can someone help me with a few questions? First, let me tell you my plan.

I have 2 large systems in which I plan to start using kalk: a 180 and 120. The 180 is a mixed reef and the 120 is a nem propagation tank (with some LPS). My ATO on each system is a dual float-valve switch controlling a small powerhead (70-100 gph) that sits in 3 and 2 gallon trashcans respectively (my ATO reservoirs). I keep a container of RODI that is continually filled from which I top of my ATO reservoirs. Still with me? My plan is to add kalk to the large RODI reservoir and then pull my ATO water from there until empty (or near empty)...which means the reservoir will get filled about once every week to week and a half.

I was originally planning to add a mj1200 pro to my RODI reservoir to keep the kalk mixing (basically a large kalk reactor), but after reading the articles, I understand that stirring the kalk is not a good idea bc it will cause it to make calcium cartbonate??

So...my plan now is to just add the kalk directly to the RODI reservoir at 2 tsp per gallon and then add to ATO from there.

My questions:

1) Should I be mixing this with vinegar prior to adding it to the RODI?
2) I am a vodka doser...can I use vodka instead of vinegar?
3) I am terrible at converting liters and ml to tsp and gallons...can someone help me figure out how much kalk and vinegar (respectively) should I be adding per 5 gallons of RODI?

Thanks for any help!

1. Adding vinegar is the safest way to prevent any precipitation from happening both during and after initial mixing. Since you are already dosing carbon, you can either allow for the small amount of carbon in the vinegar by backing off of the vodka by a proportional amount....or just switching to vinegar. So I would say, "yes you should" because of all the good reasons to do so....but you don't have to.
2. I don't think you can mix lime+ethanol....besides, your intention with vinegar (see details in link under "Vinegar" heading in post #191) is to create calcium acetate, which is stable and safe to dose just about however you'd like. No dripping required. Mixing with ethanol, even it it worked, would not produce calcium acetate.
3. Just in case it helps, you can type conversion requests directly in to Google. E.g. Typing "4.5 tsp in ml" into Google gives me an instant search result of 22.18 mL. But for the record, it's 15 mL (=3tsp; =1tbsp) vinegar per .5 teaspoon of lime per 1 liter (=1 quart) of RODI water. Also in case it helps (it will), consider getting measuring cups and spoons that have both metric and standard units - it's worth it. I would even consider getting a kitchen scale to use that measures in .1g and which can convert between metric and standard. (I got mine off ebay for <$10.)

To scale up to a 5 gallon bucket, you'll want 60 mL of vinegar, 2 teaspoons of lime and....5 gallons of water.

-Matt

 

[Daniel@R2R]

1. Adding vinegar is the safest way to prevent any precipitation from happening both during and after initial mixing. Since you are already dosing carbon, you can either allow for the small amount of carbon in the vinegar by backing off of the vodka by a proportional amount....or just switching to vinegar. So I would say, "yes you should" because of all the good reasons to do so....but you don't have to.
2. I don't think you can mix lime+ethanol....besides, your intention with vinegar (see details in link under "Vinegar" heading in post #191) is to create calcium acetate, which is stable and safe to dose just about however you'd like. No dripping required. Mixing with ethanol, even it it worked, would not produce calcium acetate.
3. Just in case it helps, you can type conversion requests directly in to Google. E.g. Typing "4.5 tsp in ml" into Google gives me an instant search result of 22.18 mL. But for the record, it's 15 mL (=3tsp; =1tbsp) vinegar per .5 teaspoon of lime per 1 liter (=1 quart) of RODI water. Also in case it helps (it will), consider getting measuring cups and spoons that have both metric and standard units - it's worth it. I would even consider getting a kitchen scale to use that measures in .1g and which can convert between metric and standard. (I got mine off ebay for <$10.)

To scale up to a 5 gallon bucket, you'll want 60 mL of vinegar, 2 teaspoons of lime and....5 gallons of water.

-Matt

Thanks Matt! This is very helpful. I'll be purchasing kalk (or lime) pretty quick along with a couple gallons of vinegar to get me started.

 

[Mark Ma]

Here's my result for sharing.

My main tank + sump around 300L (all of them are LPS, 1 60L refugium, but with only 2 mangroves)

I daily ATO 4~5L with 2 tsp. Every day my tank increase around 0.5 KH. Day 1 is 6.3 KH, after 4 days, it's around 8.0.
Then I change to 1 tsp per day, it works fine and very stable.