Drip acclimation tube to dose kalkwasser?

FrugalReeferJon

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 2, 2021
Messages
4,703
Reaction score
29,249
Location
San Diego, CA via Charleston, SC
What state or country do you live in
California
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Has anybody dosed or does anybody dose kalkwasser using a drip acclimation tube? I’m currently dosing 39 mL each of ESV 2 part in my 33 gallon (display + sump) mixed, mostly SPS system to keep my alk in the 8-9 dKH range and it helps greatly with my daytime pH maintaining it at 8.3-8.4. Despite running a reverse lighting schedule, keeping Xenia and GSP in the sump, protein skimming, opening windows, my nighttime pH drops to 7.7 and sometimes to 7.6. I haven’t yet seen it go lower though thank goodness. Despite this, I have colonies of Monti Caps, Stylo, Birdsnest and Monti Digi growing like weeds. Since I’m a frugal reefer and my tank is a nano I’m not interested in a CO2 scrubber and the maintenance involved. Running an airline outside would maybe be possible but I live in an apartment. I feel kalkwasser is the most economical solution and would help greatly with the nighttime pH drop and the ever increasing alkalinity and calcium demand. I’ve been thinking of dosing it with a drip acclimation tube which I have stored away since I don’t have a doser. Change that, I do have 2 dosers, the BRS continuous dosers, which lack controllability though. Also, any advice and tips are greatly appreciated since I have never used kalk and this would be my first foray into it.

1744915325671.jpeg

1744915741230.jpeg

1744916219555.jpeg
 
To add 1 dKH to 33 gallons will take 1.1 liters of saturated kalk. Can that device be set up for that volume?

With a 1.1 ml per min doser from BRS, that would mean 1000 minutes (17 h) of dosing. With a 50 ml per min doser, it would be 22 minutes.

That might wear out the 1.1 mL per min doser, but 42 minutes each hour would do it.
 
To add 1 dKH to 33 gallons will take 1.1 liters of saturated kalk. Can that device be set up for that volume?

With a 1.1 ml per min doser from BRS, that would mean 1000 minutes (17 h) of dosing. With a 50 ml per min doser, it would be 22 minutes.

That might wear out the 1.1 mL per min doser, but 42 minutes each hour would do it.

I have the 1.1 mL doser. Hoping this isn’t a dumb question, so this calculation is what I would need to dose each night to avoid a pH drop and to keep my alk stable in the 8-9 dKH range?
 
I have the 1.1 mL doser. Hoping this isn’t a dumb question, so this calculation is what I would need to dose each night to avoid a pH drop and to keep my alk stable in the 8-9 dKH range?

No. I just calculated for a 1 dKH addition. You are adding about 2 dish per day now with the ESV. I did not know how much of the ESV you planned to replace.

One cannot calculate a pH increase except from an all at once addition.
 
No. I just calculated for a 1 dKH addition. You are adding about 2 dish per day now with the ESV. I did not know how much of the ESV you planned to replace.

One cannot calculate a pH increase except from an all at once addition
Sometime in the future, I’d want to replace some of the ESV when the amount of dosing gets too high for my taste. For now, I just want to dose kalkwasser at night to prevent my pH dropping to 7.6-7.7. Heck, I’d be happy if it doesn’t go below 8.0 dKH. So kalk can be dosed all at once just as the lights go out and it will maintain whatever the resultant pH is for the rest of the night like ESV 2 part? Is that even possible or safe to do because of the possibility of pH getting dangerously high? Is this why kalk is always drip dosed and observation is the only way to determine how much to dose? Sorry for asking many questions but I want to fully understand kalkwasser before trying it out.
 

TOP 10 Trending Threads

WHICH PART OF YOUR SETUP IS HARDEST TO REACH OR REMOVE FOR ROUTINE MAINTENANCE?

  • Glass behind or beside the tank

    Votes: 17 21.5%
  • Powerheads or wavemakers

    Votes: 7 8.9%
  • Sump or rear filtration chambers

    Votes: 11 13.9%
  • Skimmer or other filtration equipment

    Votes: 10 12.7%
  • Overflow or plumbing

    Votes: 13 16.5%
  • Lights or lids

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Mine is pretty easy to access!

    Votes: 20 25.3%
  • Other—tell us what I missed

    Votes: 1 1.3%
Back
Top
Home
Post thread…
Market
What's new