How much kalk powder to add to kalk stirrer?

[ReefDreamz]

I am using the Avast Marine K2 kalk stirrer with an Apex conductivity probe in the stirrer set to the high range (0-85 mS/cm) in Fusion. When I first filled the stirrer 3 weeks ago I added one or two cups (can't remember) kalk powder to the stirrer and the conductivity was 12.3 mS/cm. I haven't added any powder since the initial filling and now I'm at 11.4 mS/cm. How much kalk powder do I add to the stirrer to get it back to 12.3 mS/cm?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Just to be clear, 12 mS/cm is likely not perfectly accurate unless the water is very cold (saturation at 25 deg C is about 10.3 mS/cm), so it makes it hard to judge how potent it is, but generally one does not control the potency by the amount added, but by the stirring times and adding more if it seems to be running out.

 

[Miami Reef]

Wow! What a beautiful setup!

 

[14 foot reef]

I use the same unit Avast K2 - I'm still using the PH probe not the conductivity probe though. I found the Avast can handle a pretty large overfilling before having any issues of bogging motor down or stopping completely. I have been using the unit for about a year now and I have 2 K1's on systems I manage. what I found is if your PH is 12.3
( the target you want to see ) then as soon as it drops to 12.2 / 12.1 immediately add a cup of dry kalk powder to the stirrer. If you wait longer than a day it will drop really quickly to the 11's and that is basically not very effective, if at all.
Soon as you add the 1 cup it will jump back to 12.3 and stay there until the next drop to 12.2 / 12.1. I found I'm adding about 1 cup per month on 850 gallons, with my PH & Alk staying unbelievably stable. I kinda follow the Chris Meckly reverse lighting process of dosing the 24 hour evaporation in a 14 hour lights off period. My PH stays 8.3-8.35 day and night and my alk stays 8.5 - 8.6 consistently.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I use the same unit Avast K2 - I'm still using the PH probe not the conductivity probe though. I found the Avast can handle a pretty large overfilling before having any issues of bogging motor down or stopping completely. I have been using the unit for about a year now and I have 2 K1's on systems I manage. what I found is if your conductivity is 12.3
( the target you want to see ) then as soon as it drops to 12.2 / 12.1 immediately add a cup of dry kalk powder to the stirrer. If you wait longer than a day it will drop really quickly to the 11's and that is basically not very effective, if at all.
Soon as you add the 1 cup it will jump back to 12.3 and stay there until the next drop to 12.2 / 12.1. I found im adding about 1 cup per month on 850 gallons, with my PH & Alk staying unbelievably stable. I kinda follow the Chris Meckly reverse lighting process of dosing the 24 hour evaporation in a 14 hour lights off period. My PH stays 8.3-8.35 day and night and my alk stays 8.5 - 8.6 consistently.

Are you doing this with a kalk stirrir? Adding 24hrs worth of evaporation in 14hrs?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

what I found is if your conductivity is 12.3
( the target you want to see ) then as soon as it drops to 12.2 / 12.1 immediately add a cup of dry kalk powder to the stirrer. If you wait longer than a day it will drop really quickly to the 11's and that is basically not very effective, if at all.

Is that a typo? Do you mean pH?

FWIW, a 0.1 pH unit drop in pH is about a 20% drop in potency.

 

[14 foot reef]

Is that a typo? Do you mean pH?

FWIW, a 0.1 pH unit drop in pH is about a 20% drop in potency.

OOPs thanks Randy, mine I measure with PH, not conductivity.

 

[14 foot reef]

Are you doing this with a kalk stirrir? Adding 24hrs worth of evaporation in 14hrs?

Yes using a Neptune DOS pushing RODI through stirrer Avast K2 at lights off, until lights on. I evaporate about 5 gallons per 24 hours and the DOS replenishes the full 5 gallons from 10:00 pm to 12 noon the next day.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Yes using a Neptune DOS pushing RODI through stirrer Avast K2 at lights off, until lights on. I evaporate about 5 gallons per 24 hours and the DOS replenishes the full 5 gallons from 10:00 pm to 12 noon the next day.

How does it mix and have time to settle while dosing that much at night? I'm interested in this set up for myself

 

[14 foot reef]

How does it mix and have time to settle while dosing that much at night? I'm interested in this set up for myself

Mixing and settling in an 850 gallon system is zero worries. The design of the K2 does well at stirring and keeping the kalk solution only suspended abbout 1/3 of the way up the reactor, the liquid coming out the top is pretty much 100% clear solution and I never see a cloudiness to the display at all. I trust in this method and it has served me well for about a year.

 

[14 foot reef]

My Alk and PH 24 hour swing !!!

 

[ReefDreamz]

Well as a test I added 1/3 cup kalk powder and the conductivity actually dropped from 11.4 to 11.3. Not sure whats up with that.

 

[14 foot reef]

Well as a test I added 1/3 cup kalk powder and the conductivity actually dropped from 11.4 to 11.3. Not sure whats up with that.

The conductivity of saturated limewater at 25 °C ( 77 °F) is about 10.3 mS/cm (a little higher at lower temperatures due to increased solubility of limewater and lower at higher temperatures due to decreased solubility.

I don't run mine with Conductivity, I run mine with PH probe. Mine sits at 12.3 PH and if it drops to 12.2 I refill immediately.

I wander if the conductivity probe is calibrated correctly or if this is actually possible, I would assume @Randy Holmes-Farley could answer this, but I'm not familiar with the max conductivity Kalk can read.

 

[ReefDreamz]

Ok I added another 1/2 cup and I'm back to 12.3 mS/cm. I don't really care about the true conductivity value of saturated kalkwasser. If my probe says 12.3 when its fully saturated kalwasser then I know to add powder when it drops below 12.3. I just wanted to know how much powder to add and I guess the answer was about 3/4 cup.

 

[jhuntstl]

Mixing and settling in an 850 gallon system is zero worries. The design of the K2 does well at stirring and keeping the kalk solution only suspended abbout 1/3 of the way up the reactor, the liquid coming out the top is pretty much 100% clear solution and I never see a cloudiness to the display at all. I trust in this method and it has served me well for about a year.

Are you dosing the 5 gallons equally over 14 hours? A steady feed of RO at 22ml/min? If so, I'd imagine that helps quite a bit to allow proper mixing. Many people are using these stirrers with ATOs or standard dosers pushing out higher volume over shorter periods of time. Chris always made it seem like his method was impossible with stirrers. He puts a strong emphasis on a clear max potency solution, which is likely his logic. He's swapping fresh 50g reservoirs everyday IIRC, so maintaining potency is a non issue for him. I use a 44g reservoir, but I maintain it over 20 days by giving the extra settled slurry a good stir every 5-7 days. I turn off my doser for the remixing.

Sorry if I missed it above, but how much do you initially fill your K2 with? You mention 1 cup a month to maintain. 5 gallons a day, so 150 gallons a month. In a perfect world that is 975 grams(7ish cups?) of calcium hydroxide. How often do you clean and fully reset your K2? Do you notice a difference after? I don't intend to use a stirrer again. Just curiosity. I liked my K1, but went with the larger reservoir due to simplicity. Less equipment, plugs, and parts to fail. But I found cleaning the K1 much easier than a 44g brute!

 

[exnisstech]

I am using the Avast Marine K2 kalk stirrer with an Apex conductivity probe in the stirrer set to the high range (0-85 mS/cm) in Fusion. When I first filled the stirrer 3 weeks ago I added one or two cups (can't remember) kalk powder to the stirrer and the conductivity was 12.3 mS/cm. I haven't added any powder since the initial filling and now I'm at 11.4 mS/cm. How much kalk powder do I add to the stirrer to get it back to 12.3 mS/cm?

I can't help with your question but I will say after looking at this setup I'm embarrassed to go to my basement. The dog in your avatar is sweet also. Happy reefing!

 

[jhuntstl]

I can't help with your question but I will say after looking at this setup I'm embarrassed to go to my basement. The dog in your avatar is sweet also. Happy reefing!

I'd have to agree, my basement is a hot mess. Great work @ReefDreamz

 

[14 foot reef]

Are you dosing the 5 gallons equally over 14 hours? A steady feed of RO at 22ml/min? If so, I'd imagine that helps quite a bit to allow proper mixing. Many people are using these stirrers with ATOs or standard dosers pushing out higher volume over shorter periods of time. Chris always made it seem like his method was impossible with stirrers. He puts a strong emphasis on a clear max potency solution, which is likely his logic. He's swapping fresh 50g reservoirs everyday IIRC, so maintaining potency is a non issue for him. I use a 44g reservoir, but I maintain it over 20 days by giving the extra settled slurry a good stir every 5-7 days. I turn off my doser for the remixing.

Sorry if I missed it above, but how much do you initially fill your K2 with? You mention 1 cup a month to maintain. 5 gallons a day, so 150 gallons a month. In a perfect world that is 975 grams(7ish cups?) of calcium hydroxide. How often do you clean and fully reset your K2? Do you notice a difference after? I don't intend to use a stirrer again. Just curiosity. I liked my K1, but went with the larger reservoir due to simplicity. Less equipment, plugs, and parts to fail. But I found cleaning the K1 much easier than a 44g brute!

OK, I'll try to cover all these questions as precise as I can.
14800 ml's (4 gallons of RODI) dosed in total over about 14 hours.
I dose 186 ml every 7 minutes, then pause for 7 minutes per the Apex DOS data tracking in fusion.

I initially put in 4-5 cups of dry powder can't remember exactly I would guess i'm putting in 4 -5 cups per month, I really just watch PH probe, when it moves at all off 12.3 PH I put a couple cups back in. ( I'll try to document this better for you in the coming months)
My K2 has been running about 10 months, and I haven't done a shut down clean out yet. Probably will this weekend since its a new year.

My method is a high bred of Chris's method as he's using some strong strong chemicals, way more potent than Kalkwasser. If I was doing his exact method and chemicals, there is no way I would do it the way I'm doing it. I would follow his method to the tee.

I feel with my 850 gallons of volume, my method leans towards safer and not as potent, as I don't have the coral demand he has.
I believe its all relevant to your corals needs how much you have to push his extremes.

My tank has never been this stable in the 21 years its been set up.

I mentor and manage 2 other systems the same way as mine and they are just as successful, the 2 other systems are 300 gallon light load and 400 gallon medium to heavy load.

Here is my 24 hour PH and ALK swing, I'm more than happy calling this stable

 

[jhuntstl]

Apologies to the OP for spamming your thread.

OK, I'll try to cover all these questions as precise as I can.
14800 ml's (4 gallons of RODI) dosed in total over about 14 hours.
I dose 186 ml every 7 minutes, then pause for 7 minutes per the Apex DOS data tracking in fusion.

I initially put in 4-5 cups of dry powder can't remember exactly I would guess i'm putting in 4 -5 cups per month, I really just watch PH probe, when it moves at all off 12.3 PH I put a couple cups back in. ( I'll try to document this better for you in the coming months)
My K2 has been running about 10 months, and I haven't done a shut down clean out yet. Probably will this weekend since its a new year.

My method is a high bred of Chris's method as he's using some strong strong chemicals, way more potent than Kalkwasser. If I was doing his exact method and chemicals, there is no way I would do it the way I'm doing it. I would follow his method to the tee.

I feel with my 850 gallons of volume, my method leans towards safer and not as potent, as I don't have the coral demand he has.
I believe its all relevant to your corals needs how much you have to push his extremes.

My tank has never been this stable in the 21 years its been set up.

I mentor and manage 2 other systems the same way as mine and they are just as successful, the 2 other systems are 300 gallon light load and 400 gallon medium to heavy load.

Here is my 24 hour PH and ALK swing, I'm more than happy calling this stable

Appreciate all the info. That is quite stable. I really enjoy seeing others coming up with their own ways of stabilizing pH and alk. How long have you maintained those levels? Are you targeting a specific range in both parameters? How far are you willing to let them drift? I kept pH stable at 8.3 for 6+ months(pH probe controlled dosing), but my alk logs in that time would show me being anywhere from 7-13+. Alk would slowly drift depending on CO2. I did not observe this to be an issue, but would not claim it's better than targeting a specific alk and allowing pH to swing.

I am now dosing a set amount evenly over 24 hours. I have opposite light cycle tanks, on the same system, with similar consumption. This will be a more realistic method of maintaining a specific alk while allowing my pH to swing in hopefully a tight range.

So far so good, but only been a couple weeks. My alk was high to start and seems to be trending down slightly. I intend to let it hit 7 and then attempt to keep it there. For no reason other than people seem to have good success with acros at low dkh. And after months of mostly high alkalinity, I'd like to try the opposite end of the spectrum. pH is generally within .1 over 24 hours, but sometimes slightly more or less. The blip at the end is a water change.

Are both parameters in as tight of a range as I want? No. Does it matter? I have no clue. Will this be better than a stable 8.3 pH and constantly drifting dkh? Again I don't know, but experimenting is what makes this hobby so enjoyable to me.

 

[haitian_reefer]

You guys make me want to install my ph probe in my Kalk Stirrer now. How deep does everyone have the stirrer down? All the way to the bottom?