New to Kalkwasser

[Rafaelpadro24]

Hello looking in this site on guidance in using Kalkwasse. Currently I have a 180 mixed reef and a lifereef berlin sump and refugium. So far i have fish and a few corals but getting involved with hard stony corals and I read Kalkwasser is a good way to go. I was contemplating using ATO and Kalkwasser. So far I have noticed my evaporation rate is between 1.5 to 2 gallons a day manually replenishing (live in South Florida). I was planning to install a 25 gallon ATO and use a dosing pump. I'm currently retired and home most of the time to monitor the tank. Any guidance or feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all you do!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

People will tell you that a dosing pump will give better dosing control, and that's true, but putting it in an ATO can also work. That what I did for 20 years. You just have to accept a bit of dosing variability as evaporation rates change.

 

[officialreefbros]

Unrelated, love you stand!

 

[dangles]

What I’ve read - a lot - is that kalk in the ATO CAN work, but it’s not as flexible. On top of that you’re likely to blow through whatever pump you’re using to deliver your ATO water. Kalk is HARD on pumps.

I would suggest either using a separate container for saturated kalk, dosed with a peristaltic doser of some kind (DOS, Versa, whatever your preferred flavor), OR a kalk stirrer from somebody like Avast Marine.

I’ve done both (just now starting with the kalk stirrer) and both are great for tweaking your delivery amounts. The down side to option 1 is it takes up more space. Option 2 is great but that’s one more piece of kit that could “break”.

 

[jimk60]

I also dose through an ATO. I monitor alk and adjust how much kalk I add based on that. Less in the winter due to lower humidity and more in the summer. Not the best option but works good for me.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What I’ve read - a lot - is that kalk in the ATO CAN work, but it’s not as flexible. On top of that you’re likely to blow through whatever pump you’re using to deliver your ATO water. Kalk is HARD on pumps.

Well, if one chooses a pump appropriate for the task and uses it correctly that is not a problem. Again, I did it for 20 years and did not have to replace the pump.

There's no reason that a dosing pump delivering kalkwasser from a settled reservoir is ANY different than an ATO delivering kalkwasser from a settled reservoir from the pump harm perspective.

Why would it be different?

 

[jimk60]

What I’ve read - a lot - is that kalk in the ATO CAN work, but it’s not as flexible. On top of that you’re likely to blow through whatever pump you’re using to deliver your ATO water. Kalk is HARD on pumps.

I would suggest either using a separate container for saturated kalk, dosed with a peristaltic doser of some kind (DOS, Versa, whatever your preferred flavor), OR a kalk stirrer from somebody like Avast Marine.

I’ve done both (just now starting with the kalk stirrer) and both are great for tweaking your delivery amounts. The down side to option 1 is it takes up more space. Option 2 is great but that’s one more piece of kit that could “break”.

Only had to replace my pump once in five years dosing through an ATO. But I'm not around full saturation either.

 

[Rafaelpadro24]

Unrelated, love you stand!

Thanks, left and right side of stands are removable and can lift the tops . That's what I'm placing a ATO reservoir and the other will be for other dosing needs.

 

[dangles]

Well, if one chooses a pump appropriate for the task and uses it correctly that is not a problem. Again, I did it for 20 years and did not have to replace the pump.

There's no reason that a dosing pump delivering kalkwasser from a settled reservoir is ANY different than an ATO delivering kalkwasser from a settled reservoir from the pump harm perspective.

Why would it be different?

That’s just what I read when I was researching it. Your reputation and first-hand experience are more valuable than what I read on the internet

 

[esquare]

I will probably start using saturated kalk from a dedicated reservoir using a Neptune DOS soon. I am going this route as I am more concerned with stabilizing my PH than anything else and this method will give me some good flexibility. I plan on supplementing my Cal/Alk needs with dosed 2 part.

Looking forward to see which direction you go and how it works for you.

 

[Acros]

An Ecotech Versa dosing pump is same price or cheaper than a Tunze ATO. I wouldn’t risk an ATO pump getting stuck in the on position overfilling my tank with Kalkwasser.

Versa is working really well for me. I have to tweak the dosing rate based on evaporation, but that is more seasonal/monthly than everyday.

 

[topjimmy]

An Ecotech Versa dosing pump is same price or cheaper than a Tunze ATO. I wouldn’t risk an ATO pump getting stuck in the on position overfilling my tank with Kalkwasser.

Versa is working really well for me. I have to tweak the dosing rate based on evaporation, but that is more seasonal/monthly than everyday.

That happened to me once. Absolute mess, luckily it didn't kill everything but after that I switched my ATO pump to a peristaltic and my controller will shut it off after a certain time or pH.

 

[dschuffert]

I am dosing 2.5ml of Kalkwasser per minute for my 242g mixed reef. I dose RODI water out of my ATO reservoir into an Avast Marine Kalkwasser mixer. The output of the Kalkwasser mixer drips into my sump.

 

[Username:Required]

I also dose it thru my Ato

 

[KStatefan]

I like the ease of adjustments with using a separate dosing pump for my kalk.

 

[exnisstech]

180g mixed reef here on kalk. I used kalk in the ato for a while but my evaporation rate varied too much to keep it as consistent as I wanted so I switched to dosing. I definatly would not use a pricey ato unit pump as I'm sure the kalk would destroy it. I use a brs 50ml a minute dosing pump on a cheap digital timer that allows me to adjust the on and off time down to a second. I don't remember the exact intervals the doser runs but I dose a total of 7200ml fully saturated kalk daily over a 24hr period. Tank is doing very well on kalk. The only problem I can think of using kalk is if the tanks consumption rate increases I will have to supplement with 2 part since I'm at the max amount of kalk I can dose. So far my alk is staying stable. This is a shot from the other day.

 

[piranhaman00]

New Limewater Dosing

Hello, After much internal debate I’ve decided to try limewater (kalkwasser) dosing. I was getting sick of dosing 2 part and this should knock out 4 birds; alk, ca, ato and help pH. System is approx 420 gallons consisting of 360 gallon DT, 60 gallon frag and 150 gallon sump. I saturated...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Pntbll687]

180g mixed reef here on kalk. I used kalk in the ato for a while but my evaporation rate varied too much to keep it as consistent as I wanted so I switched to dosing. I definatly would not use a pricey ato unit pump as I'm sure the kalk would destroy it. I use a brs 50ml a minute dosing pump on a cheap digital timer that allows me to adjust the on and off time down to a second. I don't remember the exact intervals the doser runs but I dose a total of 7200ml fully saturated kalk daily over a 24hr period. Tank is doing very well on kalk. The only problem I can think of using kalk is if the tanks consumption rate increases I will have to supplement with 2 part since I'm at the max amount of kalk I can dose. So far my alk is staying stable. This is a shot from the other day.

You can keep using kalk to pretty much any consumption rate. Add a jebao slw powerhead to the container your kalk is in, and then add MORE kalk. You're then dosing the "slurry" solution.

Let's say you're dosing 2500ml a day of saturated kalk. You could add the powerhead, and then use a concentration of 4tsp/gallon in the container. You would then cut the dosing down to 1250ml a day because the kalk you're adding is 2x concentrated. You can then dose more as the consumption increases.

There's some out there who have gotten up to using a 1 cup / gallon slurry of kalk.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You can keep using kalk to pretty much any consumption rate. Add a jebao slw powerhead to the container your kalk is in, and then add MORE kalk. You're then dosing the "slurry" solution.

Let's say you're dosing 2500ml a day of saturated kalk. You could add the powerhead, and then use a concentration of 4tsp/gallon in the container. You would then cut the dosing down to 1250ml a day because the kalk you're adding is 2x concentrated. You can then dose more as the consumption increases.

There's some out there who have gotten up to using a 1 cup / gallon slurry of kalk.

Some folks do use slurry dosing, but I do not recommend it for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty of controlling the potency when dosed as you suggest.

I mention it here:

What Your Grandmother Never Told You About Lime by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

Delivering a small amount of solid lime slurried (dispersed) in a small amount of water. Adding one level teaspoon of solid lime (Ca(OH)2) slurried in a cup of water to 40 gallons of aquarium water all at once raises the pH by 0.6 to 0.7 pH units. That is clearly too much. Adding a smaller portion all at once can, however, be acceptable. Adding, for example, 1/4 teaspoon to 40 gallons will raise the pH by only 0.1 to 0.2 pH units. Unless the pH is high (>8.4) before the addition, that amount is likely acceptable. The other concern with all at once dosing is that the local pH in the area of the addition will rise considerably higher than the values above. Moreover, dosing a slurry raises the added concern that the solids must dissolve before encountering organisms that may take them up and be harmed. So it is best to dose such materials to a sump, and watch that they completely dissolve before reaching the main aquarium or a refugium. In many aquaria, such restrictions make all–at-once dosing of a slurry prohibitively risky to living organisms.

 

[Pntbll687]

Hello looking in this site on guidance in using Kalkwasse. Currently I have a 180 mixed reef and a lifereef berlin sump and refugium. So far i have fish and a few corals but getting involved with hard stony corals and I read Kalkwasser is a good way to go. I was contemplating using ATO and Kalkwasser. So far I have noticed my evaporation rate is between 1.5 to 2 gallons a day manually replenishing (live in South Florida). I was planning to install a 25 gallon ATO and use a dosing pump. I'm currently retired and home most of the time to monitor the tank. Any guidance or feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all you do!

• Know your alkalinity consumption for 24hrs. I recommend testing 3 days in a row at the same time and average the consumption over those days. For my example we’ll use a 100g system with a consumption of .5dkh per day
• Go here https://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html
• Enter system volume
• Use 8.0 as current alkalinity
• Use 8.0 + (alkalinity consumption for 24hrs) as desired alkalinity. So 8.5 for the example
• Note – The actual alkalinity of the tank doesn’t matter, just that the starting alk and desired are separated by the 24hr consumption. This is because it will take the same amount of kalkwasser to go from 8.0 to 8.5 as it does to go from 7.3 to 7.8
• Select “limewater saturated” as the product being used
• Hit calculate
• This will give you the dose needed for 24 hours. Spread it out how you like, but the more times you can dose the better. Using the example, the dose is 1.66L or 1660ml. I would cut this backa little to account for over estimating the water volume. For the example I would start at 1440ml or 1ml a minute using a dosing pump.
• Don’t just blindly add kalkwasser without knowing you’re alkalinity consumption, it may raise ph but your alkalinity will go up too!

From the looks of it, the system is pretty new. You probably won't even need to dose anything for a while. I'd wait until you see a drop in alkalinity of around 1.0 for the week before dosing. Water changes should be enough until then