Will dosing your kalkwassar too close to the skimmer result in unintended consequences?

[Just a Wrasse.]

I’ve always kept it away from pumps.

Agreed, better safe then sorry.

 

[Garf]

For sake of clarity, yes, it would be from a fresh water reservoir and through a kalk reactor via a dosing pump. (In reality I’ll be using a gravity fed reservoir & a float valve into the bubble chamber on my sump).

Fantastic point on the decreasing salinity in a skimmer bit, although would, say, a 5mL hourly burst actually change the salinity enough to matter? Now you’re gonna have me measuring the skimmer for volume.

5ml/hr? I use 1250mls/day

I’d think that it might also be dependent on how clean your skimmer was. I do remember that with my smaller tanks that ran baby skimmers, there was a real sugar spot in regards to how much film was too much or too little. Drove me nuts at the time because I had to really struggle not to overclean.

turns out my skimmer lid didn’t need mods. Initial results show no bubble collapse with a 150mls dose, via x1 dosing pump. Definitely gonna put a 1 way valve on, when I can find one.

 

[BaghdadBean]

5ml/hr? I use 1250mls/day

turns out my skimmer lid didn’t need mods. Initial results show no bubble collapse with a 150mls dose, via x1 dosing pump. Definitely gonna put a 1 way valve on, when I can find one.

I love curiosity. You just gave me major joy in the what-if division.

 

[Dan_P]

I’d think that it might also be dependent on how clean your skimmer was. I do remember that with my smaller tanks that ran baby skimmers, there was a real sugar spot in regards to how much film was too much or too little. Drove me nuts at the time because I had to really struggle not to overclean.

I run my skimmer “wet” and collect up to 1% of the tank volume everyday. This means the skimmer is collecting almost all day. I get to see the effect of many things on foam rate.

 

[BaghdadBean]

I run my skimmer “wet” and collect up to 1% of the tank volume everyday. This means the skimmer is collecting almost all day. I get to see the effect of many things on foam rate.

Out of curiosity sake, do you employ any other mechanical filtration? I used to be big on skimmer socks and carbon, but after getting a second hand larger tank that had a yellow tang with severe HLLE, I suspected carbon as the blame. I pulled the carbon off that tank, and started changing the socks every other day. The tang, which had hardly any fins left, regenerated its fins and skin until it had only light scarring. Of course, this was in the late 90’s, and the previous owner of the tang ran a massive wad of carbon in a mesh sock 24/7. I don’t know if carbon in reactors does the same thing. I quit running carbon in all my tanks as a result of the experience though, and would only run very, very well rinsed carbon in a wool felted sock for short periods of time to clean up water clarity in my reefs after that. I ended up finally ditching socks all together and just running a bigger skimmer, didn’t notice much difference in nitrates or phosphates except in response to feeding patterns. Of course, test kits really sucked back then, so who knows what was actually going on?

 

[Dan_P]

Out of curiosity sake, do you employ any other mechanical filtration? I used to be big on skimmer socks and carbon, but after getting a second hand larger tank that had a yellow tang with severe HLLE, I suspected carbon as the blame. I pulled the carbon off that tank, and started changing the socks every other day. The tang, which had hardly any fins left, regenerated its fins and skin until it had only light scarring. Of course, this was in the late 90’s, and the previous owner of the tang ran a massive wad of carbon in a mesh sock 24/7. I don’t know if carbon in reactors does the same thing. I quit running carbon in all my tanks as a result of the experience though, and would only run very, very well rinsed carbon in a wool felted sock for short periods of time to clean up water clarity in my reefs after that. I ended up finally ditching socks all together and just running a bigger skimmer, didn’t notice much difference in nitrates or phosphates except in response to feeding patterns. Of course, test kits really sucked back then, so who knows what was actually going on?

I use a 100-200 micron filter pad in a DIY filter holder and put a clean pad in 2x a day. I also use carbon in a reactor wilth a slow flow which drains onto the filter pad. I do this to remove organic debris. if I need to adjust nitrate and phosphate down, I use algae (Ulva) or vinegar dosing for nitrate and GFO for phosphate.