Kalwasser Question

K

K-PO

I'm trying Kalkwasser for the first time and have some questions. I've used other calcium additives (purple up & kent) and don't like the results. The instructions on the Kalk don't seem very clear to me. How much do you use per gallon; 1 or 2 teaspoons, heaping or level? What method do you use for getting the liquid between the bottom sediment and the top crust? How much of the final liquid do I dose? Can I just fill my auto top off reservoir with it or should I drip? How many seconds/minutes between drips? How often? I know I have a lot of questions but I don't want to over/under dose. BTW it's a 75 gallon tank. Thanks for the help.
 
When I dosed Kalk, I was using a 2.5 gallon Kent aquadoser. I would mix my kalk in a 5 gallon, using 1 medium fluffy tablespoon per gallon. I would shake the container to mix and wait several hours. I would then dump it into my 2.5 container and drip it a drop per second.
The aquadoser had a hole about 1.25 inches above the bottom, and it would draw the mix from there.

you can dose kalk into all of your top off water if you drip it in as above. Of course you may have to adjust your drip rate based on your evap rate to keep your water level correct.

Hope this helps.
 
Well there are many answers to your questions I will just share two that I use currently. The first is it depends on the type of topoff you are going to be using. If the topoff is a float switch type it makes it hard to use to dose kalk IMO. If your using a float valve with a gravity feeding bucket it is quite easy.

I use the float switch type on my 80g sps tank and I have had to rig it a bit to make it work. I have the float switches which turn on a dosing pump which doses the kalk. This way you do not dump a ton of kalk in at one time. The advantage to this type of system is you can control when the kalk is dosed. I not only have a dosing pump and float switches I use a pH controller to turn on the kalk this way it only doses Kalk when the pH is lower then 8.15. A similar thing can be done with a timer and making the top off only go on at night when the pH is lower.

I also use a float valve on my other system and it is much easier. You just mix up the kalk and gravity feed it in through the valve. This tends to work better because the Kent float valve never really shuts all the way and it will dose kalk in very small amounts.

The other parts of your question vary as well. I use a jaco bulkhead about 2 inches up from the bottom of the bucket to keep out the bad powder and crust and this tends to work very well. I am sure there are other methods.

As for the amount in which to dose that's a hard question because it will be different for every tank. I use a larger dose because of all the sps in my system, but to be safe I would say 1 teaspoon per gallon to start out. If you find that your CA levels are still dropping you will need to increase your dose.

The last thing is when dosing kalk is be careful with the pH because it will drive your pH over 8.40 very fast. And make sure you keep the bucket that it is in cover and air tight as possible. T
 
Personally, I use a 5 gal Kent Aquadose which, like Kevin's, draws from about 1.5" off the bottom of the container to avoid pulling in the sediment. As for mixing the stuff, I add 10 moderate tsp (2 per gallon) of Mrs. Wage's Pickling Lime to the container, pour in 4 tbsp white vinegar (don't try this yet...creates a super-saturated solution and should only be attempted once you have a good feel for use of kalk in general), add 5 gal of RO/DI water, cap and shake the stuff for about a minute. I then let the solution sit for at least 2 hours to let it clear a bit and dose at a rate of about 2 drops per second.

This still doesn't keep up with the evaporation rate of my tank without driving the pH sky high, so I also use a freshwater top-off system with a float switch. :roll:
 
Thanks for all the input. So this is the conclusion I think I've come to. I'll continue to use my float switch top off system with regular rodi water and also use my diy aqua doser with Kalk at night. If I dose about a half gallon of Kalk water over night is that too much or too little. My fuge light seems to cause about that much if not more evaporation overnight. Any ideas or suggestions for or against this approach?
 
That sounds like a good starting point. After all , you have to start somewhere. Its better to start small and build up than to overdose from the start.
 
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