kalk dripping question

yaksplat

yaksplat

Member
Should all topoff water be lime water? I'm considering dripping kalk and i'm unclear as how to determine how much to drip.
Do you first have to determine your calcium/carbonate consumption rate? Can it be overdosed? I tend to add about 2 gallons of water a day to my sump. Should all of this be lime water?
Thanks
Jim
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
It depends on the Calcium consumption rate.
If it were me, I would tend to drip all of the topoff and adjust the amount of kalk powder in the limewater to control the Calcium and ALK levels.
The lime water does not have to be fully saturated if the consumption rate is low.
 
T

thomas712

Guest

Originally posted by Bang Guy
The lime water does not have to be fully saturated if the consumption rate is low.
True enough, but I would caution yaksplat that kalk carries a ph of about 12, so just adding lime water top off could be a dangerous thing if just dumping in, thats why we drip it.
 
yaksplat

yaksplat

Member
But in the case of the nilsen reactor, isn't all of the topoff water saturated? I'd prefer to automate something, such as connecting my ro/di through a kalk reactor.
Jim
 
_kip_

_kip_

Member
yep... nielsen's are saturated until the media gets old...
no way to keep up with running old media though
you could have the system set up where it pumps half from nielsen and half from a freshwater reservoir if ya like
i also would never run my kalkreactor with an ro/di unit and floatvalve... thats a disaster waiting to happen
you are better off with a reservoir that you fill with ro/di once a week or so.. then have a dosing pump pull water from the reservoir and push it thru the k-reactor and into the sump. using a dosing pump will allow you to set the rate at your evap rate. you can also use an electric float switch to control the dosing pump
 
yaksplat

yaksplat

Member
So does someone running a nilsen run the risk of getting their levels too high? Or should one figure out that if a tank that has a capacity of 160 gallons and 2.5 gallons a day of evaporation a day along with roughly 22ppm usage of Ca then the makeup water should have that amount of Ca in it as well.
That means about 10 tsp of kalk should be consumed in the 2.5 gallons of water if possible. What the the maximum concentration of kalk in water?
Jim
 
_kip_

_kip_

Member
if you have a larger system using 22ppm Ca per day.. i think you are a good candidate for a nilsen... in fact... depending on the types of corals you keep... the nilsen may not even keep you at NSW levels (and considering most people run a little higher than NSW levels)
max saturation of kalkpowder in 1gal of water is around 2teaspns
nilsens get around this because they are sealed... so the unused/unsaturated powder stays ready as new water flows thru it
 
_kip_

_kip_

Member
yeah... it was slightly lower... but only when the media was older
when media was fresh.... same
of course stirred and unstirred numbers were lower on old media than new
so.... stirring helps when the media is nearly spent... all i could come up with
for them to be more dependable conclusions.... i would need to test from new to spent, both stirred and unstirred, for two months each way for it to be a little more scientific :)
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
Could be interesting. I've not found a problem with not stirring but my system has areas open to the atmosphere so I have to change media more often.
Just spinning wheels. Thanks for the response!
 
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