Kalk dosing....

[robert]

Hello,
I am presently doing research on kalk dosing. No, Nieslon reactor will not happen any time soon. ;) I read all kind of different, sometimes opposing, opinions, ideas. Makes me all confused. Air tight container vs. non air tight contain, mixing everyday vs. once per week. What should be the rate of dosing? Etc.... So I would like to know how you canreefer dose kalk into your tank. Any warnings and suggestions will be appreciated.

[Canadian Man]

This reply may be long winded but should help you some.

Background:
I have a basement sump (75G) with 2 Instant ocean buckets hooked up to a float valve that is used for auto top up of the sump. The buckets are above the top trim of the tank so to the float valve is gravity fed. The air line tubing is aprox 2" off the bottom of the bucket.

Original dosing method;
I used to mix the kalk in the buckets, using ball's pickling lime. The 10g would last about 4 days and then I would add 10 heaping table spoons per bucket, then add the water and I was good to go for another 4 days. This worked well but if the sump water level was a little low at the time of mixing then the cloudy kalk would enter the tank. I would also have to clean out the bucket once a month to keep things fresh.

Current method;
I got this idea kinda from another canreefer(dez)
I am using an old kent plastic container that was used for holding carbon. It probably holds about 2 liters of water or so. I attached airline tubing to the bottom of the container and to the lid on top of the container. This is where the water enters(bottom) and exits(top)of the container.I filled the container 3/4 full of piclking lime and put it inline between my top off buckets and the float valve. So did not change much of my set up except only fresh water is put in the IO buckets the water enters the bottom of the kalk container is forced throught the kalk exits out the top and goes to the float valve.

I am very happy with these results and enjoy this set up more that I did mixing kalk. It is much neeter and seems to work well.
No the kalkpowder does not come streaming out the tube. The water above the kalk in the container is clear.

hope this helps ya some
cheers

[Jacoda]

Could you post a picture of the setup in your description???

TIA

Jack

[reefburnaby]

Hi,

Kalk dosing is a bit tricky if you haven't done it before. The entire concept lies in having CO2 in your tank so that it can react with your kalk (CaOH2) mixture. If you dose too fast, there isn't enough CO2 in the water to react...so it actually precipitates in your tank. CO2 is generated by your corals and fish. If you dose too slow...well you might not add as much calcium as you want. The rate that you dose is also dependent on how much evaporation you have -- no evaporation...tricky kalk dosing !

So, how fast and how much you dose depends on your tanks demands and it should be adjusted accordingly with an appropriate test kit. Usually, the tank generates more CO2 at night since corals consume O2 at night -- so it is better to dose at night. Most reefers just add kalk in to their top-off water and dose continuously.

The other problems with kalk is reaction with CO2 from other sources -- such as the air. This is why we try to keep the kalk away from air or keep the kalk mixture fresh (i.e. new batch every day ...up to three days). Once the kalk reacts with the air, the Ca++ ions in the mixture become CaCO3 (calcium carbonate...solid) and it is no longer useful to the corals.

The other thing to watch out is that kalk can not raise alk...it just maintains it at best. So, buffers will need to be supplemented from time to time to maintain decent levels.

Hope that helps.

- Victor.

[ 26 September 2002, 23:30: Message edited by: reefburnaby ]

[One_Divided]

I have a 2gal jug that I dose about 1 drop per second with. I add 4 tsps of kalk to it. (yes I have a high upkeep). This will last about 2 days.. Then I throw out the water at the bottom and start over in order to keep it fresh.

I also add alk buffer and have recently even started adding kent A/B to my tank.

[stephane]

I use this one http://mars.reefkeepers.net/USHomePage/USArticles/VisioImage/VisioImage.html for severale years it work great suply all the tank in calcium by is own
I just open it each 2 week and add 8 full teaspoon
of kalk.

[robert]

Thank you very much for your valuable advice guys. Stephane I went to Revy tonight to see what I can get there to build similar gizmo you suggested (btw, I like the idea very much). I got all parts (except pump) for less then $20 inc. tax (I already have some elbows, tubing etc... from some other projects). So, yes I will go with your suggestion. I have a question for you, however. Original author talks about 12V pump on water level (float) switch. What do you use for water injection to the reactor?
Thanks.

[stephane]

This leter is from Toutouche a friend of mine who have came here and copy my float swich set up since he is a lot beter in english than me you will understand better is writing. he change on ting in the design and if you go that way be very carefull to do some maintenance. he take elastic to fix the mercury switch to the plexiglass arm but I have permanently glue it on because elastique could fail at the long run and if they fail good by the reef and welcom the flood

one other ting to be very careful is the siphon efect test your final setup carefuly befrore to put kalk in because empty the content of a reactor
at once will not be very good for your reef!

read this link please so in case it happen you will know wath to do http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67217&highlight=drop

From toutouche:

O.k. Here it goes, and I apologise for the length this is going to be. Hope I explain it clearly. The set-up uses the following parts. A Spectrapure RO unit. A Visio Kalk-mixer that I put together with parts brought to me by a friend from France that you can see at their website www.mars.reefkeepers.net. (http://www.mars.reefkeepers.net.) Even though I got my parts from there, they have detailed instructions about how it is put together and what it consists of so you could easily build it from parts bought in your area. Other parts are an old type of mercury switch that you can get from an appliance repair shop. These are the old fashion switches that used to be on washing machine top doors that would shut-off the machine when the top would be opened. I got 3 used ones for $4.00. Also and this Is one part I bought new. A water supply valve for a Maytag dishwasher. I use the Maytag type because they have a safety feature that other types don't have which is 2 electric solenoids to shut the water off, for the 1 inlet and outlet. I also use a HD type timer that has 24 on/off settings, a 1/4 turn small brass ball type shut-off type tap that I can solder to my house 1/2" plumbing, some wire and a 120v. plug, and a good ol' all plastic ball type toilet float. The reason I use this is it is very cheap and the size of the ball exerts a lot of force while floating because of it's size. This way even if there is some salt building up on the hinge part, the ball has enough strength to not let it stick. Although the way my set-up works, I have no salt building up at all. Now the way it is all hooked up is this. I have the tap hardplumbed into my house 1/2" copper water pipes with a male adapter at the output. On this I screwed the electric solenoid, which then is connected to the RO unit intake. The RO output is connected to the input on the Visio Kalk-mixer, and the waste-line is fixed to drip into my plastic utility type sink as the whole filter setup is in the basement in my laundry room. From this another tube exits and is attached to my sump just above the water-line. Now, for the switch what I've done is made a swing type arm from plexiglass that attaches to my sump ( a glass aquarium), and at the end of the arm I attached the ball float. I then took the mercury switch and wired it to the end of a wire, slipped soft airline tubing over the wires, and placed it in a small piece of hard plastic tubing which I then filled entirely with epoxy to seal and waterproof it. Before permanently sealing it in I verified and marked the plastic case for the upwards facing side of the switch ( this can be verified with an ohmmeter and moving it around). I also made sure the airline tubing was well seated in the epoxy so water will not leak in over time. I then took a regular plug and spliced it in series into the wire near where it is plugged into an outlet. The other end of the wire is soldered to the contacts on the 2 solenoids. The mercury switch is attached to the swing arm by a couple of thick elastics above the water-line. The elastics were used because it makes it very easy to move the switch up or down to fine tune it. The ball valve is placed and adjusted so when it floats on the water the swing arm and switch are level, and when the water evaporates the ball float will go down a bit and the switch will make contact and close the electric circuit which in turn activates the 2 solenoids to open and let water enter the RO unit. As the water flows it pushes water out of the kalk-mixer to drip into the sump, and that's it. It is simple and works like a charm for me and another friend who has an exact same setup for a very long time without ever having to adjust anything after the initial setup. I had made a mark in the beginning with a marker on my sump glass and the water level hasn't fluctuated by even a 1/4". The only thing I ever do is add the kalk powder. The timer is used for a little Rena pump that is hooked up to the kalkmixer which circulates the water internally to mix the powder. I have it programmed to go on 7 times in a 24 hour period for 10 minutes each. This will vary according to what concentration of kalk you need for your tank. Does this explain it well enough?
---------------------
IMO this set up guy is the saffer you could have. The selenoy is double for more safety and are built to last very long time and for the mercury switch it could run forever there absolutly no fearlure possible in that switch

[ 28 September 2002, 08:45: Message edited by: stephane ]

[Delphinus]

I'm resurrecting this thread because I find myself thinking about this design some.

How important is it to use clear tubing? I see a lot of DIY versions of this stirrer very often just using PVC or ABS. Is there any advantage to using clear acrylic? Is it as simple as, just for the convenience of being able to see how much kalk is left inside, to see if it's time for a refill? Or are there other advantages to being able to see inside?

If one were to build this using acrylic ... would extruded be OK or would that be subject to oxidation due to the high pH? Would a person be better off with cast? Problem with cast is it's 4x the cost..

PS. I also am a bit confused, what's all this talk about switches and mercury and elastics. ??? :? ??? Can't a person just put this kind of stirrer onto a float valve? Ie., if your sump is topped up by float valve anyways, could a person just put this mixer in between the freshwater supply and the float valve?

[robert]

Hello,
my original ugly one was built out of ABS. I didn't like the fact that I can't see inside to check how far kalk goes during the stirring. I decided to build one out of acrylic shortly after. It is much bigger than first one and looks way better too. I used extruded one to save money. If you have digital pH meter you may get away with ABS or PVC material since you can use pH measurement as an indicator of kalk depletion either in your tank or in your reactor. However, I still prefer to have visual. For example I used digital timer on stirring pump that failed and didn't turn on my pump on for about 12 hours and I could spot that right the way since I observe my tank at least 2x a day. Other than that I can only see advantages (mostly money saving) when using PVC. I am not sure about oxidation of acrylic thou. I don't use any float switches, float valve or other gizmos. My kalk reactor is connected between RO/DI water storage tank and a fish tank. I have MaxiJet 1200 permanently pushing water to the reactor from the storage. Reactor output, dripping rate, is controlled by valve. It took about week or so to tweak dripping rate to match evaporation rate, but it works well this way for last 6-7 weeks. My stirring pump is connected to timer set for 15min every 4 hours. I am sure you could do this with float valve you just have to make sure that kalk mixture would not find its way back to your water storage tank (it would not be a disaster anyway, as long as you are not connected directly to your RO/DI unit.)