kalk in ato

[evaneatspie555]

k so i heard that some people put kalk in there ato reservoird. my kalk says to make the selution then let it sit and get rid of all the bad parts and only use the clear part should i do that before adding to my ato water or could i just mix it in there and have my pump line above those parts. im using an aqualifter pump so i can lower and raise the line at wich it will pull in the water?? any help is greatly appreciated

[Skimmerking]

what i have done is i have my RODI line running to the ATO and my Kalk Reactor. my Kalk reactor is on a constant drip of 1-1.5 drip per sec and what ever my Kalk reactor doesnt finish the RODI water will finish off. SO i set the Kalk reactor to accept some many drips going in so there isnt a problem of building up pressure.

another thing about running Kalk through a ATO is it will cake up of KAlk so just remeber to flush it and clean the Top off every week or so and you will be fine. As for the mixing all I ever did was mix it in a tub and had a line going tot he top off and ran it just give yourself about 1 hour for the solution to chill and clear up..

HTH

[toxic111]

I have been running Kalk in my ATo water for a couple yrs now (I think) 1tablespooon to gallon of water is my mix, any more & you would need a reactor. That keeps my levels pretty close. Once my 120 is up, running & stocked, then I will be looking at dosing with a doser over the kalk.

The kalk will gum up the lines for the pump, just need to clean them once & awhile.

[Lampshade]

I was dumping a couple spoon full into my 15 gallon RODI reservoir for awhile, worked ok, hard to hold a balance though without letting the reservoir drain then measure each fill up. I'm lazy, so right now I'm using an old salt bucket (IO with the gasket sealed lid). I have a bunch of kalk in the bottom, and 2 sealed holes in the lid for in/out hoses. It's at the same level as my reservoir, I tried the bucket underneath, but the gasket seal lid doesn't hold any pressure well. As my tank pulls water from the mid level of the bucket, this pulls water from my RODI into the bottom of the bucket stirring up any sediment that sits there. This has been working GREAT for a few months now. Cheap easy DIY kalk dosing. I have an old microwave turntable motor that I'm going to wire up and put a magnetic stirrer in there, but seems ok for now, this is low priority in the little time I get to spend on my tank.

[ScubaSteve]

I use about 0.65 to 0.75 tsp per gallon in my ato. I let it run to empty and then mix a new batch. I keep the pump suspended above the bottom to avoid sucking up sediment. I add the Kalk to the empty bucket and then pour the water in to mix it up. It has usually settled by the time my ato triggers again.

[PoonTang]

Been doing it for several years now. Just a maxijet 400 and a old salt bucket. 4 tblsp kalk and 4 gal water , refill every 3 days. I don't worry about sucking up the stuff off the bottom. I currently run mine off of my controller at a rate of 5 seconds on once every half hour during the lights off period. I usually wind up having to replace the MJ impeller about once a year.

[phi delt reefer]

get a empty 2l coke bottle
Drill two holes in the cap big enough to fit the aqualifter tubing
Insert the output line from the aqulifter into one hole and make sure the tubing goes all the way to the bottom of the bottle. Make sure u have enough slack so u can easily remove the cap.from the bottle.
Insert a second piece of tubing 1" into the second hole and clip the other end into a HIGH flow area in ur sump. Use some epoxy to seal the lines to the cap.
Calculate the amount of water ur ato relplaces in ur system every week. Multipy that number by two and thats how much teasloons of kalk u should add the bottle every week during ur regular maintanence. Make sure the cap is on tight and u now have a saturated kalk doser that wont affect ur pump life.


You can get a couple coke bottles and swap em in as ur cleaning the other. If u evaporate heavily this may not be a good idea. Look the randy holmes farley article on kalk and it will tell u what max amount of kalk u can dose into ur tank at one time while not raising the ph to quickly. Ull need to do some math to figure it out but its easy