Dosing Kalk in ATO

sk8elenex92

sk8elenex92

Premium member
I'm thinking about adding kalk to my ATO container. Have a few questions though.

I have a 5 gallon res that I fill up with rodi for ATO.. Can I mix the kalk with rodi in a separate container and then pour it into my 5 gal res.

Do I use a tea spoon per a gallon of rodi?

Thank you,
 
Depends on how much Alk your system is using up ..

blindly putting 1 or 2 spoons of Kalk per gallon might cause issues with alk raising up too much

Process of kalk in ATO :

1. so test your tank for alk and test it again after 3 days and then again the next day and take an average of how much alk is being used per day
2. then mean while you need to figure out how much Ato water your tank is taking in due to evaporation per day
3. Calculate how much KALK needs to be mixed with your ato per gallon so that enough (not more) amount of Kalk goes into your system via top off to keep you alk stable. .


Nothing aint easy in this hobby yo :)
 
Ok great. I will test ALk today and then again in a couple days..

Can I pour the mixed kalk from the mixing container into my ATO container?
 
sk8elenex92 said:
Ok great. I will test ALk today and then again in a couple days..

Can I pour the mixed kalk from the mixing container into my ATO container?
Click to expand...

yes and then shake it more to mix it properly and i would put the pipe for ato a little like an inch above the container bottom ..

do calculate properly though on how much kalk you want for 5 gallon ato
 
You can mix it right in your ato tank. No need for another mixing container. I've been doing it this way for over a year. Just make sure to let it settle for an hour or so before your pump kicks on. You don't want to pump the cloudy mixture into your DT. Any sediment that does not get mixed into the solution gets mixed into the next batch.
 
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Sawdonkey said:
You can mix it right in your ato tank. No need for another mixing container. I've been doing it this way for over a year. Just make sure to let it settle for an hour or so before your pump kicks on. You don't want to pump the cloudy mixture into your DT. Any sediment that does not get mixed into the solution gets mixed into the next batch.
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Hmmm thats fine when you are using it fully saturated but if he if he needs only half spoon for a gallon lets say .. isnt that increasing the concentration of the next batch ?
 
Yeah, should clarify.....this is if you fully saturate your water with kalk. If you're aren't fully saturating, there won't be any leftover sediment anyway.
 
Sawdonkey said:
Yeah, should clarify.....this is if you fully saturate your water with kalk. If you're aren't fully saturating, there won't be any leftover sediment anyway.
Click to expand...

:) true that but if you dont mix properly ..sediment would still be there even its half saturated or so i thought. so i always used those one gallon bottles to mix to full saturation and then pour into ato container
 
tinman said:
Depends on how much Alk your system is using up ..

blindly putting 1 or 2 spoons of Kalk per gallon might cause issues with alk raising up too much

Process of kalk in ATO :

1. so test your tank for alk and test it again after 3 days and then again the next day and take an average of how much alk is being used per day
2. then mean while you need to figure out how much Ato water your tank is taking in due to evaporation per day
3. Calculate how much KALK needs to be mixed with your ato per gallon so that enough (not more) amount of Kalk goes into your system via top off to keep you alk stable. .


Nothing aint easy in this hobby yo :)
Click to expand...
Sounds so scientific. I'll just post a thread when my kalk comes in with those numbers and hopefully someone can help
 
anarchy said:
Sounds so scientific. I'll just post a thread when my kalk comes in with those numbers and hopefully someone can help
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It doesn't have to be so scientific. I use trial and error and keep my alk pretty stable.
[MENTION=814]tinman[/MENTION], please explain how to calculate how strong you should mix up your limewater, given a specific alk usage rate and evaporation rate. I've never read this anywhere but am interested to learn.
 
Have you guys dosed Kalk without a PH monitor as well? I would think that would be very hard to keep track of when using in ATO..
 
Sawdonkey said:
It doesn't have to be so scientific. I use trial and error and keep my alk pretty stable.
[MENTION=814]tinman[/MENTION], please explain how to calculate how strong you should mix up your limewater, given a specific alk usage rate and evaporation rate. I've never read this anywhere but am interested to learn.
Click to expand...

Not so very scientific or anything .. sorry for making it sound complicated ..
what i meant was ..

Lets say the tank is 30 gallons and the corals are using up alk from 9dkh to 8.5dkh ( meaning usage of 0.5 dkh) and lets assumehis top off is using about half gallon of ro water..

Fully saturated lime water top off even to start with would put in half gallon of it in the tank resulting in a raise of Alk from 9 to 10.5.

Half gallon of fully saturated lime water over 30 gallons of water volume would raise alk by 2 points but his corals are using only 0.5dkh a day so leaving unchecked even for 2 days would cause the Alk to climb to about 12 theoretically. which is very very bad.

so in this case 30 gallons of water volume and usage of 0.5dkh alk would mean adding only 0.13 US gallons per day of saturated lime water to compensate for alk used

As top off is only half gallon a day and it needs to have 0.13 gallons of saturated lime water in it, every gallon of top off water needs to have 0.25 gallons roughly and is attained by mixing half tea spoon of kalk wasser for every gallon of top off.


I heard the reef chemistry calculator in the link below is old and cant comment on how accurate it is, but it is what i used to start with.

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html


sorry for the long post but hope this helps.
 
sk8elenex92 said:
Have you guys dosed Kalk without a PH monitor as well? I would think that would be very hard to keep track of when using in ATO..
Click to expand...

I don't really worry about ph in my tank and don't monitor it. Alkalinity acts as a ph buffer, so if it is good, your ph should not swing wildly. Now that said, if you were to dump tons of kalk in at once, you'd spike your ph. By using ato, you are adding it at a fairly steady and slow pace.

Read this RHF article:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/5/chemistry
 
+1 .. if using kalk and ato nothing to worry about ph ..

[MENTION=1455]Sawdonkey[/MENTION], question for you specifically as your tank is biiiiig and assuming your ATO reservoir is BiG. i have read somewhere (have to dig up where) that you shouldn't let lime water sit for more than a couple of days or it would go bad. i also read that when lime water comes in contact with air it forms a layer at the top and prevents rest of the water from reacting with air and going bad. Whats your take on that ?
Sawdonkey said:
I don't really worry about ph in my tank and don't monitor it. Alkalinity acts as a ph buffer, so if it is good, your ph should not swing wildly. Now that said, if you were to dump tons of kalk in at once, you'd spike your ph. By using ato, you are adding it at a fairly steady and slow pace.

Read this RHF article:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/5/chemistry
Click to expand...
 
tinman said:
+1 .. if using kalk and ato nothing to worry about ph ..

[MENTION=1455]Sawdonkey[/MENTION], question for you specifically as your tank is biiiiig and assuming your ATO reservoir is BiG. i have read somewhere (have to dig up where) that you shouldn't let lime water sit for more than a couple of days or it would go bad. i also read that when lime water comes in contact with air it forms a layer at the top and prevents rest of the water from reacting with air and going bad. Whats your take on that ?
Click to expand...

You are correct....25 gallon ato. A lot of people say what you are saying, but RHF pretty much says that the degradation due to co2 exposure is very minimal and not worth worrying about. God, I am making myself out to be a huge RHF fanboy!

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-05/rhf/feature/
 
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