Kalk and vinegar.

The reefer

The reefer

Active member
Has anyone used kalk in there ATo and dosed vinegar seperatly? How does this affect the ph if not mixed together. If they dose at the same time would my ph shoot up or will it b fine?
 
the ph will still be high but you will dissolve more calicum and alk into the top off and you will be carbon dosing at the same time. what size tank?
 
I have a 30g deep blue tank. Total water volume is about 35 gallons. I want to add kalk for now until I buy a doser that can b setup for my 2 part. I'm dosing manually and I keep forgetting sometimes. And for the vinegar, I want to start carbon dosing to help out with nitrates and phosphates I got a ugly algea bloom that seems to b going away now. I'm using Gfo to help but I don't want to have to keep buying it if the vinegar help bring down the phosphate.
 
The reefer said:
I'm interested in putting kalk in my ATo and dosing vinegar with 1 dosing pump that I have.
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Go for it. It's simple and nearly free. I've been dosing kalk for nearly a year and really like the results. I was adding vinegar to my kalk, but it was raising my alk too much. Now I just mix the kalk with ro. When my colonies grow and my tank my tank consumes more alk, I'll start adding vinegar.
 
Sawdonkey said:
Go for it. It's simple and nearly free. I've been dosing kalk for nearly a year and really like the results. I was adding vinegar to my kalk, but it was raising my alk too much. Now I just mix the kalk with ro. When my colonies grow and my tank my tank consumes more alk, I'll start adding vinegar.
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I do want to start kalk. And I think I'm adding it today. But I'm just curious what would happen if my ATo has kalk and I dose vinegar with another doser? Would my alk go up also even if there not mixed together.
 
I don't think so. The water in your ato would be fully saturated with kalk so it would be incapable of carrying any more.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
 
The reefer said:
I do want to start kalk. And I think I'm adding it today. But I'm just curious what would happen if my ATo has kalk and I dose vinegar with another doser? Would my alk go up also even if there not mixed together.
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It should have very little effect if any considering the precipitate is in the ATO container.

Make sure you calculate how much kalk to add to your ATO for the consumption your corals use. If not your going to cause alk swings or spikes.
 
Sawdonkey said:
I don't think so. The water in your ato would be fully saturated with kalk so it would be incapable of carrying any more.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
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I'd agree. On a side note, my tank was never as happy as when I supersaturated kalk with vinegar and dosed via top-off/ato. My alk was so stable the sticks exploded with growth and happiness. The growth increased kalk demand until finally I was maxed out and had to go to a 2-part dosing pump. Now that I'm restarting the tank I might go back to it.
 
just watch out with dosing kalk. if your evaporation changes so with the dosing of alk. you got to test somewhat regularity, not a set it and forget it thing like dosers. watch out when the seasons/temps change. i forgot to test during the fall and my alk was 15 after the summer was over, also once again when i had my lights off for a few days to control temp, the corals didnt use the alk/cal and it spiked again.
 
Concerning Skunkmere above- I agree and therefore I think it would work better if you dosed the saturated kalkwasser at a specific amount per day, and make up the rest of the evaporation with ro. Implimentation may be tricky.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk
 
You can always buy a kalk reactor but they aren't cheap. As skunk said, he forgot to test. A simple alk test biweekly is a smart thing to do even if you have a ca reactor, or dosing pumps, or kalk reactor, etc...same goes for dosing kalk in ato. IMO nothing should be set-and-forget in this hobby.
 
For those who have a RKL and want to set two ATO while dosing kalk.. I had my 5gal with kalk and my 1gal slim container from BRS with just RO/DI..

Was able to set my RKL to control my kalk based on PH levels. Will shut off if reached at 8.3 when dosing kalk.. When this was triggered it turned on my other ATO to keep sump levels leveled and salinity in check.. After PH levels were down it started dosing again with kalk.

Keep in mind when lights are running full blast it will cause PH to rise and decrease as it shuts off. So this will require you to observe your PH levels to set and make sure you test..

Hope you guy's understood me..lol!!

bu5y6e3u.jpg
 
This is actually amazing
Lil BamBam said:
For those who have a RKL and want to set two ATO while dosing kalk.. I had my 5gal with kalk and my 1gal slim container from BRS with just RO/DI..

Was able to set my RKL to control my kalk based on PH levels. Will shut off if reached at 8.3 when dosing kalk.. When this was triggered it turned on my other ATO to keep sump levels leveled and salinity in check.. After PH levels were down it started dosing again with kalk.

Keep in mind when lights are running full blast it will cause PH to rise and decrease as it shuts off. So this will require you to observe your PH levels to set and make sure you test..

Hope you guy's understood me..lol!!

bu5y6e3u.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for all the info fellas. I still need to figure out how the kalk is gonna do in my system. I filled my ATo container on Friday and Saturday morning, my container sprung a leak. I had about 1/4-1/2 a gallon on the floor and the wife was not happy lol. I think it was the kalk that caused it the crack. I should b getting a new container today. So hopefully I'll start again today.
 
I use all of them. 2 part, Kalk reactor and Vinegar manually. You need to learn how to manually dose vinegar because you start off with .08 mls for the first week then test. Its the same as Vodka dosing except 4x less potent. They dont have a measurement table for Vinegar only vodka.
 
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