Recommendations for Kalkwasser Dosing

[jayteerq]

Hi guys! I've reached a little bit of an obstacle in my journey to achieving high PH. My natural PH levels hover around 7.5-7.6.
I added a CO2 Scrubber which got me up to 7.8.
I started dosing Kalkwasser and that got me to a stable 8.4 which im very happy about. Currently dosing about 5500mL a day in a 65g AIO.
My problem now is that I am dosing more than I am evaporating which means my water level keeps rising and in return im sure diluting my salinity gradually.
I'm wondering if anyone here has ran into the same issue while trying to achieve a high stable PH. Any tips or advice on what I can do to maintain a consistent water level with high PH?

I'm currently dosing 2 tsp of Kalk per gal through my Dos QuietDrive. It has a command to turn off at 8.4PH so it turns on and off throughout the day keeping PH in the range of 8.38-8.40.

Im also dosing about 20mL of AFR in the morning.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[exnisstech]

Sounds like you may have to move to a stirrer or dose a concentrated slurry. I have only read about those methods. I've never had to dose more than my evap rate but I don't watch pH I only dosed kalk for alk and calcium.

 

[Garf]

Hi guys! I've reached a little bit of an obstacle in my journey to achieving high PH. My natural PH levels hover around 7.5-7.6.
I added a CO2 Scrubber which got me up to 7.8.
I started dosing Kalkwasser and that got me to a stable 8.4 which im very happy about. Currently dosing about 5500mL a day in a 65g AIO.
My problem now is that I am dosing more than I am evaporating which means my water level keeps rising and in return im sure diluting my salinity gradually.
I'm wondering if anyone here has ran into the same issue while trying to achieve a high stable PH. Any tips or advice on what I can do to maintain a consistent water level with high PH?

I'm currently dosing 2 tsp of Kalk per gal through my Dos QuietDrive. It has a command to turn off at 8.4PH so it turns on and off throughout the day keeping PH in the range of 8.38-8.40.

Im also dosing about 20mL of AFR in the morning.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

5.5ltrs in a 60 gallon? What's the alkalinity at?

 

[jayteerq]

Sounds like you may have to move to a stirrer or dose a concentrated slurry. I have only read about those methods. I've never had to dose more than my evap rate but I don't watch pH I only dosed kalk for alk and calcium.

My softys seem to appreciate the higher PH more but I am starting to think maybe chasing high PH isnt worth the trouble and to just maintain a stable 8 flat is better.

 

[jayteerq]

5.5ltrs in a 60 gallon? What's the alkalinity at?

Alk is at 8-8.3

 

[jayteerq]

Im super new to reefing so I may be going about this the wrong way..

 

[Dburr1014]

Hi guys! I've reached a little bit of an obstacle in my journey to achieving high PH. My natural PH levels hover around 7.5-7.6.
I added a CO2 Scrubber which got me up to 7.8.
I started dosing Kalkwasser and that got me to a stable 8.4 which im very happy about. Currently dosing about 5500mL a day in a 65g AIO.
My problem now is that I am dosing more than I am evaporating which means my water level keeps rising and in return im sure diluting my salinity gradually.
I'm wondering if anyone here has ran into the same issue while trying to achieve a high stable PH. Any tips or advice on what I can do to maintain a consistent water level with high PH?

I'm currently dosing 2 tsp of Kalk per gal through my Dos QuietDrive. It has a command to turn off at 8.4PH so it turns on and off throughout the day keeping PH in the range of 8.38-8.40.

Im also dosing about 20mL of AFR in the morning.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Have you tried only dosing at night?
What happens if you have the dos turn off at ph 8.3?
Anything over 8 is good.

 

[jayteerq]

Have you tried only dosing at night?
What happens if you have the dos turn off at ph 8.3?
Anything over 8 is good.

I have tried but I think because i dose AFR in the morning, my PH tends to drop during the day as well.. I think im going to see how much is required to keep a stable PH of 8.0-8.2 and hopefully it'll be less than my evap rate.

 

[Garf]

Alk is at 8-8.3

That's a lot of kalk, unless you've got a packed tank, but it doesn't sound like it if your pH doesn't increase during the day. You got a tank pic?

 

[jayteerq]

That's a lot of kalk, unless you've got a packed tank, but it doesn't sound like it if your pH doesn't increase during the day. You got a tank pic?

Right! I feel like its a ridiculous amount of kalk. My tank is also in the basement... a very full house with a dog. Idk maybe alot of co2 in the air. My natural PH levels are very low before applying any method. Tank is only a few months old with small frags.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I posted this in another thread.

Awc with high salinity storage to reduce footprint

I'm new to reefing and I'm looking to build an auto water change system with a small footprint because it all needs to fit in my living room. I have 150 gallon tank, an RODI unit, apex & the dos and can do the plumbing from the RODI unit installed under the kitchen sink and to the drain there...

www.reef2reef.com

Yes, that's me...

I do mix salt to roughly 60ppt and dose it to beat the evaporation wall for dosing kalkwasser.

I made my own awc that has software that takes the gray matter out of the process.

I simply tell the awc what the premixed concentrated salt mixed to and it does all the calculations for me.

It's not suited for the application of lowering the salt storage container foot print. But the concept is basically the same.

Just off the top of my head though, the purpose as intended by @shoedy is to reduce the footprint of storage containers. The rub here is that whatever you're dosing from the concentrated salt needs to be offset by a precisely metered amount of rodi water, which will need to be in another storage bin.

With all that aside the math is pretty straight forward. If your target salinity is 35ppt and you dose 1L of RODI , you would need 1.4L of 60ppt to achieve 35ppt.

Concentrated Salt - Target Salinity = Delta Salinity

Target salinity ÷ Delta Salinity = Salinity Ratio

RODI in ml × Salinity Ratio = Concentrated Salt in ml

Example:

60-35=25

35÷25=1.4

1000×1.4=1400

Plug in any number for you concentrated salt, RODI and your targeted Salinity, and it will give you the proper amount of each to dose.

 

[Garf]

Right! I feel like its a ridiculous amount of kalk. My tank is also in the basement... a very full house with a dog. Idk maybe alot of co2 in the air. My natural PH levels are very low before applying any method. Tank is only a few months old with small frags.

Is your sand going clumpy?

 

[jayteerq]

Is your sand going clumpy?

I do have clumps in some areas around the caves. Not major maybe under 10 clumps of sand in the 4' tank. I was assuming it was from my goby making cave structures haha. Could that be a result of something else?

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

A little back story for me, I've been mixing concentrated salt mix for some time now to combat against hitting my evaporation point when dosing calcium hydroxide.

I target pH which is undoubtedly a risky choice. I try to warn people that you need enough calcium carbonate uptake in the form of corals to combat against high alkalinity.

With that said, I went as far as designing a kalk controller which dosed kalk based on monitoring tank and kalk reactor pH. And then made a AWC that communicated with the kalk controller so that it can work in tandem with dosing kalk passed daily evaporation and then precisely remove the right amount of old saltwater and injection the proper amount of concentrated salt to mix with the kalk effluent to make a perfect 35ppt (or what ever you keep your tanks salinity at).

I got tired of doing that math and changing the pump rates manually everytime I mixed up a new batch of concentrated salt water.

 

[jayteerq]

A little back story for me, I've been mixing concentrated salt mix for some time now to combat against hitting my evaporation point when dosing calcium hydroxide.

I target pH which is undoubtedly a risky choice. I try to warn people that you need enough calcium carbonate uptake in the form of corals to combat against high alkalinity.

With that said, I went as far as designing a kalk controller which dosed kalk based on monitoring tank and kalk reactor pH. And then made a AWC that communicated with the kalk controller so that it can work in tandem with dosing kalk passed daily evaporation and then precisely remove the right amount of old saltwater and injection the proper amount of concentrated salt to mix with the kalk effluent to make a perfect 35ppt (or what ever you keep your tanks salinity at).

I got tired of doing that math and changing the pump rates manually everytime I mixed up a new batch of concentrated salt water.

That sounds really bad butt! haha

 

[Garf]

I do have clumps in some areas around the caves. Not major maybe under 10 clumps of sand in the 4' tank. I was assuming it was from my goby making cave structures haha. Could that be a result of something else?

I think the advice will be to verify your pH, then to reduce kalkwasser additions as increasing it may just cause a solid sandbed. Monitor alkalinity to see if it drops significantly. I've got no sandbed (as such) in my tank however.

 

[KStatefan]

5500ml of saturated kalk in 65 gallons per day would be adding 2.5dKh of alk every day and your coral is not using that much so I would assume it is precipitating out.

 

[jayteerq]

5500ml of saturated kalk in 65 gallons per day would be adding 2.5dKh of alk every day and your coral is not using that much so I would assume it is precipitating out.

Yeah oddly enough it has never affected my alk and i dont get why! My alk has been stable at 8-8.5

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

That sounds really bad butt! haha

I made a video to provide a quick overview.

 

[slythy]

How sure are you on your alk being only 8.3?

I have 20+ sps frags and everything is fully covered in coraline in my 180g and am dosing 40ml (0.3-0.4dkh) of brs soda ash a day to keep it stable.

Id be worried your going waaaaay higher.

Your adding 3dkh a day and then dosing on top of that?!