Kalkwasser bandwagon, how to ride it?

[Ismellikefish]

Ok, this weekend I made my own kalkwasser bottle and dripper.
( I have been dosing seprate ) and painted the back glass back. Painting it after it is setup is a pain.....but thats another thread.

I followed a guide , 1 teaspoon of lime ( Ms Wages ) per 1 gallon of RO/DI water.

My question is how potant is this stuff? I am not sure how much needs to be dripped in. I don't want to overdose.

1 drip every 5 min, or 1 drip every 5 seconds?

Is the above mixture good?

Thanks in advance

[justinzimm]

You want to dose pretty slowly. Ideally you would dose at the same rate of evaporation. If you can't do this just make sure your pH doesn't swing more than .2 higher when adding.

If you dose it when it's clear and don't dose faster than your evaporation rate it's pretty hard to overdose.

Just check your alk and Ca after the first few times...

Justin

[MSU Fan]

even if you overdose, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Where is the mixture going to dose at (sump or display in front of a powerhead?). If you over dose the system, the kalk may precipitate and make your tank look like it is snowing, but I have read a number of times that that is not dangerous.

But you do want to dose in a high velocity area away from critters if possible (again, either a sump or in front a powerhead in the display). Keep an eye on this, because the kalk can clog an airline very quickly, and your drip will need to be super slow (think less than 1 per second unless your tank is huge).

[seapug]

welcome aboard. I drip a fresh milky solution of two teaspoons in one gallon of water every other night. I don't do it for the Calcium additions as much as I want the Phosphate precipitation and Ph boost. It does a great job of keeping the sand clean, burning off film/slime algae, and has been a huge help in beating back the hair algae outbreak I had this summer.

I use a plastic kool aid pitcher from Target, a piece of airline tubing, and a landscaping drip emitter from Home Depot. The whole rig cost me less than $5.00.

[Ismellikefish]

It is going to drip in my sump.

Ok, so if my cal/alk get a little high it won't hurt.
And I just have to watch my PH and make sure it doesn't swing high/low

Thanks for the reply's !!!!

[Ismellikefish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10735981#post10735981 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by seapug
welcome aboard. I drip a fresh milky solution of two teaspoons in one gallon of water every other night. I don't do it for the Calcium additions as much as I want the Phosphate precipitation and Ph boost. It does a great job of keeping the sand clean, burning off film/slime algae, and has been a huge help in beating back the hair algae outbreak I had this summer.

I use a plastic kool aid pitcher from Target, a piece of airline tubing, and a landscaping drip emitter from Home Depot. The whole rig cost me less than $5.00.

That what I did cept I was cheap ( like $5 isn't cheap enough ) and just used a milk jug with 2 drilled holes in the lid ( one for primer and the other the drip line )

[BrassMonkey]

slow drip would be the way to go.at one time i just put it in my ato. the ph was fine but ruined my sump and locked up all the pumps,

i had to pull the sump and scrape all the thick calcium off the walls.

[George Grogan]

Great article by Randy Holmes-Farley:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.htm

Lots of good info:)