Thursday, April 2, 2009

Dosing Kalk

I recently picked up an Aqualifter Dosing Pump to set up a better method to drip kalk (also called kalkawasser or Calcium Hydroxide) . Here is a very nice article about the benefits of using kalk, how to mix it and suggested drip rates. The main use of Kalk in a reef is to raise Calcium and Alkalinity, but primarily calcium. It had a pH of 12 so it also helps raise pH. It MUST be added slowly so as not to shock your tank. To drip kalk it is really benifical to have a sump, where you can put your setup over it so all you need to do is suck to start a suction. Originaly this is what I did on my display tank as I have no sump. This is fine, but in either case you need to drip it in a place where it will be quickly mixed up with the tank water (ie lots of flow).
Here is a picture of my old setup. Ugly but effective for dosing.
I know this is a bad picture but you can see how ugly it is to have a bucket sitting ontop of my tank. To not have it ontop of your tank you have to options:
  1. Put it otop of your sump
  2. Dose it with a pump
I have been planing on getting a sump, but since it is still relativly far off I decided to go with the latter.
First you need to know how an aqualifter works. One of the two red outlets sucks water or other liquid in well the other pushes it out. So all you need is a little airline tubing and you are good to go
Here is a nice diagram (photo credit: smarcus101 on photobucket)
NOTE: I don't use a powerhead to mix the kalk.

So I put the bucket of kalk under the tank, and connected airline tubing from the bucket to the pump and some to the output where the water would flow to. See PIC
Then I put the output all the way up to the display tank where I wanted the kalk to drip. I also added a flow control valve to limit flow (remember: Kalk needs to be dripped slowly!)
See Pictures
Finlay I positioned the end where I wanted the Kalk to dripClose up
Finlay I plugged it in and it worked beautifully: all the equipment and buckets were under my tank closed away in my stand, while the kalk was pumped up unobtrusively. Once in install my sump I will use an aqualifter pump topoff water into my sump when a float valve trips (this is called an ATO or Automatic Top Off). But that is another post ;)
Here is one final shot of the setup under my tank:

No comments:

Post a Comment