Help me better understand methods with kalkwasser

[smccart22]

When it comes to dosing ca and alk I have always used the two part with no problems, I never minded having to dose the tank every night.. Now I'm starting to read more and more about dosing with kalkwasser and plan on making the jump. As much as I understand the whole organic chemistry aspect of the whole thing a great understanding of how to dose has eluded me. Some people drip to account for loss in evaporation where as it seems some people just fill their ago bin with the lime water? I guess my question comes down to whether or not I would be alright to just fill my ATo bin with lime water and let it go the same as I would do if the bin were filled with regular ro/di water?

 

[Flanders]

Either will work. I always used to drip my loss in evap in the early morning before the tank woke up when the pH is low. I don't know if that actually helped though.

 

[tmz]

When limewater( kalwasser )is dosed it raise the ph .Too much at once ,or too much concetrated in a small area can cause precipitation of calcium carbonate. Dosing just th clear limewater and not the slurry is important as the latter holds precipitated impurites and may hold undissoved kalk if it was mixed to more than 2 tsps per gallon.
Ther are limits to the amount of klimewater you can dose at one time without risking a precipitous ph spike. Generally, it works out to spreading our daily top off over at least 5 hours or 5 increments throughoutthe 24 hour day.

 

[smccart22]

Ok Tom so if I have the slightest understanding and we are on the same page, say my ATo kicks in 6 times in a day to bring my water level in the sump back up, if I do it manually in the morning with the saturated limewater from the water in the middle and say once around dinner time so just two top offs throughout the day with slw I should be fine until I can better observe and compare the effects and hammer down a more permanent number? Numbers are just hypothetical at te moment fyi

 

[tmz]

I'm not sure how your ato works. I don't use one. I use a a still reservoir with a set daily dose to approximate top off and the timer spreads it out over 24 hours. The main thing is to avoid dosing more than 1/4 tsp of kalk powder per 50 gallons of tank volume in any given hour. That's a max of about 1/2 quart(16 ozs) of clear kalkwasser at full saturation( 2 tsps per gallon) per hour per 50 gallons of water volume. Spreading it out more is even better.

 

[smccart22]

Alright yeah I'm well under that, I guess we will see how this goes then lol, never ending science experiment hahaha