Kalk dripper for a sumpless tank (not gravity fed)

Kairus

New member
I have a sumpless 72 bow and want to start dripping kalk but I don't want to use a gravity fed container. I don't have much room above the tank and a large container is going to look ugly. A small container would have to be refilled too often and I feel like it would be a pain since it's crowded up there (HOB filter, skimmer, t5 fixture, LED fixture).

So I'm thinking I could mix a 5g bucket of kalkwasser and put it in my stand then pump the water up to my tank with two aqua lifters. I would chain them together since one aqua lifter can't pump up the 53" to the top of the tank. Then I would dial in the drip rate with one of those gang valves used for air pumps.

Does this idea sound good? I would only be dripping 1 drop every 2 seconds or so (my alk/calc demands aren't that high, so maybe even less once I dial it in), so I'm not worried about overflowing the tank. I'm evaporating/skimming out a gallon a day currently. I don't have an ATO I just pour in some RODI water when my HOB filter starts making splashing sounds (it's perfect, the sound bothers me so it's a perfect reminder).

Do aqua lifters have trouble with back pressure? I was thinking since the gang valve has 4 valves I could simply run one of the lines back to the kalkwasser container so there would be no back pressure.
 
I suggest you use kalk in the topoff water, used a mor powerful pump and a float switch somewhere in the tank. Your current path will be problematic when your Cal/ALK demands increase. Drippers are extremely inaccurate and chaining two pumps doesn't sound like a good idea for long term success.
 
Well kalk in my top off wouldn't work, I would spike my pH like crazy. I wish there was a more powerful pump that works like an aqualifter.

I've read people chaining aqua lifters together to increase head height without an issue. Hmm.
 
I put kalk in my top-off water with no pH swing issues. Just put it on a slow drip overnight and then put away the container in the morning so you don't have to look at it. I top off every 2-3 days so this works well for me and minimizes hassles/ equipment.
 
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