dosing lime water

[Jeff]

i have been reading articles on dosing lime water and i have some pickeling lime at home so i am willing to try it. i do not have an auto top off system, but instead i have a 34 gl. brute trashcan full of ro water that i use a bucket to pull water out and place it in my tanks.
would i add some lime to the ro water in the trashcan and still be able to use the same way? and will i still have to dose b- ionic daily to keep up the calcium and alk demands of the tank. the last but not least, how much to add? any info would be great.

[OldSalty]

Jeff
There are several ways to dose limewater(kalkwasser) In your case, a good way would be to use a gallon jug and fill it with ro water, then mix about a couple of tablespoons your pickeling lime. wait at least 1 hour to let it settle out then pour off the clear liquid and use that in your tank. Be carefull doing it this way as kalk has a ph of 12 and you can cause ph shock. The safest way is to pour the clear liquid in a doser and drip it in at night. You can make a cheap doser from a gallon milk jug and use an airline valve to drip the kalk in your tank. I myself use a kalk reactor that Jim D made. With that method you need a dosing pump and a mj600 power head but it works the best.

Good luck
Kelly

[GaryP]

I made a couple of dosing jugs from 1 gal. ice tea containers (from Walmart) and a 1/4" bulkhead fitting. You can get the fitting from Home Depot but I have never found them with the backup nut and washer. I think I got mine from Alex.

When dosing you have to drip it in slowly. This not lonly prevents a rapid change it pH, but it also prevents precipitation of calcium carbonate. If you just dump a large amount in at one time, you are going to quickly reduce the solubility of the calcium and alkalinity and its going to precipitate out. You'll be going backwards with these levels. You'll also probably scale up your pumps and they will freeze up.

When you build a dosing jug, you want the fitting to be far enough off the bottom of the container to allow room for any excess solid Kalk to fall to the bottom after you stir it up. You DO NOT want to allow any excess solid Kalk going to your tank. Kalk is only 3% soluble in water, so you may have a little excess in your container.

I wouldn't suggest keeping a large quantity of lime water in a container like a trash can. The Kalk will react with CO2 in the air to form calcium carbonate.

[matt]

If you're pouring in by the bucket, you can't do that with limewater for the reasons that the other guys said. The easiest thing to do would be to get a sizable container near your tank, fill it with R.O. water, mix in a little pickling lime, and use a peristaltic dosing pump to get it into your sump slowly. The pump is much more reliable and trouble free than any of the gravity dosers. BTW, 2 tabespoons per gallon is way more than will dissolve; more like 1 or 2 teaspoons/gallon.

Better IMO would be a kalkreactor, as it keeps the KW from any contact with air and ensures that you're getting 100% saturated KW all the time, plus it's very convenient and the tubing from reservoire to pump to reactor only has water going through it. Typically you put the reactor in your stand next to the sump and just have a short piece of tubing from the reactor to the sump.

Certainly you could cut down on the B ionic, but whether you could entirely stop it depends on your calcium demand and rate of evaporation, which limits the amount of KW you can dose.

[GaryP]

1.7% solubility of Kalk in water at 70 F:

.017 (1.7%) X 8.33 (weight of 1 gal. of water) = .14 lbs. = 2oz./gal.

Any more then that will fall to the bottom. 2 oz. does sound like a lot. I think the pickling lime container is 1 lb. Kalk is pretty light stuff, like flour.

[OldSalty]

Matt, did I say 1 to 2 tablespoons? :blush Opps, I mean't 1 to 2 teaspoons like ya said. However, if you use a kalk reactor I really doesn't matter how much ya put in, since your stiring it periodacly during the day. This is what I was told about kalk reactors.

[SuperXdude]

I used a gallon jug with a lee's valve and some tubing. 1 teaspoon of pickling lime per gallon and I would drip it at night. About one drop per second would last roughly 6-7 hours.

Gary said it right. Make sure the valve is 1.5 - 2 inches off the bottom so excess kalc can settle and you don't let the "pure" kalc into the tank.


SuperXdude

[matt]

Matt, did I say 1 to 2 tablespoons? :blush Opps, I mean't 1 to 2 teaspoons like ya said. However, if you use a kalk reactor I really doesn't matter how much ya put in, since your stiring it periodacly during the day. This is what I was told about kalk reactors.

My kalk reactor I can put a whole pound in and forget it for a few months, because the stirring pump is pretty gentle. I have it set to stir 4 mins four times a day, but I bet it would be fine just 4 mins once or twice a day. The main thing is to have a good quality dosing pump. I used to do the drip with an airline valve, I also tried one of the medical "pinch" valves that use a roller to squeeze the tubing, and while these things work, it's much more convenient and reliable to have the dosing pump.

[JimD]

You dont need a "dosing" pump when youre usng a reactor, I use a $12 pump made by Toms called an "Aqualifter" pump. Same pump that comes with most CPR overflows. They work perfectly as long as you use them to pump pure water and not kalk water.

[matt]

Hey Jim, what kind of flow rate does that pump have? The dosing pump I'm using goes from 1-300 ml/hour with standard tubing and 3-900 ml/hr with the oversize tubing, which is about as big as icemaker hose. Mine is set at 180ml/hr, which is a little more than a gallon a day; it's a drop every few seconds. I don't know how you could get anywhere near that slow a rate without a dosing pump. I guess with yours it's on a timer so it comes on every few hours or so for a couple of minutes?

[JimD]

Matt, Im not sure about the flow rate on this pump, let me check to see if I can find out, or, I think Foster and Smith carry them, you might check their site. I use mine with a float switch wired directly to the pump, it seems to deliver a significant amount of water as it quickly raises the float switch to the off position.

[caferacermike]

Gary you mention that Kalk can make your PH soar. I am wondering if dosing my tank with Kalk is another contributing factor for my PH of 9.0. Couldn't core any calibrating fluid for my PinPoint this week, only offered up an old packet that had been opened who knows when. What type of high PH would one get from dosing Kalk? Would it spike and then come down? Would it stay high? I began dosing again after finding that my ALK, and CA were in good order. Using Kent Kalk, a Kent dripper assembly, 1 teaspoon in about a 1/2 gallon container set to drip out over 3 days before needing a refill. About one drop every 30 seconds.

I doubt it is the culprit and I'm sure it is the meter but any added info will be good for the old mental database.

[matt]

You mean when you posted about your high ph you didn't mention you were adding KW? Well, since KW has a ph of 12, do you think it could contribute to a high ph....come on dude.

Look, unless you dumped a lot of KW in there pretty fast, it wouldn't push your ph to 9.0. But you should have mentioned it, unless you were unaware that KW raises ph.

[caferacermike]

Wow kinda pushy Matt, sorry dude. Honestly I had no idea it would raise PH to 12. I'm not a super genius salt water nutter like yourself, see that's why I'm here. To learn aas much as I can from you. Seriously I'm taken aback by what you just wrote.

Right there in my first sentence you can see that I did not know this. As you read my reply you can see that I am asking as sincerely as possible.

Notice again that in my last sentence I again reaffirm that I do not know this answer and found this thread to be an interesting read as it could also pertain to my own thread about high PH.

Thanks though for taking the time out of your day to belittle me.

See that's why I asked Gary and not you to answer this question. Gary has a sensibility to his replies. I've seen you attack other members before and that's why I'll let your answer slide.



edited for profanity - tony

[OldSalty]

Wow, dude, get your feelings off your sleeve. No one is trying to belittle you. Why do you take things so personal. I've seen ya do this in other posts. CHILL OUT.

[GaryP]

Mike,

It doesn't sound like you are dosing Kalk real heavy, but stop dosing it and see if pH comes back down. Kalk will not push your ph up to 12. That's just the pH of the Kalk water itself. Kalk is partially neutralized by the CO2 in the tank to create alkalinity. Stop dripping and see what happens.

[matt]

Thanks though for taking the time out of your day to belittle me.
.

Nobody's belittling you, and I find this reply quite offensive. You post on this forum asking for help, and when you get comments you don't especially like you freak out. Name calling on this or any other forum usually has little to do with the issue at hand, and more to do with the name caller's personal emotional baggage.

[Jeff]

hold on yall, matt your reply did sound like you were talking down to mike, and mike dont call anyone names if you feel slighted. just tell that person what you felt like he was doing and then let it go. please i started this thread for some info for me and any one else who doesnt know about dripping kalk, lets keep this civil, not civil war.

[Jimnorris]

Dosing Kalk---at one time I thought I would never learn how to do it! JimD help me threw that barrier and I am now using a kalkreactor built by Matt. Once you learn it---it is really a great tool for reefkeeping!
Jim

[OldSalty]

Yea Jim, I know what you mean, I was the same way. Used the dump & pray method. I got ahold of one of the kalk reactors made by Jim D. I bought an aquamedic dosing pump and a mj 600 to use as a stiring pump. seems to work well. I also use a koraline calcium reactor. Now I might be wrong but I use the kalk reactor to help maintail PH levels, not for calcium.

[JimD]

Kalk will definately help keep Ph stable if dosed correctly, it will also help with any P04 issues there may be, also, it will help maintain Alk and Ca even with a Ca reactor. Kalk is good...
By the way, those reactors are designed to use a Maxi 1200 for shorter mix times in order to prolong impeller life.

[OldSalty]

Jim, Wow didn't know that, I do have one. As it stands now I've got the 600 mixing 3 times a day for 30 min each time. I'll change it to a 1200 and set it for about 5 min each cycle. Is that good?

[JimD]

5 minutes should be just about right. If you want, remove the lid, fire up the pump and see how long it takes before you see the vortex develop at the surface of the water, when you begin to see it develop, another 3/4 minutes should be all you need. I recommend a settle time of no less than two hours. And make sure youre not dosing while mixing.

[OldSalty]

Thanks a bunch Jim. And thanks for a GREAT REACTOR. It has worked flawsley for me ;)

Kelly