calcium/alkalinity demands

[blueboy]

i am looking for some opinions on how to suppliment on my new tank(60G). i am considering either using 2 part, which would mean getting a dosing pump. or kalk water, so i could maybe use my osmo for delivery. my first question is does kalk have to be mixed daily? this seems to be what i'm reading, but i could swear i'd heard that only so much kalk will dissolve, so you could, in theory, dump a bunch of kalk in the bottom of a bucket, and add water untill it all dissolved, as long as the pump were off the bottom, so as not to put any of the undissolved powder in the tank. is this the case?, or did that just come to me in a dream. the new tank will have an in tank sump across the back. the first compartment will be small, and this should be were the evap shows up. so that would mean that the osmo would be dosing small amounts often(it also means i'd be hearing that pump more often!), and it would be adding it into the skimmer intake. could this be bad? i figure it should be well mixed before it gets to the fuge section, but could this effect the skimmer in any way? i really need a system that i won't have to mess with every day, and at current i'd say my demands are fairly low. i look forward to your suggestions/input.

[blueboy]

yeah, with b-ionic i figured i could just use a 2 chanel dosing pump, right? thay would be pretty low maintanence. i guess i would have to keep the osmo too, just for top-off.

[blueboy]

i just want something automated. we live out in the country, so when we're away, there's noone willing, or knowledgeable to keep the tank up.

[blueboy]

any other opinions/experiences? what are you guys doing?

[matt]

In my 60 gallon I have one dosing pump delivering KW, and another dosing 2 part. You can use your osmolator to deliver KW; the best way IMO to do that would be to have the osmo push water into a kalkreactor; this way the oso pump is not sitting in KW. But, lots of people just mix up KW in their reservoire and let the pump sit in it. There supposedly is minimal degradation of the KW if it sits still in a container, although the ph does drop consderably. One thing you might do to minimize air contact would be to cover the reservoire with a floating piece of bubble wrap cut to fit the container. Apparently, the KW will make your osmo pump fail sooner, but they're apparently pretty cheap. As with any auto top off, you're taking the risk of it stickking on and flooding your sump with high ph KW. This is why I use a dosing pump; it is impossible for it to seriously overdose KW.

In terms of calcium demand, my tank, which has 4 clams and about 20 fast-growing SPS frags, uses a gallon of KW a day and 100ml/day of each part of Randy's 2 part recipe 2, which is about 1/2 the strength of recipe 1 or b-ionic. If you're keeping SPS or other high growth corals, KW alone probably will not meet your demand, especially with alkalinity.

[caferacermike]

You can get a purpose built B Ionic dosing chamber set up for about $150.

[blueboy]

mike- is that an air driven doser? i've been looking at medical dosers, for a similar price.

[caferacermike]

It is the air driven units and or people use the Tom's water lifter.

Links to med dosers for the same price please. They'd need to be dual pumps. I'm intersted in one for myself. I'm addcited to B-Ionic more then my corals are.

[matt]

www.innovativeaquatics.com

I have the nautilus 2; it recently went up in price to $200 from $160 but it's still a great deal.

[GaryP]

Do not dose directly to your skimmer. The higher concentrations and pH will cause your pump to scale up. Pumps are a natural spot for scaling to occur because of the pressure change the water goes through as it goes through the impeller.

[caferacermike]

Matt are you saying that unit will dose both parts? If so it seems to be a great deal.

[caferacermike]

Hmmm... A little more expensive then the B Ionic doser but there's a whole lot more to it and justifies the price better. I think I'm going to have to order one for myself.

[matt]

Yep, you need to ask for the 2 channel tubing set instead of the high flow tubing. Those pumps are really built well.

[caferacermike]

I'll add one more question to stoke the fires.

I just got my hands on an awesome, freakin huge, CA reactor. I believe it is built for a 600g. I'll be using it on a 400g. With that much reactor will I still want to dose B Ionic? Oh how I wish Scuba Steve still liked our company. His tank was, is, gorgeous. I know he was dosing and using reactors.

[matt]

If the reactor is working well, you won't need any other calcium and alkalinity supplements. Steve did not have his reactor adjusted correctly the few times I checked it. (I built it) Also, he does have an extremely high calcium demand, and given his schedule, I suppose it's easier for him to just dose the b-ionic than mess with the reactor. But, in general, a well designed, well adjusted (critical) calcium reactor is going to keep up with any aquarium's calcium and alkalinity needs. It's a good idea to drip kalk as well as run a reactor; they work together.