How much kalkwasser to dose daily

[DylanCameron]

My 50g tank dosed 2200 mL yesterday, and that is about average.

The thing is, the amounts will not be consistent from you to someone else, and it is wildly misunderstood. It really is dependent on the pH of your Kalk solution and on what you do to make sure it maintains that pH and does not degrade over time. How you are storing your kalk before it is put into the solution, how it is being mixed, if the top of the solution is covered, how much it is agitated, can all change the effectiveness of kak and require a change of dose to maintain proper levels.

If your kalk solution is at a pH of 12.4 then you might need 600mL, but if the solution falls to a pH of 12.2 you might need 1200mL to have the same affect, or more. The power of hydrogen is measured in units of 10x, so the pH of the solution has a major impact on it's effectiveness.

One easy safeguard you can put in place if you are running an Apex of other monitoring device is to set the dosing pump to turn off if the pH of the tank exceeds 8.4 and to turn back on if it is under say 8.2. Some people are even more precise but I have found that to be good enough.

Also you will want to try to dose at night, when the pH drops, and then during the day until it rises. My doser typically starts at 11pm and will dose until about noon.

For dosing kalk I personally prefer to monitor it by pH value and not Alk value. It is easier to monitor and more consistent for me. I have found at around the 7 month mark I had to start supplementing calcium as well, to keep the sticks happy.

If you really want to do a deep dive into Kalk dosing monitored by pH look up Chris Meckley from ACI Aquaculture. Dude has a ton of interviews and videos out there. He's a fun listen/watch as well.

When using this method it’s also important to implement some type of float switch / high level water sensor as a safeguard. If the amount you need to dose to maintain your desired pH exceeds your evaporation rate, you can end up flooding your sump / house.

 

[jessesoto33]

When I was dosing Kalk I bought a 10 gallon tank to hold the kalk and was using a doser for my 80 gallons if I’m correct I was dosing like 3500 mil per 24 hours it would last me about a month. I personally thought it was to much, but in order to keep my alk and PH up that’s what I had to dose. So I switched to Tropic Marin All for Reef


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[Xmjxflipx06]

For my 140 gallon volume I dose around 2400 ml per day using x1 pro. Keeps all stable and pH around 8.4 at high peak

 

[cvu]

Thanks very much for all the input. Currently I'm dosing about 2200ml for my 60-gallon tank and the pH is still between 8.1 and 8.2 depends on when I measure it. And my dKH is still below 9. So I keep increasing it slowly. Hope someday it will stabilize.

 

[five.five-six]

I have almost 260g and I dump 2 cups in 11g of rodi

How do you get 4 gallons of evap a day? I have a 225 light with metal halide and only cooled with fans. My evap ranges from 1-2 gallons a day.


OP, the old school way is to use 2 tblspns/ gallon to tap water, mixe it up, let it settle and top off with the clear liquid. With this method, you NEVER want any of the slurry to get into the tank, The high pH of the calcium hydroxide chelates the vast majority of the impurities and heavy metals but all that bad stuff is a precipitation and is highly concentrated in the slurry.


This is saturate lime water method. You can increase the effectiveness with a small amount of vinegar but be forewarned the vinegar works as carbon dosing.

 

[five.five-six]

Thanks very much for all the input. Currently I'm dosing about 2200ml for my 60-gallon tank and the pH is still between 8.1 and 8.2 depends on when I measure it. And my dKH is still below 9. So I keep increasing it slowly. Hope someday it will stabilize.

9 DKH is a great place to be. 10 is just below dancing on the razor’s edge and bad things can happen.

 

[DEWreefing]

How do you get 4 gallons of evap a day? I have a 225 light with metal halide and only cooled with fans. My evap ranges from 1-2 gallons a day.


OP, the old school way is to use 2 tblspns/ gallon to tap water, mixe it up, let it settle and top off with the clear liquid. With this method, you NEVER want any of the slurry to get into the tank, The high pH of the calcium hydroxide chelates the vast majority of the impurities and heavy metals but all that bad stuff is a precipitation and is highly concentrated in the slurry.


This is saturate lime water method. You can increase the effectiveness with a small amount of vinegar but be forewarned the vinegar works as carbon dosing.

I have no clue but I add 5g into the ato container per day. I do live in Victorville seems a little more dry up here.

 

[MccReefer]

I use 2 teaspoons per gallon (fully saturated) and dose around 50-60 ml of kalk in a 50 gallon sps dominated tank (15 or so frags). So definitely something wrong here.
But after reading other posts maybe my tank doesn’t absorb that much alk.

 

[DylanCameron]

I use 2 teaspoons per gallon (fully saturated) and dose around 50-60 ml of kalk in a 50 gallon sps dominated tank (15 or so frags). So definitely something wrong here.
But after reading other posts maybe my tank doesn’t absorb that much alk.

Key word here is frags. As they start to grow, your consumption will increase. As long as your alk and ca are not dropping, nothing is wrong