I purchased Avast Marines Kalk reactor and installed it a few weeks ago. It has been working great but I have a question to whoever may know about when to add more Kalk. I have an ATO that feeds the reactor with RO/DI water and according to the instructions that came with the reactor I added 3/4 cup of Kalk knowing that my tank evaporated about a gallon a day. According to the instructions they recommend adding more kalk every two weeks, however I still have about an inch of calk being stirred at the bottom of the reactor. I guess my question is if its normal to still have kalk at the bottom of the reactor when you add more.
I use a kalk reactor. It made life SO much easier in keeping the Alk and PH more stable. I also use it with my ATO system. There are a lot of different thoughts on how much, and how often to dose the Kalk.
Since you are using a reactor, this won't apply as much. However I do think it helps to understand how the kalk works to know this little bit (at least for me it was a big help). Many people will fill a large top off reservoir and then add lime to make Kalkwasser. The lime will rest on the bottom, however the water is already Kalkwasser. You are dosing the clear water above the actual lime on the bottom. No need to continue to mix. Then they let an ATO system use up the entire batch, and then make a new batch.
The beauty of the reactor, is that you don't run out of water. I don't trust myself to wait until the perfect time, and change the entire bucket. If I forget with a reactor.....my kalk might get a little thin, but the water will continue to be topped off.
The reactor needs to be stirred from time to time, in order to keep up the concentration..........because it keeps having fresh water mixed in, it dilutes the kalk. Mixing helps keep it up........to a point.
As for how much to dose. I just started with 3 large table spoons of lime in my GEO reactor. I think it holds about 1.5 - 2 gallons of water. Then, I add two teaspoons of Lime every 2 days. This makes my 300 gallon SPS reef happy. Keeps my AlK above 9 most of the time. I have a mixing power head turn on 4 times a day for 1 min. If you let it mix for long periods of time, the top off goes off while it's mixing and sucks the lime directly into the tank. ...........I have never seen any problems with this, but most thinking seems to be the less that enters the system is probably better to avoid unforeseen problems.
I have recently changed my dosing because I have got my calcium reactor back online. The combo of the two seems to be CRACK to my reef. Things are going nuts and it is amazing. I have had to back off on the Kalk..............I do the 2 teaspoons every 3 days now because my Alk has been climbing to the 11-12 range with both running.
This is an article that really helped me when I first started. I should read it again myself, but it is very well done. Good luck, hope that helps.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.php
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