kalk in top off?

[reeferman]

i employ a calcium reactor on my 120 and it does a great job at keeping my alk and calc in line.my problem is low ph[7.7-7.8]its stable and have no problems with livestock but i would like it slightly higher just to have a little cushion.i use an ato to keep up with evaporation.ive never used kalk for anything other than making kalk paste to kill unwanted corals.how do i go about using it in my ato?is it as simple as mixing it in with the ro?what about the layers it produces and the settling in the bottom?any advice would be appreciated as well as should i use it or not?

 

[dawgface]

Following

 

[rjrgroup]

+1. Should be doing this as well soon. Thanks to Sharkbait!

DawgFace;669156 wrote: Following

 

[misu]

I do it in parallel with the ATO. I have a rigid tube that sucks kalk water from about 1 inch above the bottom and I use an aqalifter on a timer to drip.

 

[reeferman]

i dont really want to do a drip,was hoping its as simple as put some kalk in ato and let it ride.looking for some more input.

 

[dvara78]

You may be able to do that by having a small pump that is always moving the water in the top off container. This prevents the Kalk from setteling and is always sucked up with the ATO kicks on. Or have it on a timer to come on and off several times a day.

Only downside is there is way to measure how much Kalk this is putting in to your system. I'm not too sure of the implicationns from excess Kalk in the tank.

 

[cr500_af]

You do NOT want to top off with kalkwasser that is being pumped or stirred. Ask me how I know... early noob mistake, and pH went to 9.9 on the first topoff.

You can manually do what a reactor does, which is stir it a couple of times a day to saturate the water, then allow about 1/2 hour after each stir to let the suspended lime settle out. You want to be introducing clear water that is (from a chemical definition) saturated with lime, but not water that has lime particles suspended in it. While I'm redesigning my reactor, I am using two containers, one with lime and one without (this one is where my ATO pump is). I pump water from the top half of the "with" bucket to refill the "without" bucket, but only after the "with" bucket has settled for quite some time. Then I pump RO into the first one again, and by the time I need to pull from it again, everything is settled.

 

[chefrepo]

I have been using this for about 6 months now and have had no problems.