Hi Everyone,

I've been looking at different methods for automated dosing of your tank and wanted to see how others do it.

I've thought about calcium reactors for calcium (but they seem mighty pricey), but what about alkalinity, PH, iodine, and even vitamins/minerals.

Is it common to use IV medical equipment for dosing? I saw one person selling old IV pumps at a meeting and thought that was a pretty nifty idea. They seem to be all over eBay and some are pretty cheap. But I haven't seen yet whether or not they are able to adminster slowly enough to put out < kg/hr.

Thoughts?

A calcium reactor will provide both calcium and alkalinity.  Kalkwasser will also provide both.  Kalk dosing is what many of those IV pumps are used for.  Probably no reason to dose anything else, imo.

Ok, what does kalkwasser provide to the tank. I'm not really familiar with what it does.

In addition to a Calcium Reactor and Kalkwasser, there would still be needs for dosing iodine, right? Anything else needed in a reef tank that I'm forgetting?

So, can someone tell me what Kalkwasser does and why everyone is using it? Does it replace other dosing or is it something I should be doing that I'm not. 

Also, I also heard that Calcium reactors provide Strontium and molbidium? as well. Does Kalk?

Kalk is lime (calcium hydroxide).  When it's dissolved in freshwater and dosed (or just dumped) it delivers both calcium and alkalinity to your tank.  Here's what happens:

Ca(OH)2 + H2O = Ca + 2OH +H2O    this is solid kalk dissloving in water

2OH + 2CO2 = 2HCO3  this is hydroxide from the kalk forming bicarbonate (or carbonate)

So you end up with one Ca + 2 HCO3 (bicarbonate)

There's your calcium and alkalinity for corals to use.

A calcium reactor uses CO2 to dissolve old coral skeletons.

CaCO3 + CO2 + H2O = Ca + 2HC03

Again you end up with one Ca and 2 HCO3 (bicarbonate)

calcium reactors will also deliver what ever other elements are incorporated in the skeleton of the coral since it all dissolves in the low pH of the reactor.  Kalk does not provide these other elements.  Water changes and/or other supplements can provide these.

As for iodine, I don't add any to my tank so setting up a dosing system doesn't make sense for me.  But if you are dosing lots of it (I can't imagine why) it might for you.  A couple drops per week of Lugal's is pretty easy to keep up with.

Oh, some people use kalk because it's cheap and other use it to keep their tank's pH in a good range.  Tanks with calcium reactors, because of the addition of CO2, can have difficulty keeping the pH up.  Kalk can help this situation.

Ok, thanks for the detailed info finch. One more question. Is kalk consistent enough to dose regularly, or does it need to be adjusted often? Does it raise alkalinity (and risk it going too high?) or balance it to where it needs to be?

Oh, and back to the original question of the thread. What are the different methods people use for auto-dosing kalk?

Kalk can be dosed regularly without much adjustment to the method.  It can raise alkalinity too high, but any additive system can do that too.  The real risk with kalkwasser is if overdone it can raise your pH to dangerous levels.  Kalk, calcium reactors and B-ionic are all "balanced" additives and should not be used to increase calcium/alk levels.  These methods are used to maintain levels.  Without some sort of calcium/alk addition your levels will drop below natural seawater levels (ime) and this is not desired.  If you want to increase calcium levels use something like turbo calcium (calcium chloride).  If you want to increase alkalinity use a commercial buffer or baking soda.

Patrick,

IV pumps are programmed with number of cc's per hour, not kg.  Some can go as low as a cc an hour, it depends on the pump.  Baby syringe pumps can be set to less than one cc per hour.  If you get one and want to know how to program it, you can ask Suzy or I.  

At my work, we throw away about 60 kalk dosers a day .

Can you direct me to that garbage can?

Hey Banana, I assume you're just talking about the driplines, right? If so, how can you tell how much you're really putting in (8kg/day etc)

Suzy wrote: I don't use an "automatic" system. I don't think it is worth the hassle.

But I'm trying to get away from the "Hassle" of keeping track which stuff I'm supposed to be dosing when.

I want to take all the stuff I'm dosing (Calcium, Alk, Strontium, Iodine, minerals), get a pump for each one, divide the weekly dose by 7 days, then by 24 hours, and set the pump to release that much per hour and not worry about it anymore (except to test the water daily for a while to make sure it's keeping it balanced).

That is my fish geek dream Suzy....complete automation (oh if only I could hook the whole thing up to my computer and have it monitor my water levels and dose automatically and I could watch the whole thing across the web from work)

Suzy wrote: But, Saturday night, something went haywire. It didn't page the owner and Monday morning, the staff was cleaning up the tank. Thousands of dollars of corals and fish were lost.

Did it over/under dose or did he have it running his pumps and flooded/drained the tank?

With the IV tubing, you can estimate drips/min. Which can be converted to ml/min or ml/day. It is not completely accurate, but pretty close. Ive never tried the ones from my work for kalk, so don't know how well they work. As Suzy mentioned, if the thing gets clogged, it will change the drip rate. I was thinking about using one to dose phytoplankton. I can save a couple if someone wants to try one. I'll try to get most of the blood off ....ok, I won't save that part.

Speaking of automation. I just put in a 6 stage RO/DI filter with a hose running to a float valve on my tank. Free Topoffs for life.

Just tested it the other day it works great....I'm PUMPED!  (get it! PUMPED....yuck yuck yuck *slaps knee*)

Patrick, If you truely want an automatic system a CA reactor would be the way to go.  I wish I had one, but the major drawback is cost.  If you set up a CA reactor you really need to get a PH monitor as well.  More cost.

You could just do like I do.  I do 25% water changes every month and the only additive I give my tank is fish food.  I add this daily.  Or you could do like I have at my office and get an automatic feeder.  I restock it about once a month.

Yea, I've seen it. but I've also seen the price sticker. If I can't find another way, I'll save up for one.

One thing though, I didn't think a Calcium reactor would balance alkalinity and PH, just calcium, strontium....

Pat,  what does "balance alkalinity and pH" mean to you?  We might be able to explain better if we know where you're coming from.

jfinch wrote: Pat,  what does "balance alkalinity and pH" mean to you?

Well I know that when your alkalinity is high, you add Calcium to lower it and that affects PH as well, but is it really safe to control all those levels just from your calcium input?

I guess I don't understand how tightly they affect one another.

I knew extra calcium would lower alkalinity, but I didn't know it that it was a direct relation. So does a calcium reactor really handle ALL your problems (assuming it's eventually adjusted correctly)?

Mark Peterson wrote: Pat, you don't have enough hard coral to worry about a Ca Reactor.

but I will

I'm finishing my canopy this week and will have 3-250 MHs and 2 6' VHO actinics. I plan on starting to get some real coral now.

Already have the automatic top-off system installed with the 6 stage RO filter and float valve, so I'd need another solution, even if it's Kalk and a IV pump adding specific amounts regularly.

Well I know that when your alkalinity is high, you add Calcium to lower it and that affects PH as well, but is it really safe to control all those levels just from your calcium input?

Calcium and alkalinity (for this discussion I will refer to alkalinity as carbonate) are two independant entities.  They are like teenage boys and girls.  They're different, but constantly looking to hook up together .  Calcium reacts with carbonate (CO3) to form CaCO3 coral skeleton, coralline algae, or "hard water deposits".  It just so happens that the pH of seawater is more or less controlled by the carbonates (both the amount and type) floating around in it (for reasons I'll discuss, but might cloud the issue).  If you remove carbonates (coral growth, ect) from the water the pH will drop.  If you add carbonates (buffer) to the water the pH will increase.  Both calcium reactors and kalkwasser add equal amounts of calcium and carbonates to the water (i.e. balanced).  If you have a steady, constant amount of carbonates in the water you'll most likely have a more steady pH.

The reason why adding extra calcium lowers alkalinity is because that extra calcium reacts with the carbonates and is precipitated out of solution as CaCO3.  This then lowers the pH.

so assuming I get a Calcium reactor to keep my system balanced out. What do you look for in one?

How is this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2 0758&item=4319334586 - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2 0758&item=4319334586

Or an 'electronic' one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20756&item=4321610587&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2 0756&item=4321610587&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW