Dripping Kalk for the first time

Ah, that's good to know. I was worried about raising the Calcium too much.

I've been careful about 1 and 2.

I set the drip line an inch or so from the bottom to avoid 3.

What's the minimum time I should wait for slurry to settle?

 

Something like that. To get into what's taking place, it would take me an hour to type out so your extropolation is excellent. BTW, this is why dissolving CaCO3 in a Calcium Reactor in a low pH environment is why you're also supplementing Sr and Mg at the same time as supplementing Calcium.

Based on reading previous posts of yours, I believe you are very cautious and would worry if I gave you an answer that pushed the boundaries. Shake it up and wait at least 2 hours. It's not what I do, but I'm old and have a lot of experience with kalk. You will be very safe if you wait 2 hours.

 

I'm pretty cautious, but am getting more comfortable with the Kalkwasser. I've been giving it a few hours to settle. It does seem to clear quickly.

The Calcium, PH and alkalinity have remained stable since increasing the drip rate. The first gallon took almost a week to drip. Now it's taking about 2-3 days to drip a gallon.

Coralline is growing everywhere.

 

Wow- there sure is a lot of corailline in there!!!

I will be starting to dose using this same method- this post has been very helpful to steer me in the right direction!

 

There was quite a bit of coralline on the LR already, but it really exploded onto everything else after the Kalk drip was started. The Kalk keeps the parameters more stable than I could by hand dosing. Coralline seems to love stability.

I'm happy to have made a thread that's helpful ! Be very careful when handling Kalk and Kalkwasser.

 

Do you dose into the sump or directly into the DT. What do you use to control the drip rate. Sorry for the dumb questions. Thinking about dripping kalk.

 

I drip directly into the DT. I'm going to switch to dripping in the sump when it gets hooked up. For now dripping in a high flow area has been working.

I've been using a cheap gang valve from Petco to control the drip rate. After a week it has developed a weeping leak . I'll have to get another one, but for now it doesn't leak enough to drip.

I used a 1 gallon jug with a siphon tube going almost to the bottom. That way it doesn't suck up the slurry on the bottom. There is a second shorter tube that stays above the liquid level. Blow in the shorter tube to start the siphon.

Here is a pic of the dripper:

 

Here you can see where the dripper is located. The flow goes from right to left, towards the larger powerhead.

 

Thanks that certainly answers my questions. I am going to try to set something like this up to go into my sump.

 

this has been really helpful, thanks!