| Dosing and Top-off |
I have combined dosing with topoff which requires far less effort on my part and also means that the tank can go for days without the need to add anything other than food for the fish.
The calcium demand for the tank is not high and the equivalent of around one litre of Kalkwasser per day is sufficient. Around three litres of water evaporates from the tank each day and so a 2:1 mix of RO water and Kalkwasser is added to the reservoir. The Reverse Osmosis water is produced by my Probe Counter Top RO 4 Stage # 43230 from Hills District Water Filters. The Kalkwasser is decanted liquid from my Bulk Kalkwasser. A sheet of polystyrene cut to the size floats on the surface of the Kalkwasser mix to reduce gas exchange.
The above mixture is added to the tank as required via an Aqua PER-R peristaltic pump (instead of a powerhead) connected to my Auto Top-off II control unit. The PER-R peristaltic pump has an adjustable flow rate up to 1 L/hr. I have the pump turned down so that it delivers at a rate of around 350 mL/hr. This means that if I have a failure with the float switch or control unit, no more than 8.5 litres per day will be delivered to the tank and this is unlikely to cause any issues.
Two litres of Kalkwasser are dripped into the sump (right next to the sump return pump) each night after lights out. Dripping is via a 2L bottle with airline, as outlined in Dripping Kalkwasser. The 2L bottle is filled with the decanted liquid from my Bulk Kalkwasser.
Freshwater is automatically added to the tank using my Auto Top-off II system. The reservoir is 32L and is topped up with RO water produced by my Probe Counter Top RO 4 Stage # 43230 from Hills District Water Filters. During Summer, with the sump fan running 24x7, around 1L is added per day (in addition to the Kalkwasser).
Last updated: March 8, 2005