Kalk question

mn reef crzy thanks for the links a couple other questions I haven't found the answer to yet. Ok after the read I decided to do a kalk drip as it would save some money and didn't seem to be any more work than I was used to with my old planted tank. I built a kalk dripper for $15 whioch is a jug, air valve, jg fitting, and 1 lb of mrs wages pickleing lime. I am starting with 1 gal water and 1 tsp kalk is this sound like a good starting point and up weekly till is where it needs to be? I seen the calc but couldn't figure out how to get daily amounts. I will fill jug daily with this amont water and kalk. If I am not getting how to do this someone please correct me. Will look into a stirrer or cal reactor around tax time.

i have not used mrs wages but i know my kalk reactor was like 2 tablespoons per gallon.

id suggest 1 spoonful per gallon of fresh is a good starting point, monitor ph and calcium, if its not getting high then you could end up doing 2 spoonfuls per gallon, its always wise to start light.

1 tsp is a good starting point, the water can only hold so much in solution so unless your pumping cloudy milky water it should be just fine, I just run mine as top off with a float valve to a 2 gal container of settled mix, I did try an airline drip once and managed to send all my fish into ph shock, this was back when kalk wasser was new and I wasn't very clever lol

So I have been using too strong of a solution obviously, pickling lime huh? Isn't there a two part Randy Farley recipe with baking soda and borax. I am having trouble finding the recipe. But one tsp to a gal of top off water dripped at night. I can do that. Matt suggested I run my Fuge lights at night to counter the PH drop. That does seem to be helping. But I know Kalk dosing is important too.

It's Randy Holmes and here's a link to some of his articles.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2004/chem.htm

I researched all of that a while back and decided I felt better using BRS 2 part kits. 1 - I'm pretty sure I'd muck something up doing all the DIY and 2 - I feel like I know what I'm getting with BRS. (Nice to give the MN folks business too.)

Now, for the dosing, I'm starting to feel more and more that I just need to bite the bullet and buy a couple dosing pumps. It seems that is the best way to avoid what happened to Sasquatch. But, again, I do none of it myself yet so this is just my 2 cents at this point. Ask me again in a year.