kalk reactor

[garyw68]

Can anyone give my tips or links on how to make a cheap homemade kalk reactor?

I am currently pouring my kalk into my sump about twice a day.....i want to have a steady cal, alk and ph.

Thanks in advance

[netboy]

You are POURING straight kalk into your sump? Have you had anything in your tank die? You are supposed to mix kalk with RO water then drip it into your sump. Try this get a Brute trashcan or a bucket. Fill it with RO water. Put about 1-2 tablespoons of kalk in it. MIx it up with an old power head for about 30 min. Let it sit for an hour or so. You can then use a aqualifter or any other methods to dose it VERY SLOWLY. Water saturated with kalk has a PH of 12 and can quickly make your tank PH sky rocket if it is not added to the tank slowly. Hope this helps. But by no means add powder kalk to your sump directly, first of all it has a PH of 12 and it wont even help since it cant be mixed with salt water to get the benfits you want out of it.

[Engine 7]

netboy, I think what garyw68 is saying is that he adds mixed limewater to his sump a couple times a day. If he is evaporating a gallon a day on his 90 gallon he is adding a half gallon at a time which would only make the ph swing a little. not the best plan but do-able. I used to do the same thing before I got a top-off device and a kalk reactor. I didn't have a problem but it's not the best way to go.

[shyland83]

i built mine very similar to this. use 1/4" tubing to feed it on the bottom, and out on the top to the tank. i also have a piece of 1/4" witha ball valve to bleed the air out after reffilling it.

http://www.mv.com/users/besposito/nilsen.html

[five.five-six]

Originally posted by Engine 7
on his 90 gallon he is adding a half gallon at a time which would only make the ph swing a little. not the best plan but do-able.

1/2 a gallon of saturated limewater at a time in a 90 gallon... are you kidding? DO NOT DO THIS! that is BAD ADVICE, I would be surprised if anything lived

to do it cheep and safe, you are going to have to bite the $$ bullet a bit, the tom lift is nice, I use one on my nano for Kalk dosing. the problem is that it pumps very fast for Kalk ~ 4GPH the other problem is that there is no anti syphon on it, so you need your effluent tube to be higher than the water in your Kalk reservoir

first of all, Kalkwaser is the clear liquid in the reservoir once the precipitant has settled. there is no point in pumping the dust in your tank, unless you like dust in your tank. additionally saturated limewater has a theoretical pH of 14, any heavy metals and Po4 in your water will precipitate (randy and JDieck claim you can use tap water for this reason, but I use RO/DI anyway) and end up in the dust on the bottom or in the crust on the top

if you have one of those square 5 gallon water bottles, they work great, I just run a length of air tube in the air hole and secure it with tape, add 40 grams of calcium hydroxide, water and shake. note, I put 2 stainless bolts on the end of the airline inside the bottle to keep it on the bottom but high enough that it does suck up the dust, it is important that the bottle be fairly sealed as ingression air contains Co2, since you have a very high pH the Co2 will readily bond with the lime water producing calcium carbonate and falling from solution.

next step is to connect your tom aqualift to the airline from the bottle,
plug your aqualifetr into your float switch and plug your float switch in to your ph controller, you do not need a ACJr, ~$300 shipped though something like that is preferred, you could get away with a cheep ebay controler for under $200 but I would not reccomend it

I would start with a top pH setpoint of 8.2 but you will have to play with it.

what you will end up with is a very stable pH in your tank with redundant overdosing protection and stable salinity... you will notice a huge difference in your coral

another method is the kent float valve but that is very dicey as they clog open when used with kalk and could wipe out your tank.

here is another cheep solution that works but you have no ph control and you have to have a 5 gallon bottle somewhere above your sump KENT AQUADOSE DRIP 5 GALLON $31.99. if money is a problem, I would go this rout, just know that the buklheds can leak and the I.V. style drip control requires periodic adjustments,

[Engine 7]

Naw I topped off for a few years with limewater. Adding a half a gallon to a 90 gallon is fine if needed just not the best way.
five.five-six is just mad because of this thread where he got spanked:
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...6#post11465716

[five.five-six]

Originally posted by Engine 7
Naw I topped off for a few years with limewater. Adding a half a gallon to a 90 gallon is fine if needed just not the best way.
five.five-six is just mad because of this thread where he got spanked:
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...6#post11465716

no, it is because adding a 1/2 gallon of saturated Kalk all at once in a 90 gallon tank is stupid

on toppic

2 more hints and tips, locate your effluent tube in the same area as the ph probe as Kalk in small dosages raises ph very fast, and probes take a few seconds to react

also, it is a good idea to put a small powerhead near the effluent. the advantage is 2 fold, first, it gets the raised pH water column to the probe faster this has the affect of keeping your pH less "spiky" and, the high pH Kalk will precipitate many metals in your water column including MG,

you can see in this graph how "spiky" controlled dosing is, without a controller it is much worse, this graph is from a 7.5 gallon nano each spike represents ~ 20ml of Kalk about 0.0007% of tank volume, so you can imagine what 1/2 gallon in a 90 gallon or about 0.55% of tank volume would do

[Engine 7]

Lol, ok. It is stupid but it will work as myself and garyw68 have admitted to. He, like myself did it and then upgraded to a better way of dosing limewater. I have been in the hobby almost 20 yesrs and have completely changed the way I do things. I dont profess to know everything but I can get my point across by speaking of experience and history. I hope my information has helped garyw68.
I am gone...........................

[Sk8r]

After having a reactor that kept dying when stirrers went out, I finally cut an eggcrate grid to fit a bucket about halfway down, dumped powdered kalk and ro/di in, let settle, and set, on that grid, a maxijet 1200 topoff pump with a modded locline delivery hose to go out from under a tight lid. The hose drips kalk under pump pressure from the topoff system.

First you set your alk/cal levels via dosing, then turn on said topoff/kalk reactor, and it will keep it there as long as your mg. holds up.

This is a discussion thread on same: http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1280638

I hope it helps. I've only had this arrangement running a week, but my levels are finally up and stable [no more stirrers playing out and timers going off] and the corals are *much* happier.

[RicGio]

I have a 90. I add 1 quart of kalk thru a Kalk stirrer 4 times a day using a timer starting as soon as the lights go out. I notice a PH spike of about .05 in the display(8.1 to 8.15) every time I add a quart to the sump. Of course the PH in the sump goes high immediately due to it's smaller volume. I might set this up to drip 8 times a day, adding 1/2 quart each time.

[five.five-six]

Originally posted by Engine 7
Lol, ok. It is stupid but it will work as myself and garyw68 have admitted to. He, like myself did it and then upgraded to a better way of dosing limewater. I have been in the hobby almost 20 yesrs and have completely changed the way I do things. I dont profess to know everything but I can get my point across by speaking of experience and history. I hope my information has helped garyw68.
I am gone...........................

all I am saying is that if you came home to find that your wife had just dumped 1.5 gallons of saturated limewater in your 250, your would be ****ed off... and your advising garyw68 to do this twice a day.. tell you what, go mix up a gallon and a half of kalk and dump it in your sump. pictures or it never happened.

you got me thinking, so I did a small experiment, mixed 90 ml of tank water pH 8.27 with .5ml of saturated kalk, my meter reads 9.24 if this is your idea of help, please my all means, stop helping

this is 10 fold hydroxide solution!!!

[netboy]

Get a toms aqualifter some RO tubing and a quick connect valve(to slow down the drip) and call it day, cost you $15 tops.

Next step would to add a controller or float switch but thats more $$$

But I think this method would work best if you dripped kalk at night. Just my .02

[five.five-six]

Originally posted by netboy
Get a toms aqualifter some RO tubing and a quick connect valve(to slow down the drip) and call it day, cost you $15 tops.

good advice, one question, have you restricted the output on a tom for any period of time? I am just asking because I know tube type dosers will be damaged by doing so, the tom is a completely different design, basically it is a watertight air pump. it would be great if it you can restrict it without shortening the life of it, of course at $15 each, buy a spare

just do not forget about the syphon problem

[netboy]

I use this method on my DIY coil denitrator for about a year and havent noticed any ill effects so far. So if it breaks any time soon it only cost me $12 for about a year. Not bad IMO. But an ideal solution would to buy a dedicated doser. I got mine from innovative aquatics and have been running it over 2 years, good stuff and not bad in price. But the Toms ghetto doser is hard to pass up for $12/pump

[Engine 7]

five.five-six, not freshly mixed up kalk. Mix it, let it settle and then add the clear liquid. i did it that way for years. maybe not a half a gallon like garyw68 but I never had an issue when doing it that way. I am sure that I had wild ph swings but my fish and corals always looked great. I think you are confused again and think that I am telling him to add slurry to the tank. Slurry is kalk powder and water mixed. It would kill a tank. I think thats where you are confused again. You are trying to make it look like I am telling him to dump a bunch of slurry into his tank I think.

You keep looking for an arguement and seem unable to have a normal conversation without exclimation points and all caps. Yelling isnt the way mature reefers hold conversations. Calm down and help out instead of making yourself stand out like that again please.

[shyland83]

I use an aqualifter to feed my diy kalk reactor and do not have a back siphoning problem. the kalk reactor is above the pump and the sump and i get no water moving backwards through the pump.

[shyland83]

nevermind, your saying there is a siphon problem the other way, not backwards.

[garyw68]

Thanks for everyones advice...

What I have been doing is using a five gallon jug...fill it with ro/di water and putting in 10 tsp of mrs wages pickling lime. I pour in a 1/4 gallon into my tank twice a day. I know this is not the best way to go...but so far...everything is fine. My corals are bright with color and growing. my cal is 425, alk 9.5 and ph 8.1. I am looking for a cheap way to drip it but maybe I should just get a good quality kalk reactor. I am upgrading to a 180 or 210 very soon so I would need something that I can use now and for a tank twice as big as my 90 for later. Can anyone tell me what reactor they like and are happy with?

[wolf pup]

Originally posted by five.five-six
all I am saying is that if you came home to find that your wife had just dumped 1.5 gallons of saturated limewater in your 250, your would be ****ed off... and your advising garyw68 to do this twice a day.. tell you what, go mix up a gallon and a half of kalk and dump it in your sump. pictures or it never happened.

you got me thinking, so I did a small experiment, mixed 90 ml of tank water pH 8.27 with .5ml of saturated kalk, my meter reads 9.24 if this is your idea of help, please my all means, stop helping

this is 10 fold hydroxide solution!!!

I wonder if five.five-six is trying to get this thread closed too. What's with the wife crack and the need to invoke the swear filter?

[netboy]

I used a Geo and it worked but then I sold it because it really was no different then mixing my kalk in a 15 gallon Brute I use for my ATO reservoir. So I sold my geo and put that money towards a Ca reactor. If you are going to be upgrading to around a 200 gallon tank I would save for a Calcium reactor as dosing Kalk may have a hard time keeping up with demands on a tank that size.

[five.five-six]

Originally posted by netboy
I use this method on my DIY coil denitrator for about a year and havent noticed any ill effects so far.

that is great information, heck if you get 6 months for that you are way ahead

#7, it was kalk i mixed 3 days ago... if you think it is so great go dump a gallon and a half in your tank

the no no word was pi***d, but good job missing the point

Originally posted by garyw68
Thanks for everyones advice...

What I have been doing is using a five gallon jug...fill it with ro/di water and putting in 10 tsp of mrs wages pickling lime. I pour in a 1/4 gallon into my tank twice a day.

go get a tom pump and valve for $20 shipped at least you can stretch that liter over a half hour. 1 liter at a time is off the scale too much.. go ask this question in the chemistry forum. you are going to get answers from some real sharp cats

best of luck,

[shyland83]

i guess winnie the pooh is carrying a gun so he can shoot down everyones ideas. he's not claiming this is the best method, hence why he's asking for advice on a better way to do it.

[five.five-six]

how about we just stick to helping garyw68

[DgenR8]

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