I wanna make a Kalk reactor....

[cwegescheide]

Hey everybody,

I was wondering if anybody has any plans for a Kalk reactor. I know a while back a bunch of you made some acrylic stuff like calcium reactors etc. Not sure if you guys did Kalk reactors or not.

Anyways if any of you have any info on this stuff I'd appreciate it. OR if somebody has a Kalk reactor they want to sell lemme know. I think I am going to try running both Kalk and my Ca reactor.

Thanks!
Chris

[BlueCoast]

I'm pretty sure Greg (Ahvi8tor) had a pretty nifty one he had made up out of some PVC. It had a stirrer and all. Not sure if his plans were top secret, maybe he has something he could post up. FWIW

[mflamb]

Dave Warnburg made a Kalk mixer when we made all the reactors, and had it for sale when he took down his tank. I don't know if he still has it. I also made a Kalk reactor and have it running on my tank. The nice thing about using Kalk and CaCO2 is that they balance pH. Kalk drives pH up, and CaCO2 drives pH down.

[cwegescheide]

Hey Mike do you have Dave's contact info? I just might buy his off him if he hasn't already got rid of it.

Thanks!
Chris

[mflamb]

No, I only contacted him by pm, except for one trip to his house. I have all his large Chromis. DaddyJax may have a # for him.

[Gimplar]

I'm all up for another kalk reactor build

[mlivvy]

I'd be down for a ca reactor.

[palawan]

I made this one last month and works great. I used a different top and I had trouble finding the bottom stand portion in pvc but only Lowes had it. I used 1/2in couplings instead of the vinyl tubing w/hose clamps. The only thing I have issues with is air coming from the aqua lifter pump and dialing in the amount of calc to use. I use the maxijet 400 pump, and the chamber is pvc which is very durable and didn't have to worry about adhesion with mixed plastics. Here is the model I made:
http://www.mv.com/users/besposito/nilsen.html

[mflamb]

That looks completely functional.

[cwegescheide]

Bruce is da man!

He gave me his media reactor he made when you all did the first reactor workshop. Great stuff. It will work great for a Kalk reactor with a couple mods. I just need to drill a couple holes in the side to add a MJ 400 to stir the kalk.

I can't remember the name of the fitting Bruce said to get to put a hole in the side of the 6" acrylic.

This is awesome! Thanks Bruce I really appreciate it.

Chris

[chrismhaase]

I haven't made one but ran across this awhile ago and liked the design.

[palawan]

The drawing has two issues, first the reactor feed is thru that side valve, the very top valve is a air bleed valve to remove any air in the reactor. Close to the Bill Esposito design.

[cwegescheide]

That is still a great design. I agree the output should probably be at the top of the unit to have the best chance for just saturated lime water in the tank.

VERY helpful Thanks!!!

Chris

[mflamb]

The seals you need are uniseals.

[cwegescheide]

Yeah Mike I've looked online already and it looks like they are just rubber gasket looking things. Is this correct? They do not have a certain type for a 6" diameter pipe? Looks like I need uniseals for a 1/2 pipe? Then you just push a piece of pvc pipe thru the seal? Is this how it works? I'm just trying to visualize what I need to do.

I just ordered a Litermeter.. Cindy doesn't know.. Merry belated christmas to me!!

Thanks Mike,
Chris

[mflamb]

You are correct. You drill a hole in the acrylic and push in the uniseal and then push in the 1/2" pipe. John has the uniseals. I picked up 4 from him last weekend. I PM'd you some details.

[wizsmaster]

I need to build one too!

OT:
Chris, this is marco - i stopped by your house last year, day after New years if I remember correctly and picked up a bunch of zoas .. came with mom/dad/sister .... DO you still have zoas for sale? my gf might be interested in some. She just setup a 34g solana.


--marco

[InADream]

Hey Chris, I belive what you are looking for is the UniSeals... I have used them with great success... here is a link to the site that sells them

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/.../8600/cid/2009

OT: The frags are doing great Thanks Again

Dream

[cwegescheide]

Hey Thanks Dan. I actually picked a few of them up at FAOIS today. Hopefully I will have my dosing pump by this coming weekend and I can get my Kalk reactor on line. Otherwise it will be the following weekend.

Take care and enjoy the frags.

Chris

[jdieck]

Originally posted by chrismhaase
I haven't made one but ran across this awhile ago and liked the design.

That seems like the original GEO Kalk reactor design, the latest has some variants:
a) Delivery line comes from top (white)
b) Rather than having the drain valve at the side of the chmaber it has the drain valve in the pump recirculation. This is to lower the water level for top off of Kalk
c) Has a center opening on top to feed Kalk slurry (I never use it) I prefer to remove the top flange (I use thumb screws) and load powder.
d) and aditional union on the suction line to the recirculation pump.

The recirculation agitation loop works great and does not let any sediment get to the top. The use of a powerhead has some limitation as the pallets on the impeller tend to break often, to reduce the breakage I use a MJ 600 impeller in the MJ 1200 housing. This mod leaves more space between pallets and housing thus reducing the start up stress on the impeller. The agitation does not suffer at all.

Everything else is like in the drawing although the chamber tube has a larger than 4" diameter.

[chrismhaase]

So what about a group build, I am in. We could probably order some acrylic from Chris' (checkinhawk's) job and do a build together.