Hey -

Several of us are planning on building a Nilsen style kalkwasser reactor in the very near future. We have decided to use clear pvc rather than acrylic. (yeah, yeah, I know all the pro acrylic arguments, but pvc is what we want to use). Anyway, I have found a pretty good deal on clear pvc, but you have to order it in 5' lengths. This mean we will have about 4' left over.

Is anyone interested in building one with us? The total cost will be about $100. give or take. We want to get everything ordered this week and build them the following weekend. Should only take a couple of hours. We plan to use a combination of the plans found on these two sites:

http://jjgeisler.com/reeftank/diy_kalkwasser_reactor.htm">http://jjgeisler.com/reeftank/diy_kalkwasser_reactor.htm

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

If you're serious - give me a call and we will figure out the what, when and how of this little project.

Happy Reefin and all that.

Shane

(435) 723-6613 - home

(435) 734-6967 - work

(435) 720-1895 - cell

--- I'm making this thread the new DIY Nilson Reactor Forum ---

Shane,

 What type of circulation pump do you think we should use for these reactors?  I�m skeptical about using a Maxi-jet or Rio pump externally but I�ll give it a try if you think it will work for the long term.  I know an Eheim would be bulletproof (I currently use one on my calcium reactor because the previous Mag pump started leaking) but the price is pretty high for one of those�

 Also, how do you plan using the reactor in your tank setup?  Are you going to plumb it inline with your sump and use a pH controller or are you going to use it only for fresh makeup water coming in?  I�m planning on only using it for the fresh makeup water so my input and output fittings need to be able to attach to �" nylon tubing/compression fittings (like a RO filter uses). 

Flaz,

I had planned on using a Maxi-jet pump. The only problems I have heard about are the pumps leaking. We could use an Eheim if it is very small. For the price, I think MJ is the way to go.

I am going to use it for top off water. I have a peristaltic pump that I use to maintain water levels. I pump about 55 mL per hour into my sump currently. I will feed the kalkwasser reactor with this set-up. The effluent from the reactor will be output to the sump.

If you're confident in acrylic to pvc joints, we could order five feet of the pvc and two feet of the acrylic pipe. Also - do you have any idea what the price difference might be for 6" pvc couplers and caps as compared to the 4"? I can also get 6" clear pvc for under $20. per foot. I am limited in the height as I only have about 28" under my stand. I am considering using 6" to gain more volume ...

Before you guys buy anything, WAIT!!! I just finished mine today, and I know where to get everything you need alot cheaper. ($13.00 a foot for clear PVC)

The whle project without the pump has cost me only $60-$70

Call me- and I'll try to help out.

Ryan-

801-856-5661

I'll try to post some pictures of mine tomorrow night. I hope it goes well. It would be nice to have some people to talk to about it though.

Ryan

Ryan- where did you get your supplies?  That's a great price for clear PVC from what I've seen!

I got the Clear PVC from Combined Supply on Washington Street (3000 south and a street west of the "Trax" Tracks. $13.60 a foot

The PVC fittings I bought from Conley Company at 4000 South West Temple. They are a pool supply house and therefore the PVC fittings are VERY high quality (not like Home Depot's) and are about $5 a piece. The total for the fittings I purchased there was $19 dollars.

The rest of the parts I got from Home depot for about $20 bucks.

It turned out pretty well I think.

Call me if you have any questions.

Ryan

Thanks for the info Ryan.  What kind of circulation pump are you using?

I'm going to pick up an MJ250 sometime today. Hope it works. I'm thinking of siliconing it to make sure it doesn't leak. We'll see how it works out.

Ryan

I'll have them up tonight. I've figured out a way to make it work without using an expensive dosing pump also. I'll post pictures of how I'm doing it.

Ryan

Nilsen reactors don't use CO2 (C02 is bad for Kalkwasser actually).  I believe the way we will be hooking these up won't require a pH controller since the reactor will be use only for fresh-makeup water.

If you're interested in a Calcium Reactor, which typically would require a CO2 regulator and pH controller you can find good prices at http://www.marinedepot.com">www.marinedepot.com or http://www.reeffanatic.com">www.reeffanatic.com I've had great service from both of them.  Once we build these I'll be running both types of reactors (calcium and nilsen).  The main reason I'm adding a Nilsen is to help elevate my pH up to where I'd like it.

OK, here it is: Nielsen Reactor, and DIY Dosing Pump (Sort of.)

These pictures show it hooked up on my counter top. I set it up there to pressure test it for leaks, and to make sure everything was working. No leaks, and works just as planned.

Pic #1: The Reactor assembly

Pic #2: The Stirring Pump

Pic #3: Pressure Cap, with In/Out barbs

Pic #4: DIY Dosing Pump. Powerhead with 1/4" OD tubing and 1/2 GPH Regulator (Irrigation Drip System parts.)

Works pretty well so far. I'll keep you posted on the results.

Nice pics.  So is your water input and output using standard airline tubing?

It's 1/4" OD vinyl tubing from Home Depot. It's about $0.25 a foot.

Basically the same stuff as airline tubing that you'd buy for airstones though.

What is the regulator for?  Does it prevent backflow when the pump is off?

Sweet setup by the way!

Ryan,

Any leaks with the MJ? Thanks for the tip about supplies. I spent several hours Friday running around picking up everything. I think I have all the parts and pieces now. I'll keep you posted on how it works out. Are you going to put an air bleed valve in your pressure cap? What't the overall height of your reactor? HM has quick connects for the 1/4" poly tubing if you're interested. Let me know how that drip system works out.

Shane

No leaks now, because I siliconed the Powerhead together. It leaked like crazy at first. I probably wouldn't have siliconed it before trying something else, but it was an older one that I had lying around and decided to try it. Kind of takes the ability to service it out of the equation, but before I have to service it, I'll buy a new one. The silicone sealed it up great though.

Overall, I think the Reactor is about 30" tall or so... I don't have it here, so I'll double check later and let you know.

The regulator is to slow the flow of the Kalk Soution back into the sump. If it's too fast, it will saturate in the sump (or something like that...) I haven't noticed any need for a check valve, as I haven't had any backflow when the pump is off.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a need for an air bleed valve. I found that after about 15 minutes, the positive pressure pushed all the air out, and the unit was completely filled with water. Not sure, but there was no air coming out of the 1/4" tubing after a while. 

I finished two reactors tonight. (Jeff - you need to come pick yours up) I bench tested them both for about three hours with no leaks in either one - including the MJ powerheads. I plumbed mine into my system tonight. I havn't added any kalk yet. I want to let it run for a bit to make sure everything is right. I also want to buy a pH monitor before I get too serious about dosing. The peristaltic pump seams to work great. I'll post some pics as soon as I can.  Thanks again Ryan for the info on materials.

Total height is about 27", holds just under 1.5 gallons.

No problem Shane.

I'm waiting for my dosing pump before I plumb mine into the system. The whole drip system parts idea didn't work out as expected.

Oh well. Anyway, I put Kalk in mine, just to make sure it was working correctly, and it seems to be working just fine. I should be getting my pump tomorrow, so I'll keep you all posted on the progress. BTW, Mountain Shadow Marine has the Milwaukee PH Monitor for only $85. That's a pretty decent price for that unit.

By the way, I'm not sure what happened to the stinkin' pictures on the last page, but E-mail me if you want to see the pics.

Thanks

Update:

I was not happy with how well the RIO was mixing the kalk powder. I recently added an 8" riser to the intake of the pump. Seems to work very well. The water is drawn into the pump nearer the top of the reactor. This in turn draws the mixed kalkwasser further up into the chamber.

Result: the kalk powder takes longer to settle after the mixing cycle. I'll have to play with the height of the riser if it appears to use up the kalk too quickly.

Ryan, Aaron, Jeff, any input on your reactor performance?

Flaz,

The seemingly slow use of the kalk is the reason I decided to add a riser to the intake. My calcium is up to about 330 ppm, but I have been adding 2 tsp of Turbo Calcium each day. I hope to get it up another 100 ppm or so and see if the reactor will maintain it.

Shane,

That's the tact I'd take too.  If you're alk is currently under 4 meq/l (11 dKh), you could add the calcium faster.  Typically you can safely raise calcium levels faster then alk.

I'm still interested in how you got in the low calcium situation? 

It might be useful to others to tell my personal story.  On my first reef (a few years back), I read how important Ca/Alk/salinity/pH/ect were.  I was very concerned because of my drifting pH, so I bought some buffer at the fish store and started using it.  A tablespoon here a teaspoon there.  It never did really help my pH swings (which I've come to consider trivial now), but the next time I tested my water, my calcium had fallen from 420 ppm to 280 ppm but my alk was fine.  Stupid me, I think WOW my corals are eatin' it up so I add more turbo calcium to get the calcium back up to 420 ppm.  It had been a month or so with no buffer added (I didn't think it was helping).  Calcium was still high everthing good.  Talking with a friend, he mentions that he has a different brand of buffer and it worked for him, so I give it a go with his buffer.  Bang, same thing happens (low calcium)...ah that's when it dawned on me what was happening. 

I got out my chemistry book and did a little reading.  Sea water is supersaturated with respect to CaCO3 (aragonite) by a factor of 2 - 4 (and most reef tanks operate in the 3 - 5 range).  I won't bore you with the chemistry but it means that calcium and carbonate ions in the tank water WANT TO react together and form CaCO3.  If you add more calcium ions or carbonate (alkalinity) to the water you're pushing closer and closer to chemical deposition of aragonite (bad) rather then biological deposition(good).  As I was adding "buffer" (which was mostly carbonates) I pushed my tank over the brink and precipitated most of my calcium out of solution.  Further, the buffer I was using had borates in it (borate is a much better buffer then carbonate at typical reef tank pH levels).  The "problem" with borates is that they also test positive in an alkalinity test.  So a larger then normal fraction of my alkalinity was due to borates, which meant my carbonates were lower then I thought.  I didn't like this situation, so I did a few big water changes and quite using buffers completely.  Now, I  raise my calcium levels from instant ocean levels (370 ppm) to 420 ppm using turbo calcium and then add a balanced additive to maintain alkalinity at desired level and I've never had this type of problem again.

(sorry for such the long post, but thanks for getting to end...)

Mine's been working fine too. No problems yet. I'm not sure why, but the link's I posted for pictures on the previous page are dead. Here are the actual links for anyone who wants to see them.

http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNDgvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9Cd1V2SFpIODV2Y0FtRFNMMGpTY2RB/fd3a706886f524b47393f8dc1676c5cf/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiITk3U0MJE6uwg!Nfgn8u*xrPUBDpysXAPC6owWEmwEPc$/jpg.jpg">http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNDgvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9Cd1V2SFpIODV2Y0FtRFNMMGpTY2RB/fd3a706886f524b47393f8dc1676c5cf/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiITk3U0MJE6uwg!Nfgn8u*xrPUBDpysXAPC6owWEmwEPc$/jpg.jpg

http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNTQvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9udG03ZU9ENk5KMHRPTVZxWm04ODVB/8e1e40dd1d3b02cafc63afca96b58c6c/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiIGIb*yUya2j1idLgo1ChIfUe207WcOLXp2lwM84eNGEg$/jpg.jpg">http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNTQvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9udG03ZU9ENk5KMHRPTVZxWm04ODVB/8e1e40dd1d3b02cafc63afca96b58c6c/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiIGIb*yUya2j1idLgo1ChIfUe207WcOLXp2lwM84eNGEg$/jpg.jpg

http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNTUvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9IOVZqQlk2RDlGQnBkcEZCLTVmbjhB/126cddf90a58a718cf609d529bc6de0a/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiIK6Vn4hIYz!yaTQyL6j9CPQYQplK!xLftZvGRVfUdApQ$/jpg.jpg">http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNTUvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9IOVZqQlk2RDlGQnBkcEZCLTVmbjhB/126cddf90a58a718cf609d529bc6de0a/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiIK6Vn4hIYz!yaTQyL6j9CPQYQplK!xLftZvGRVfUdApQ$/jpg.jpg

http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNTQvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9iNC1QNE9TR3pPcXJkSmxaY3RwakJR/ee1dac2c9f637ec7498824097bd69441/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiINNUrXIflKP*6uFs60sqFHzhiEeY2u1AbfGSWasT*BM8$/jpg.jpg">http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNTQvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9iNC1QNE9TR3pPcXJkSmxaY3RwakJR/ee1dac2c9f637ec7498824097bd69441/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiINNUrXIflKP*6uFs60sqFHzhiEeY2u1AbfGSWasT*BM8$/jpg.jpg

http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNTQvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9QcEhFcmZxU2VuaHZ6ZUhoWWljWVhn/7a2889a49f36f3d3ef9c4fba95778f55/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiIpcBX6V5lcuOYVyTMuc80140a3sqCmKE7bF4bKhkA514$/jpg.jpg">http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNTI4NDIwNTQvMS80MDE4LzE1NS8zMi9QcEhFcmZxU2VuaHZ6ZUhoWWljWVhn/7a2889a49f36f3d3ef9c4fba95778f55/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUhBDcz08IxzKj0aq!COxqiIpcBX6V5lcuOYVyTMuc80140a3sqCmKE7bF4bKhkA514$/jpg.jpg

Let me know if you have problems with these links. I don't know if they will/won't work... Thanks, Ryan

Did anyone ever find a place that sells the 4" clear pvc by the foot, or does anyone want to build one and go in on the pvc? Or even beter yet does anyone have 2' of clear pvc they want to sell? 

If you do please let me know!!

Thanks

Steve

I guess I missed it, but why pvc?  Don't trust the acrylic to pvc glue joint?

I was just a sheep and went along with the rest of the guys with PVC.  I actually prefer acrylic to clear PVC (it looks a ton better as far as clarity is concerned).  A PVC to acrylic joint isn�t the greatest but if you used something like Devcon Plastic Weld on those joints it would hold most anything, and these reactors aren�t under a lot of pressure.

The funny story about our PVC reactors we build is that mine had a nasty leak in it after I was done and I ended up using a bunch of the Plastic Weld epoxy anyway to seal it up�

Has anyone tried using weld-on 16 or 40 to glue PVC to acrylic.  IPS's website indicates it should work:

http://www.ipscorp.com/ind_html/selectind.html">http://www.ipscorp.com/ind_html/selectind.html

I've used the glue you are referring to. In fact, I used it for gluing PVC to Acrylic. It works okay, but  trust the weld of PVC to PVC better.

My only concern with using the acrylic, is that some people on reefs.org were mentioning discoloration of the acrylic after some time in use. I don't know if that is accurate or not, but I liked the odds of the PVC/PVC combination the best. The people at combined supply are a great resource by the way. They typically do not sell to the public, with the exception of people that ask them. Because of this distributor-like mentality, their prices are far superior to anyone around ($13 a foot.) Before finding them, I had heard of people on reefs.org buying clear 4" PVC at nearly $20 per foot.

I didn't shop around for the actual fittings themselves, but the best place I found to buy the fittings was a pool supply house on West Temple and about 4100 south. I can't remember the name, but it starts with an "H."

If someone wants to try the Acrylic/PVC combination, regional supply on 300 West and about 3100 South (east side of street) has the acrylic/pvc glue in stock, and also the clear acrylic tubing. (About $4 a foot.)

The great thing is about all of these suppliers I just mentioned is that they are within about a half a mile of each other, so anyone coming from Ogden, or Provo, etc can make a one stop shop (so to speak) to get all of their materials.

Ryan 

Hey everyone - hate to ressurect an old thread - but I have been looking at building a kalk reactor. How did these work out for you all?

That would be great. If you can forward me the plans for it I think I am going to try building one. Has your calcium levels stayed pretty low though? Do you still have to dose turbo calcium with it?