Kalk reactor,, how did I do?
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Forum Name: DIY
Forum Description: Do it Yourself
URL: http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33031
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Topic: Kalk reactor,, how did I do?
Posted By: fishoutawater
Subject: Kalk reactor,, how did I do?
Date Posted: May 03 2009 at 12:26am
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Replies:
Posted By: dew2loud1
Date Posted: May 03 2009 at 9:09am
| Looks good, It probably would have been a good idea to put the output of the pump all the way at the bottom to keep the kalk from getting packed up down there, but overall it looks great. |
Posted By: fishoutawater
Date Posted: May 03 2009 at 10:44am
| Thanks, there is a 90deg. elbow pointing down, it's only about 4-5" from the bottom. Do you think that will be close enough? |
Posted By: dew2loud1
Date Posted: May 03 2009 at 10:55am
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I was going to suggest a 45 elbow to help, it should be fine,
thats really close to the same design as mine. I would suggest
only doing several cups of kalk at a time and refilling biweekly or
so. That will help from getting too much sludge at the bottom and
help keep it in suspension. I've noticed with mine that if I put in too much kalk I'll lose the pH raising effect over time even though there is still plenty of kalk in the reactor, and have gone to adding a cup or two a week to help out. What size is your system, that looks like a pretty big reactor and should last you a while. good job! |
Posted By: fishoutawater
Date Posted: May 03 2009 at 11:40am
| Thanks for the compliments. It's a 40 breeder with a 25 gal sump. I am hoping to upgrade to a 65gal display soon. The reactor holds about 1 1/2 gal, which is slightly more than I evaporate. I was going to splice into my ato line, that way I can control the drip rate so that evaporation doesn't determine how much kalk goes into the tank. I haven't ever ran kalk before so would appreciate any other advise. So with roughly 40 gal. of system water, how much powder would I need to add to keep fully saturated? |
Posted By: dew2loud1
Date Posted: May 03 2009 at 12:32pm
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Be very careful with that size of a system, kalk can be pretty
dangerous. We run ours 24/7 through our RO, do you use a JBJ auto
top off or what method do you use. I have a safe guard in mine that my reefkeeper shuts off the topoff if my pH rises above 8.45, and i have about 600 gallons and evaporate about 15-20 gallons a day. If you use a reservoir for top off I would make sure it holds only enough top off for one day at a time to be safe if you don't have another method of redundancy. I would start off with probably only a half cup for that size system. As long as the water looks pretty saturated when it stirs you should be alright. How often are you planning on turning on the mixing pump? |
Posted By: sanddune600
Date Posted: May 03 2009 at 1:24pm
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before I got my ph probe I overdosed my tank while I was at work my wife called me 2 hours after I left for work and I lost more than I want to admit to myself what I did is let me sump get low on water when I got up to got to work I noticed bubbles in my tank from getting to low so I filled my resivour and hurried to work what I didnt notice because I was in a rush to get to work is my pump was making air bubbles in the bottom mixing all of the kalk and my tank was pure white by the time it filled up moril of the storie this ONLY works as a slow refill with auto top off dont let it fill all at once I now have ph shutting it off at 8.5 ------------- Andy Jorgensen My number is four three 5 7 six four 8 0 three four |
Posted By: fishoutawater
Date Posted: May 03 2009 at 3:50pm
| I have a feed line from my topoff tank which I have put a tee in to feed reactor. The topoff tank holds 10 gal which I have to refill once per week. I have put a valve on the reactor feed to the sump to regulate the kalk drip. I thought this would be a safe method to use as evaporation wouldn't affect the kalk supplementation rate. Another question. Am I correct in my understanding that I should let the reactor sit for 24 hrs. after I first fill it and mix before I start to drip? I plan on putting the mixing pump on a timer to cycle on for fifteen minutes every 6 hrs., does that sound ok? |
Posted By: fishoutawater
Date Posted: May 04 2009 at 8:24pm
Here it is up and running
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