DIY Kalkreactor (Kalkenstein)

[kylecanada]

For those of you who are familiar with the DIY kalkreactors. I have 3" acrylic tubing on hand. Is this too small for the diameter? I can make it as tall as I need to.

[barjam]

As long as you can stir the kalk somehow I don't see why not. Just figure out how much higher you would need to make it to get the same volume (or whatever volume you need). If you make it really tall you would probably want to make the distance from the pump inflow and outflow a but more... pull in from the top and blow through the bottom perhaps.

Take all that with a grain of salt, I don't have a kalk reactor but I nearly made one based on the DIY plans floating around. Since I have plenty of space I went with a large still reservoir instead.

[kylecanada]

Ok. That makes sense. When you say still resovoir, what do you mean? I will also have a top-off resovoir. Do you just add the kalk to this? Doesn't this effect your pump?

[barjam]

Yea, personally I don't like the idea of a Kalk Reactor although I could see ways to design out the parts I don't care for.

If your Ca/Alk demand isn't exactly the same as your evap + full strength saturated limewater you are going to under/over dose on kalk. For the situations where full strength kalk is too strong (in my case) I could have probably come up with a set of bypass valves but even that (in my experience) wasn't very accurate. For situations where saturated isn't strong enough it is hard (impossible?) to use vinegar to further saturate the limewater.

In my setup I am using an aqualifter pump with a 7 gallon jug. I evap a gallon a day (75g tank) and adjust the saturation level weekly on refills. I hear that if you run vinegar through the pump once a month you can get 2-3 years service out of it dosing kalk... who knows. For ten bucks I am willing to give it a shot.

Other folks use real dosing pumps, if you are worried about pump longevity you may look into that.

[barjam]

Sorry, didn't answer the other question. Sill reservoir in this case is a covered container that does not get stirred.

Interesting read:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-05/rhf/feature/index.php

[kylecanada]

I opened a can of worms as usual. The resovoir and pump is probably an easier and cheaper method.

[kylecanada]

Thanks for the help.

[barjam]

Yea, thats the great/bad thing about this hobby... too many good ways to do things.

Good luck.

[ralphie16]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9581090#post9581090 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by barjam
If your Ca/Alk demand isn't exactly the same as your evap + full strength saturated limewater you are going to under/over dose on kalk. For the situations where full strength kalk is too strong (in my case) I could have probably come up with a set of bypass valves but even that (in my experience) wasn't very accurate.

jsut don't put so much solid lime in the water so that its not fully saturated, ya know?

much easier then all the bypass valves you suggest.

[barjam]

The question was about a kalk reactor which as far as I know has no way to adjust saturation.