CAX with or without Kalk Reactor?

[zenn]

I am curious to find out what the justification would be to running a kalk reactor with and calcium reactor? I know plenty of people do it, and was curious to know what purpose the kalk reactor services if the CAX is taking care of calcium, alkalinity and possibly magnesium levels?

Thanks!

[redox]

The kalk reactor makes sure the topoff water is good.Without it you might be putting in straight di which is ionically incorrect. Demineralized. Gravity feed kalk works also, just more maintenance.

[bertoni]

DI water is ionically correct as topoff for evaporation. Ions don't evaporate from the tank. Limewater will help raise the pH of the tank, which can be useful in a system with a calcium reactor.

[Icefire]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12113693#post12113693 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by redox
The kalk reactor makes sure the topoff water is good.Without it you might be putting in straight di which is ionically incorrect. Demineralized. Gravity feed kalk works also, just more maintenance.

That's a bit non sence...

Kalk reactor will give you Ca/Alk and a high ph, it will help the low ph of CaX

[zenn]

I can see the benefits of raising PH.

In respect to keeping stable alk and CA levels....wouldn't using a kalk reactor and a CAX complicate dosing? Or would it be recommened to use a small dose of kalk and rely on the CAX to do most of the alk/CA replenishing....or would another ratio be more beneficial?

[bertoni]

I would guess most tanks depend on the reactor for most of the supplementation, but that will vary from system to system. The dosing rate for the kalk reactor is not very controllable, anyway, which is one reason why I dose limewater mixed by hand.

[zenn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12115728#post12115728 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bertoni
I would guess most tanks depend on the reactor for most of the supplementation, but that will vary from system to system. The dosing rate for the kalk reactor is not very controllable, anyway, which is one reason why I dose limewater mixed by hand.

So let's say you have a CA reactor dialed in....to where it is replenishing CA and Alk perfectly. Now, you add a kalk reactor to the system. I would assume adding the kalk reactor might raise you Alk too high?

So those that use both a CAX and a kalk reactor...do you constantly have to test (every 2-3 days) to make sure levels are correct?

[bertoni]

Well, if a kalk reactor were added, the other reactor might need to be tuned back a bit, but limewater raises pH, which tends to encourage calcification, so it can be self-limiting.