High Tide Aquatics

Pressurized kalk reactor

CaseyP said:
Testing the pH difference between a bucket of freshly mixed saturated kalk (12.4 pH) and my avast kalk stirrer (11 pH). The stirrer still has a lot of kalk at the bottom which makes it very deceiving regarding its potency.

Already a 0.2 difference and that's at 75% of the dosing volume of the stirrer. I'm about ready to ditch the stirrer and figure a way to route a line outside so I can store a 55 gallon drum of saturated kalk.

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This was pretty much my conclusion after messing around with two different reactors. After this frag tank the next project is to set up a kalk drum in the garage and run a RODI line along with the AWC lines.
 
I'm not sure this is being asked, but how are you loosing 3 dkh a day? Didn't you loose most of your coral in the crash?
 
If anyone interested, here's the part list this project. I already have Hydros control , but any control ecosystem should work. You also need any dosing pump for the actual kalk dosing. I used Kamoer X1 .

www.saltwateraquarium.com

HYDROS Float Switch Sensor with Magnetic Mount

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newfly said:
Happy to report the system now working well. I cannot say i'm dosing fully saturated kalk, but 1. alk is consistent. 2. i get a 0.5ph boast from the kalk

The trick is stir slowly for a longer duration (1 hour).
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Nice!
What is the high/low/average daily now vs previous!
 
ph low-high without kalk - 7.5 to 7.8
After dosing - 7.9 to 8.0

I’m only dosing at night.

From the limited info i read, ph 7.5 is unlikely and likely a probe issue. I calibrated the probe 2 months ago.
 
newfly said:
ph low-high without kalk - 7.5 to 7.8
After dosing - 7.9 to 8.0

I’m only dosing at night.

From the limited info i read, ph 7.5 is unlikely and likely a probe issue. I calibrated the probe 2 months ago.
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Alk is 8.2 to 8.3 range. I should also mention I measure twice a day at 7am and 7pm
 
@newfly are you adding fresh kalk with every water refill, or leaving a lot undissolved kalk to mix in with fresh water? Are you testing that it's not fully saturated? I'm also playing around with some ideas so your findings are helpful.
 
CaseyP said:
@newfly are you adding fresh kalk with every water refill, or leaving a lot undissolved kalk to mix in with fresh water? Are you testing that it's not fully saturated? I'm also playing around with some ideas so your findings are helpful.
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I’m adding fresh kalk once a week. Plan to move it to once every 2 weeks . Not every water refill. In my setup, water refill everyday so manually adding kalk defeat the purpose of automation.

I’m not testing for saturation. My comparison baseline is based on my old setup where I mix a big batch enough for 5-6days. My ph and alk is appropriate the same with the old setup versus this new setup.
 
question. when talking about kalk potency, are you just talking about it's ph increasing potential or also its alk/calcium concentration? i'm concerned i need to mix my kalk more to have a consistent maximum alk/cal concentraion at 2tsp/gallon.
 
psidriven said:
question. when talking about kalk potency, are you just talking about it's ph increasing potential or also its alk/calcium concentration? i'm concerned i need to mix my kalk more to have a consistent maximum alk/cal concentraion at 2tsp/gallon.
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Both.
 
Bit the bullet and drilled a hole through my house directly on the other side of the tank. 55 gallon drum for saturated kalk which will last me about 1.5 months.

I was testing a different method before automating it but it wasn't giving me the results I liked. Filled a 5 gallon bucket with 2 cups of kalk which in theory should be good for 9 refills. Filled with RO water, mixed with a pump, and dosed the whole bucket before refilling with RO and mixing again. The first 3 batches got a pH of 12.4-5 which is fully saturated. After that it started dropping meaning the kalk powder at the bottom was starting to become insoluble. I'm guessing the mixing process or pumping in new water introduced too much co2.

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CaseyP said:
Bit the bullet and drilled a hole through my house directly on the other side of the tank. 55 gallon drum for saturated kalk which will last me about 1.5 months.

I was testing a different method before automating it but it wasn't giving me the results I liked. Filled a 5 gallon bucket with 2 cups of kalk which in theory should be good for 9 refills. Filled with RO water, mixed with a pump, and dosed the whole bucket before refilling with RO and mixing again. The first 3 batches got a pH of 12.4-5 which is fully saturated. After that it started dropping meaning the kalk powder at the bottom was starting to become insoluble. I'm guessing the mixing process or pumping in new water introduced too much co2.

View attachment 62306View attachment 62307
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Nice, that’s basically what I did. What’s the red tube for?

Are you dosing your kalk at night? I’m kind of undecided between PH stability and a higher floor vs dosing during the day for a higher ceiling. I think generally folks do the former…
 
Originally intended the red line to be a dedicated refill line connected to my rodi. Since I'll only refill one a month, I'll probably just move connections and refill with the blue line. Red will be a backup or I'll expand it to be a fresh air intake for my skimmer.

I'm going to dose 24/7 because my pH has been chronically low.
 
Of late, my PH sank back down to 7.8-
Turned back on one of the circulation pumps in the sump and and it’s back up back to 8.0 range.
Entirely possible that the pump is affecting PH probe although- there are no fluctuations so.. maybe not - need to move probe and see if still holds -if so-suggests high CO2 can easily offset PH gains perhaps. Theory anyway.


I dose kalk at night.
 
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