Running Both Kalk & CA Reac.

[RobertG]

I have been kicking this thought around. Has anyone ever run both a Kalk & Calcium Reactor at the same time? If so can you give me any feedback?

Thanks

[TAXMAN]

JIm Norris did it, and his tank looked awsome. But he had a HUGE amount of demanding corals. I know some others do it as well. I did for about a month and stopped until I get a dosing pump. Too hard to keep a gravity drip going steady. :) But it does work well. Your coralline will take off for sure.

[RobertG]

Who sells dosing pumps.

[Gator]

whatever you do dont buy the one champion lighting sells, it is a diafram pump, i had nothing but problems with mine so i sent it back.

[RobertG]

Hymm, at what rate would you drip it into the tank? You have a mixing pump then a dosing pump. How is the dosing pump controled?

[BA]

How's the tusk doing????after the amusement park closed down...and we left?

[TAXMAN]

Nno mixing pump on the Kalk. You only want the liguid in the middle of the bottle. You dont want to does the stuff that settles to the bottom or on the surface. Mix it up and let it sit for a couple of hours. Then start dosing. I dosed mine for all of my top off water.

[MikeP]

Robert, I have both. One of Matt's Ca reactors running 24x7 controlled by a Ph controller. Also the Kalkreactor made by JimD inline with my osmolator topoff. I have the pump set to come on a few times a day to keep the kalk mix saturated. Since the osmolator is so precise it doesn't dos verymuch at any given time and I never see any Ph spikes. Growth has been very good on my stonies using both.

[RobertG]

Mike how did you plumb the osmolator to the Kalk reactor. I like this thought. Seems easy enough just clarify me a little.

[matt]

Trying to get this back on the original topic, I bet Randy Holmes-Farley has looked into the chemistry of mixing calcium reactor effluent (basically seawater with super high calcium and carbonate ions, and lots of dissolved CO2) with KW, basically freshwater with calcium and hydroxide ions.

My guess is that this would be ideal, as the CO2 in the effluent would react favorably with the KW, at least theoretically providing a source of organic carbon to increase the solubility of calcium in the KW, and there would be a good ph balancing in the process. If nothing else, using KW for top-off would, I think, allow you to really punch the calcium reactor output without fear of depressing the tank ph.

The one question I have is that I remember reading something somewhere about KW and calcium reactor effluent not interacting well at the chemical level, but I have no idea who wrote this, how valid it was, or what his reasons were. It's worth a search on the reefchemistry forum. Maybe I'll look into it, and come up with a new super-smart reactor, which uses a ph controller to control dosing of both super saturated calcium/ carbonate ions, and calcium hydroxide.

[Ram_Puppy]

Now that would be something cool matt...

[JimD]

Some people use both a calcium reactor and a kalkreactor, calcium reactor to keep Ca and Alk levels in check and a kalkreactor just for the Ph stability and its inherent ability to precipitate Po4, the additional Calcium and alkalinity is just a bounus for some folks. Although levels can be mantained with either or, depending on demand, both would be considered "ideal". I run a kalkreactor and suppliment with B-ionic, Ca-490 Alk-11Dhk with a very heavy load. fwiw

[RobertG]

Hymm I would really like to see what it would do for my tank. Gonna give it a shot.

Thanks

[GaryP]

Matt,

Calcium Carbonate solubility is highly influenced by pH. The higher the pH, the lower the solubility. This is why you can disove calcium carbonate in a farly weak acid like vinegar. By mixing the Kalk reactor and calcium reactor effluents you would be creating a concentrated calcium carbonate solution at a high pH.

CO2 (carbonic acid) is a weak acid and Kalk is a strong base. If you mixed the two I think the Kalk would quickly neautralize the CO2, resulting in it being converted to carbonate. The result would most likely be a blizzard IMO. I think you could run both at the same time but you wouldn't want the injection areas/mixing zones anywhere near each other. Locating them at opposite ends of the sump would probably be a good idea. My seperating the two, you allow for enough time for dilution by the tank water.

Gary

[RobertG]

Gary, I could move my effluent from the CA Reac. to the other side of my divider in the sump. Dont know if you remember it, & then the kalk effluent where the Ca is now. Do you think this would be enough seperation of the two solutions? I could also drip the Ca straight into the fuge. Then the Kalk to the sump, how far apart would you say is going to be sufficient. What kinda blizzard do you mean?

[GaryP]

Robert,

I wouldn't think that the fuge would be a good place for a couple of reasons. I don't think your critters and macro would react well to the undiluted output of the reactor, especially because of its pH. A sump doesn't have enough flow, turbulence and volume to be a good mixing point, IMO. I think a closed loop or a point near one of your Tunze would be an ideal point to inject the output of either reactor.

A blizzard is what happens whe you get the calcium and alkalinity to high in your tank. The concentrations get to the point where calcium carbonate precipitates out of the water. The result is a milky mess that leaves a layer of calcium carbonate all over every surface in the tank, including corals. It does a real number on pumps too. The higher the pH, the lower the critical concentration for a blizzard to occur. A high Magnesium concentration will help prevent a blizzard by interfering with calcium carbonate formation.

A blizzard typically occurs when someone overdoses with a two part additive.

Gary

[BA]

i remember when i first learned of the "blizzard" affect and why it happened, at your talk Gary, at gators house, and i thought they were cool...lol

[wkopplin]

I will more than likely add a Kalk reactor in addition to the CA reactor Matt made for me. Right now, I do not have any CA problems, but I still have a light load of corals in my system. As I increase the load, I will probably add the KW doser to my osmollator.

[RobertG]

Gary you dont think my sump has enough flow to handle the dilution. I have watched the flow in their & man it moves around quick. The water is pulled from the sump around the divider pretty fast with some turbulence..

[GaryP]

Here's a brief overview of the chemistry behind both a Kalk and Calcium reactor and what I think may happen when you mix the two.

Calcium Reactor:

CO2 + H20 >>> H2CO3 (carbonic acid)

H2CO3 + CaCO3 (aragonite) >>> Ca ion + 2 HCO3 (bicarb ion)
+ extra carbonic acid (H2CO3)

Kalk reactor:

CaOH2 >>> Ca ion + 2 OH (hydroxide ion - basic)


Ca + 2 OH + H2CO3 + HCO3 >>> Ca + CO3 + HCO3 + OH
(high pH)

The carbonate and hydroxide ions would push the pH of the mixture up and result in a potentially unstable mixture.

I hope I didn't lose you with all the chemistry.

Gary

[BA]

u lost me at

when you mix the two.

LOL, hopefully next year PRE-AP chemistry in my soph. year will help me to understand some stuff,lol

[RobertG]

Bobby you might have a chance, but as for me I can see the two going together but still dont know the language. Others here have posted with good things to say, dosing through the osmolator sounds good.

As the Ca reactor is being controlled by the controller would'nt it not be mixing the two so much. At times they might be but could place the Kalk topoff away from the CA effluent. One close to the return line input the other to travel trough the sump & then return.

The osmolator is very precise it doses for like 10-15 seconds at a time. Would this change the way you think they react to each other.

[brewercm]

Try this place for dosing pumps if you're still looking.

www.reefdosing.com

[RobertG]

Anyone using one of these that brewer linked me to? Which one is good anything I need to look for?

[GaryP]

Just for the record, the technical name for those are peristaltic pumps.

Gary

[GaryP]

Robert,

You may have enough flow in your sump. Unfortunately there is only one way to find out.

Your other option is to just turn off the calcium reactor while you dosing Kalk at night. Put them both on timers so that only one is on at a particular time. You're not going to be running your Kalk reactor 24/7 like you do your calcium reactor. Right?

Gary

[RobertG]

I am thinking of it dosing through my topoff. The Tunze is real precise as it only dumps maybe a cup at a time. I will have to try it a few different ways.
My main concern was that it will not have a reaction in general. Where I pump it in should not be to bad as there should be enough flow going.

Thanks for the help! It is nice to have someone else to ask.

[ratboy]

I wouldnt get one of those refurbished medical dosing pumps. I have one and what I dont like about them is that they must run continuously. If you use them on a timer and power them off you must reprogram them or they error and beep incessantly. They are reliable and adjustable to get the correct top off amount that you need, but I prefer to add my top off periodically in the evening.

-Erik