Kalk Reactor/Stirrer question

[11f150]

I'm considering going this route and investing in a decent setup to keep for a while. I have never had one before so I was doing some research yesterday and unless I'm confused, I'm not crazy about how kalk is dosed to a system.

The route I would go is using a dosing pump to pump RO water into a reactor/stirrer. That therefor pushes the kalk mixture out into your sump. I have all kinds of concerns about that starting with..does the kalk mixture always keep getting diluted more and more and the potency goes down? How would you ever figure out a consistent dosage?

I like that kalk raises pH since I need help in that area since my setup is in my basement so I really want to give it a try but either I'm confused or don't like the way it get dosed. To me a better way would be to mix some kalk up and dose directly out of that container and then refill it when its time.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If pH is the only issue, you can use a new two part that an equal pH boost per unit of alk added.

But limewater/kalkwasser is a fine way to go. I prefer dosing from a settled reservoir than from a reactor. I used 3 Brute cans plumbed together for a reservoir that lasted more than a month.

But now on to your specific question. Potency from a reactor is determined by how well it mixes the solids into the liquid entering it. Ensuring a specific potency is a drawback of such a reactor, and full saturation is often not attained (despite folks often thinking it is).

 

[vic5hands]

i have the same set up that your interest in doing
Works well keeps all settings stable

 

[Velcro]

If pH is the only issue, you can use a new two part that an equal pH boost per unit of alk added.

But limewater/kalkwasser is a fine way to go. I prefer dosing from a settled reservoir than from a reactor. I used 3 Brute cans plumbed together for a reservoir that lasted more than a month.

But now on to your specific question. Potency from a reactor is determined by how well it mixes the solids into the liquid entering it. Ensuring a specific potency is a drawback of such a reactor, and full saturation is often not attained (despite folks often thinking it is).

Is your newest diy recipe the same pH boost per unit all as kalk?

 

[11f150]

If pH is the only issue, you can use a new two part that an equal pH boost per unit of alk added.

But limewater/kalkwasser is a fine way to go. I prefer dosing from a settled reservoir than from a reactor. I used 3 Brute cans plumbed together for a reservoir that lasted more than a month.

But now on to your specific question. Potency from a reactor is determined by how well it mixes the solids into the liquid entering it. Ensuring a specific potency is a drawback of such a reactor, and full saturation is often not attained (despite folks often thinking it is).

I'm doing it for mainly for alk/cal stability. So do you think if I got a 5 gallon bucket with a lid and mixed kalk and then dosed with a pump would be my best bet for consistency?

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

The route I would go is using a dosing pump to pump RO water into a reactor/stirrer. That therefor pushes the kalk mixture out into your sump. I have all kinds of concerns about that starting with..does the kalk mixture always keep getting diluted more and more and the potency goes down? How would you ever figure out a consistent dosage?

I think it's worth keeping in mind the volume of the reactor and the volume of the dose, as well as dosing frequency.

If you need to dose 1 gallon of deionized water through the reactor per day, you could accomplish this by dosing 150 mL/hour. Even if your reactor cannot keep the solution fully-saturated during the dosing, that's only a 4% decrease in overall concentration (assuming the reactor holds 1 gallon total volume of water). At the start of the dose, concentration would be 100% and would slowly taper to just below 96% (provided there is a uniform decrease in concentration in the reactor). This is probably not a big deal.

Even if you need to run three gallons per day through the kalk reactor, that's only a 12% overall drop in concentration (provided you dose 475mL every hour and the reactor holds one gallon of solution).

If you dose once an hour, the reactor has an entire hour between that and the next dose to return the solution to saturation. I don't think the small decline in concentration during dosing would be that big of a concern.

 

[RobertP]

Before I started dosing BRS 2-part my ph would fluctuate between 7.7 and 8.0. Now I dose around 60ml of each 2-part a day and it fluctuates between 7.95 and 8.1. I even put a CO2 reactor on it and could never get it much above this so removed the CO2 reactor. I like gadgets so I will be doing a kalk stirrer at some point and am curious if it will help raise the ph even more. My plan was to put it on a doser so I can control the amount of mixture. Worse case it should offset the amount of 2 part I use...as long as it is not a pain to put in new kalk I will keep doing it. Anything that becomes a pain (like changing media in a CO2 reactor each week) gets removed from my system. Every couple weeks to a month is ok.....yeah I clean the glass but that takes just minutes while I am feeding.