I designed my own pressurized kalk reactor and am unclear if I should be adding CO2 to improve the results. I bought a stainless steel, 20L tank and put a maxijet 400 pump inside for circulation. I add about 3 cups of kalk every 2 to 3 weeks and have it connected to my RO system so it stays pressurized to about 60 psig (house line pressure). The output goes to my float in the sump. I have a 3 way solenoid upstream to use pure water for the make up if the pH goes above 8.3. Since the tank is not exposed to atmosphere there should be little to no CO2 in the tank so I am assuming the hydroxide and calcium stay in suspension until it is added to the tank via the float. Does this logic make sense? Does someone understand the chemistry that occurs in the pressurized tank? Does the hydroxide simply remain in solution since there is no CO2 to react and form the bicarbonate? If so, then I assume the carbonate and bicarbonate reaction will all take place once the solution is added to the sump. The calcium stays around 460 ppm and the alkalinity stays pretty consistently at 3 to 3.3 meq/l.
Pressurized kalk reactor
- Thread starter rglauson
- Start date
You are confsuing two very different reactors.
A Kalk reactor is not pressurized and you DO NOT add Co2 - ever. There really is no need to worry about Co2 with kalwasser, and using a float valve with kalk will result in you cleaning the kalk off the clogged float valve rather often.
A calcium reactor you do pressurize and do use Co2, but you do not use kalkwasser.
A Kalk reactor is not pressurized and you DO NOT add Co2 - ever. There really is no need to worry about Co2 with kalwasser, and using a float valve with kalk will result in you cleaning the kalk off the clogged float valve rather often.
A calcium reactor you do pressurize and do use Co2, but you do not use kalkwasser.
I don't think there' s any reason in theory that you couldn't run a CO2 reactor with lime as the media. I think it's more expensive than (e.g.) ARM so I'm not sure there's a good reason to do it.
Plus, it is conceptually similar to pre-mixing lime with vinegar, which is about 10,000 times easier and cheaper to implement than a CO2 reactor.
To the point about not mixing CO2 "ever", my understanding is that the problem with mixing CO2 with kalk comes when there is not enough to get to 100% bicarbonates once in solution. This would be the case at atmospheric levels of CO2. If there's enough CO2, no problem!
This is well-covered in Breefcase's "Kalkwasser | In Depth" article. Great read, and one of my all-time favorite links.
I don't know if assuming there's no CO2 in your RODI water is a good assumption, BTW, unless you are filtering it out or otherwise know for sure there is none or very little. Check this slideshow out. Maybe this link too. Okay, one more PDF.
I also agree with Checker on the problems you will have with the float valve. I'm not sure a solenoid would even work for very long.
I don't know if there's a CO2 media different from this that's intended for RODI filters, but Two Little Fishies CDX media might work. It's made for use in saltwater though, so I dunno if there may be issues in ultrapure water. If it worked, pre-scrubbing your ATO makeup water of CO2 would go a long way toward keeping at least a solenoid working. The valve is always at least half exposed to the air so eventually it will form a chalk shell.
In essence you've created a large-scale DIY "Tunze 5074-a-like" but plumbed it to your RO system instead of your ATO. Not generally recommended for performance or safety to make those one and the same...plus gives you more flexibility if RODI and ATO are separate systems. I would personally re-plumb it to an ATO float switch and feed RODI into it with your ATO pump...forcing saturated water out of the tank, into your reef. Add vinegar (see the link) to the RODI water to sweeten the reactor's output. Make sense?
I hope this helps!
-Matt
Plus, it is conceptually similar to pre-mixing lime with vinegar, which is about 10,000 times easier and cheaper to implement than a CO2 reactor.
To the point about not mixing CO2 "ever", my understanding is that the problem with mixing CO2 with kalk comes when there is not enough to get to 100% bicarbonates once in solution. This would be the case at atmospheric levels of CO2. If there's enough CO2, no problem!
This is well-covered in Breefcase's "Kalkwasser | In Depth" article. Great read, and one of my all-time favorite links.
I don't know if assuming there's no CO2 in your RODI water is a good assumption, BTW, unless you are filtering it out or otherwise know for sure there is none or very little. Check this slideshow out. Maybe this link too. Okay, one more PDF.
I also agree with Checker on the problems you will have with the float valve. I'm not sure a solenoid would even work for very long.
I don't know if there's a CO2 media different from this that's intended for RODI filters, but Two Little Fishies CDX media might work. It's made for use in saltwater though, so I dunno if there may be issues in ultrapure water. If it worked, pre-scrubbing your ATO makeup water of CO2 would go a long way toward keeping at least a solenoid working. The valve is always at least half exposed to the air so eventually it will form a chalk shell.
In essence you've created a large-scale DIY "Tunze 5074-a-like" but plumbed it to your RO system instead of your ATO. Not generally recommended for performance or safety to make those one and the same...plus gives you more flexibility if RODI and ATO are separate systems. I would personally re-plumb it to an ATO float switch and feed RODI into it with your ATO pump...forcing saturated water out of the tank, into your reef. Add vinegar (see the link) to the RODI water to sweeten the reactor's output. Make sense?
I hope this helps!
-Matt
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