kalk reactor

[jjaroska]

i am venturing out to build a kalk reactor and am puzzled about something. i am using the geisler plans at the following link.

http://jjgeisler.com/reeftank/diy_kalkwasser_reactor.htm

however, i find out that it only holds a little under 2.5 gallons.

then i find the following link

http://ozreef.org/diy_plans/alkalinity_calcium/calcium_hydroxide_reactor.html

this link has the following formula

(Diameter of vessel (either 4, 6, or 8 inches) squared x 0.8 x Height of vessel in inches) divided by 231 = gallons in a cylindrical container



Example: Determine how tall a 6 inch container must be if the evap. rate is 1 gallon.

daily evap. rate = 1 gallon
1 gallon x 125% = 1.25 gallons
1.25 = [(6x6) x 0.8 x height]/231
1.25 = [36 x 0.8 x height]/231
1.25 = [28.8 x height]/231
1.25 x 231 = 28.8 x height
288.75 = 28.8 x height
288.75/28.8 = height
10.02 = height

Therefore, the equation indicates that the reactor should be 10.02 inches tall or, rounding up, 11 inches tall. However, an additional 2 inches will need to be added to compensate for the lid to the reactor. Hence, it needs to be 13 inches tall.

however, upon searching retail sites i find reactors that are not as big as the geisler plans dictate that can support tanks up to 400 gallons.

after all that, my question is, is the reactor based on size for daily evaporation or for tank size?

 

[itZme]

You will be adding more water and mixing the kalk as needed during the day so if you normally evaporate 3 gallons per day and your ATO float switch kicks on after about 1 gallon of evaporation your RO system will have to run 3 times per day. The mixing pump will come on and re-mix the kalk with the new RO water to make more kalkwasser that will be dosed next time your ATO kicks on. The size of the reactor is not really that important as long as it is tall enough to not allow the powder to flow out of the reactor when dosing. You only want the clear saturated liquid being dosed.

The trick is to get your ATO to only send water after the reactor has settled and you don't send a kalk slurry to top off your tank raising PH through the roof. There are controllers for this or you could just use a couple of timers and have your ATO only allowed to run at certain intervals while running the mixing pump at different times at least 15 minutes before the ATO. Some people do not even use a mixing pump and just allow the RO to flow through the kalk powder and they have measured the PH to verify that it is truly saturated without mixing. This eliminates the whole mixing timer thing.

Also, if you have a controller you can set it to run at night to help keep the PH from dropping while there is no photosynthesis going on in the tank (unless you run your fuge on a reverse lighting cycle)

I hope I didn't make it sound more confusing that it really is.

-- Kevin

 

[fade2black]

When I talk to people about building reactors I always tell them to go bigger than they think they will need. Your evaporation is going to fluctuate over the course of the year. Personally I don't like mixing the reactor many times per day, maybe 2-3 at the most. So you want to have a sufficient supply of premixed solution to add. Bottom line, you can't go wrong by going bigger.