Kalkwasser Set-Up with Calcium Reactor Help

demariners

Work In Progress
So I have been running my Calcium Reactor for about 2 months and it seems to provide a stable 9.8 alkalnity and 430 calcium or so.

My biggest issue like everyone else is my pH is always low (7.75-7.77). I decided to purchase a kalkwaser reactor to combat the low pH issue. I have a PM reactor and have had it running for about 3-4 days. My pH has not really changed since the addition. I use it with my ATO water.

Is there something I can do to get the high pH and keep it there with the kalkwasser? I know this is what a lot of people do with Calcium Reactors. Should I manually raise the pH somehow and then see if the kalkwasser keeps it stable? Any suggestions would be very helpful. Thank you in advance.
 
good to see your CR is tuned. i also use Kalk to raise ph, about 2 gals per week in a 325 gallon system only at night, and it has worked. keeping my ph in a very tight range of 8.08 to 8.12. however, the kalk along did not work, and i had to use other methods; including, feeding my skimmer with outside air and a reverse lit refugium. one day i disconnected my skimmer w/ outside air and my ph dropped to about 7.8 in a couple of hours when i reconnected the ph rose right back up. for me the kalk and refugium are used to keep the ph high at night, when there is more co2 in the tank.
 
There's no way to raise the pH and keep it that way in a one-shot dose of some sort. The pH is set by the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, and the effect of any one-time change will disappear with aeration. You could try increasing the evaporation rate, which would increase the dosage rate of the Kalk. A small fan might do the job. At least it might be easy to try. I'd watch the pH for the first few hours.

Another possibility is a bit of measurement error. Double-checking the pH meter might be worthwhile. A clean and calibration might help.

In some cases, a second chamber on the reactor can help, too.
 
My reactor has a second chamber and I notice that it provides about a .2 increase from the reactor's pH to the effluent. I am using the same aragonite in the secondary as I am in the primary. I am told that maybe smaller less coarse media in the secondary could help?
 
Maybe. The smaller media might be a bit easier to dissolve. I probably would try the fan first, at this point, though, unless I could get some fine media for a very low price.
 
Well, I am hoping I can just REMOVE the Kalk reactor and re-tune my Calcium Reactor. I am going to increase the flow significantly and increase the internal pH. This, I assume will raise the pH in the tank.

Everything that is happening has been caused by the calcium reactor. I have some fine Brightwell Corallazarus I could put in the secondary. I am going to adjust the reactor and see if the effluent pH changes.
 
Ok I set it to 120 ml/min at an internal pH of about 6.9. Again this is going from a stable reactor of 80 ml/min at 6.4 ph. I may have to increase the flow even more but let's try this and see. I removed the kalk reactor for now.
 
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