Running Ca reactor + Kalk reactor for ATO

[ptr13]

I just want to throw this question out there if anyone have had a bad experience with kalk reactor together with a Ca reactor,can you overshoot either alk or Ca levels and would it be too much kalk to dose on a jbj ato system for the sump,it drips for two minutes to get the level of the sump where it should be. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Laddy]

I push my top off water throgh a kalk reactor as well as running a koralin calcium reactor. I believe a lot of people will say that its an "old school" type of setup, however, I'm fully entrenched on the "kalk bus".

The amount of calcium hydroxide introduced into the tank is predicated on the amount of water you lose through evaporation. More in the summer, less in the winter, for a lot of tank setups.

The calc reactor will will introduce ALK/Ca at an established rate dependant on how much Co2 is allowed into the reactor.

I guess to answer your question, I've never had a problem with too much Ca in my systems.

 

[ptr13]

THanks Laddy,Ca today at 440-450 and alk at 9 and salinity is at 1.025 or even lower in the future,possibly 1.024. So far so good,measured the 2 min drip via aqualift pump via jbj and its a 1/3 of a gallon of concentrated kalk which is not bad at all. I will monitor closely daily until I have it tuned.

 

[LouH]

I do both, and my Ca is always between 400 and 420, and my alkalinity is always between 8 and 9. This has been the case for over four years.

 

[droth335]

I also use the JBJ ATO with kalc in my system. ptr13 - how long have you been using the aqualifter? I have shied away from them after having used them to maintain syphon on an overflow and they repeatedly fail and thought they would fail even faster with kalc residue accumulating in them...so I use a minijet PH instead.

 

[TampaReefer79]

I push my top off water throgh a kalk reactor as well as running a koralin calcium reactor. I believe a lot of people will say that its an "old school" type of setup, however, I'm fully entrenched on the "kalk bus".

The amount of calcium hydroxide introduced into the tank is predicated on the amount of water you lose through evaporation. More in the summer, less in the winter, for a lot of tank setups.

The calc reactor will will introduce ALK/Ca at an established rate dependant on how much Co2 is allowed into the reactor.

I guess to answer your question, I've never had a problem with too much Ca in my systems.

I have an MRC calcium reactor and a GEO kalk reactor that I'll be using on my new setup and didn't even realize this was 'old school'. lol I have a few questions though, a) why is this conisdered 'old school' and b) if in fact it is old school, what's the new way of doing it? I wasn't aware of any options other than dosing by hand or reactors.

Thanks!

 

[javickrey]

I think it is considerd old school because so many poeple have went to dosing pumps for calc, alk, and mag. I use the the Kalk and calc reators, but monitor my kalk by dosing it if the ph falls below 8.3 instead of top off. so the ph does not rise to much.

 

[Laddy]

Kalkwasser was initially used as a stand alone 15/20 years ago (maybe longer, I dont claim to be a hobbyist historian ).

Then came calcium reactors which were supposed to replace Kalk, with the added benift of adding proportional Alk/Ca ratios. This was hyped as the ultimate stand alone. The problems you heard the most were horror stories of low pH and algae blooms, enter the kalk reactor. So now the common setup for reef tanks a decade ago was Ca reactor, coupled with a kalk reactor hooked to your top off (which was another revelation back then , but another topic for another cocktail). Basically dripping effluent at 6.6 pH from the Ca reactor and topping off with calcium hydroxide 12 pH, or there abouts.

Now, I believe some people, to raise pH, run their effluent drip into their skimmers, so there's really no need to run kalk. And if you have a big enough tank/sump set up all of the worries above are more or less a moot point.

Plus, couple that with the modern controller, and top off pumps which are highly accurate now, you can add everything in controlled incriments.

The "horror stories of kalkwasser" in the past, i.e. having your float switches stuck and adding your entire resevoir into your display tank, are basically a thing of the past due to better ATO switches and check-safes built into the units. However, people still remember and hear about these stories.