Kalk Reactor and Tank Move

A

AustinReef

Member
1. Can someone explain to me how a kalk reactor works. I'm in the planning stages of my next tank which will be sps dominated. I plan on using a calcium reactor along with kalk reactor for auto-topoff.

2. Also. Me and my girlfriend will be moving from NJ to florida next year or so. I will be selecting corals, fish and all my liverock from 4 different tanks to bring there. The problem is, i want to do all this in one trip, but the new tank may not be set up right away in florida. Upon arrival in florida, i would be able to store all of my corals fish and rock in one tempory tank with lights heater skimmer and pumps until the new tank is established right? It may be some time before the new tank and equipment is ready once we are there because i'm planning on setting up an inwall tank with maintenace room behind it. I was thinking of buying the tank and some necessary equipment up here before we left and transporting it down there so i will have it available. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? I plan on transporting all livestock in large 55gallon coolers that we use for fishing with battery powered air pumps.

3.Can anyone suggest any good SW stores near Fort Meyers or Naples so i knwo where to go when we get there?
Thanks
Ausitn
 
addict

addict

Well-Known Member
Kalk reactors are actually pretty simple mechanisms (if I can describe how they work in a way you can understand)... :D

I have a powerhead-mixed reactor (a Stoney Reef), so it works a little different than a magnetic-stir reactor.
Powerhead-mixed reactors are designed so that every couple hours, a timer turns on the powerhead and mixes the bottom 1/4-1/3 of the reactor. The fresh water from your topoff is fed into the bottom of the reactor, which pushes the already mixed solution out of the top of the reactor.
That's the beauty of the powerhead-mixed reactors... they leave clear solution that is ready to dose at any time, whereas the magnetic-stir reactors re-saturate the entire volume of water within the reactor... so you have to make sure that the mixing/dosing cycles don't coincide.

Here's a pic of a reactor just like mine:

johnnykalk.jpg


You can see where the powerhead infeed tube is about 1/3 of the way up, and it pushes water out the bottom 90 right above the floor of the reactor. The water is fed into the reactor through the tube on the right (the one on the countertop), and it exits out the john guest fitting in the flange up top.
You just connect it to your topoff, set up the mixing timer, add kalk, and you're set.

As for your other questions, I have never had to move with a reef so I'm clueless... and I also don't know any good Florida LFS'... guess I'll just stick to what I know... ;)

HTH.
 
A

AustinReef

Member
I could hook up a kalk reactor to a RO water storage bin right? And have an a shutoff kit keeping the bin full of fresh RO water? Thanks
 
addict

addict

Well-Known Member
Yep, that's how mine is plumbed, though I manually fill my topoff reservoir.

I have a float switch that activates a powerhead which tops off through the kalk reactor.

You'll be amazed at the difference it makes... I didn't know much about kalk reactors before, but I'm a firm believer in them now.
 
fidojoe

fidojoe

Fish Addict
Me too:D I have a stoney reef kalk reactor too, and I love it. Although mines setup a little different than RA's, I have a dosing pump on a float switch pulling water from the RO storage and pushing it into the reactor. One word of advice, don't have your mixing pump on for more than 5 minutes at a time, I chewed a maxijet by having it mix for 15 minutes twice a day.
 
A

AustinReef

Member
Thanks for the info guys. This is not going to be an immediate investment, but it is hard to plan for a tank when you dont know how each piece of equipment works. I really am dreading the 1200 mile drive with 2 55 gallon coolers full of livestock though. I read on some forum to seperate the coolers in sections with eggcrate, so i will be doing that. Is there a car adaptor available to plug a water pump into the car? If not i will be using a few battery air pumps. Thanks again
-Austin
 
addict

addict

Well-Known Member
You can get a DC/AC Inverter that you can plug a few powerheads into, but I don't think it'll handle a high-wattage item like a heater.

1200 miles! :columbo:

What you want to do is separate the containers into compartments, so that it's harder for the water to slosh back and forth... basically a baffle system with small holes in each baffle so that the water can flow through each, yet prevents a large wave from forming from back and forth movement... (just think back to those bath days as a kid...) ;)

I'd probably also invest in a couple battery-powered air pumps (for bait buckets) just in case you run into problems while on the road... or you can run them in conjunction with the powerheads on the inverter for better gas exchange.

HTH.

P.S. Just think of kalkwasser as fertilizer for your reef... it'll make your corals grow like Miracle-Gro does your lawn. :D
 
Brucey

Brucey

Well-Known Member
Hi Austin . . . lots of info above that will serve you well.

Just one word, RA, gotto disagree with you bud. I have a 24x7 slow stirrer and it stirs so SLOW that it always has a clear half to the water volume and a cloudy half where it is kept in saturation.
 
addict

addict

Well-Known Member
Thanks for setting me straight Brucey. :D

Most of the magnetic-stir reactors I've seen have been cloudy the full height of the reactor... nice to see that there are those that aren't.

AustinReef,
I believe his sig says that it's a Deltec... he's in Britain, so they get all the cool German stuff before it hits the states. :)

Tarasco,
I'm in the process of acquiring a calcium reactor as well... it mainly depends on how much calcium you need for your tank. With a calcium reactor, you can increase the calcium concentration in the water, whereas with kalk you can only maintain current calcium levels (since it's self-buffering).
The calcium reactor takes the place of having to add calcium additives like B-Ionic.
There are lots of people that use both calcium and kalk reactors, which I also plan to do... makes it easier to regulate pH since kalk has a high pH (around 12), and the calcium reactor effluent has a pH of around 6-6.5.
You can get by with just a kalk reactor if you keep your evaporation rate up high enough... so far I've been lucky that most of my SPS are small frags, so with my 3g/day evaporation rate I'm able to keep up with demand with the kalk reactor... but as soon as the frags become colonies it's going to be harder to do with just kalk, hence the calcium reactor.

HTH.
 
Brucey

Brucey

Well-Known Member
Austin . . . . . yep, RA gets in right again. Kinda makes you mad when some one is never wrong . . . . . Hee hee, only kidding RA. Yep, I think it depends on the stir rate. The Deltec stirs the solution one rotation every 7or8 seconds so it's a very slow stir. The RO is the fed in at the bottom and thus is always pushing the clear solution into the tank. There is also a skim zone where the Kalk oxidising with the air collects and does not enter the tank either. I have no experience with Calcium reactors but it is on my shopping list . . . . the only concern I have is what RA says, in that in lowers the PH and that could be a problem in my tank. Time will tell.

Hey dave. . . we may get all the "cool" german stuff but you get LR, Corals and Fish at half the price we have to pay. :-(

Brucey
 
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