Kalk Stirrer Questions

[BiGGiePauls33]

Does anyone use a kalk stirrer for elevated pH? If so, how do you have it set up? I have the Avast K1 stirrer and the way that I thought I could set it up would be to pull H2O from my ATO reservoir and dose a certain amount throughout the day. Is this plausible?
I'll be using the GHL Doser 2.1 for the time being until I can afford the GHL Maxi Doser 2.2.
I know people say to figure out the evaporation, but it differs greatly over here depending upon how cold the a/c is set to.

Any insight will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[JPags]

I have been using a kalk stirer for a long time. The avast one. I run all my top off through it and never had an issue. I use a ph probe in it to monitor when the internal ph goes low so I know when to add more kalk. Has helped keep my ph up

I stir it for a few minutes every 1/2 hour

 

[JohnK]

I run a DIY reactor for all my top off fed by a Cole Parmer peristaltic pump.

RO barrel to pump head > pump into reactor > output into sump a floor up.

DIY float sensor in sump for ATO.

Safeties; Pump is only capable of moving slightly more than max daily evaporation rate, and Apex also shuts off the pump if PH exceeds a set point.


One of these days I’ll add a PH probe to the reactor, but for now I add kalk every 3-4 weeks or when I notice the average PH in the tank starting to dip.

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

Does anyone dose Kalk with a stirrer while using a calcium reactor. I should have mentioned that in the original post

 

[JPags]

No i dose ca/alk with 2part. Always wanted to go calc reactor but no room under the tank

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

No i dose ca/alk with 2part. Always wanted to go calc reactor but no room under the tank

How about beside the tank?

 

[JohnK]

I ran both when I had a larger system. They go together well IME. Kalk alone tends to favor Ca a bit over time, and the Ca reactor favors alk just slightly over time (plus mg and trace elements). Kalk pushes PH up, Ca reactor down (but much less). Put together they usually balance out well so minor Ca/alk/mg corrections are needed that much less frequently.

Kalk alone won’t usually keep up with a thriving SPS system, so once growing well a Ca reactor or two part are likely needed in addition.

Or for an already established system you can likely add Kalk without problems other than a little bump up in PH (which it sounds like you may be looking for). Just bring the Kalk online slowly. (I’d probably just put a very small amount of kalk in the reactor so it doesn’t even get fully saturated, then plan to be added it regularly as you ramp it up to normal saturation over days or weeks).

 

[JohnK]

How about beside the tank?View attachment 195812

Mine’s in the basement.

 

[JPags]

How about beside the tank?View attachment 195812

My tank is in the middle of my living room so no room and everything needs to be in the cabinet so it does not look like a mess

 

[Joker]

Chris meckly (horrible at spelling names) talks about how you can not use a stirrer to boost ph fully. If you would like to boost pH you would have to have max saturated solution mixed up(6.5gr per 1g) in a container and dose from there. You will need to know roughly what your daily evap rate would be. Example my daily evap is 6L a day convert to ml which would be 6000ml per day. Then you have to multiply it by 2 to get 12000ml to dose per day(the way its set up it will not dose the full 12k ml's just the 6k ml). You will have to find out your average pH per day(mine was 8.28), program your controller(neptune/ghl) to only dose your kalk when pH is less than 8.29(using my average as Example). This will keep your pH stable at 8.29-8.3 during the night hours. During the day hours your pH will naturally raise which prevent kalk from dosing. If you want read more about it Chris has info on his website.

Here's my graphs shows the stability of each system

75g

Frag systems

 

[JPags]

Yes a Kalk stirrer is only one piece of keeping PH stable. I also run fresh air into my skimmer and then run my Fuge lights on the opposite cycle of my main lights. I keep my Alk stable too using a trident to monitor and dose alk solution.

There is a lot to keeping your PH in range and stable.

Its not an easy task and requires a bit of work to get it right .

Doing all this I have found that my PH fluctuates between 8.1 and 8.3

 

[Joker]

Updated my post with pics of graphs

 

[SteveDola]

Ive read and heard that an actual device to stir or aggitate the kalkwasser isnt needed and can be an issue. I keep a 5 gallon jug with RODI and 7-8 teaspoons of Kalk that was shaken to disolve. I dose about 1800 ml from 10pm to 10 am to the tank to maintain a PH from 8.1 - 8.45 during the day. I also dose 3 part solution for mg/alk/calc for the balancing of levels.

Apart from my cat deciding to eat through the dosing line this has been great method.

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

Just for reference, I run an outside air line for the skimmer, reverse lighting schedule for macros and avg 8.1 pH since January 1st. I'd like to see what type of growth I can achieve in the 8.3-8.5 range. Hopefully, I get this setup in the next week or so.

 

[JPags]

Notice the dip in PH when my kalk stirer went very low on kalk (I don’t have the ph probe in my stirer on my frag tank to tell me when to refill) should have realized from the low ph but got busy

Once I refilled my ph came right back

Need to also hook up the airline to thus skimmer to kept it higher

 

[ReefAddict]

I run an Avast Kalk stirrer along with a Calcium rector. It is dosing through a neptune DOS and pulled from the ATO reservoir. I wouldn't set it up to be used as your ATO. Too much variability.
My max PH through the stirrer is 12.0-12.1 compared with 12.4 of fully saturated kalk. Not bad and for my purpose it is acceptable. I dose about 90% through the night.