Dosing Two Part and Kalk...

[villious]

Hi there. I just received the bulk kit of Two Part and will mix it up this afternoon after work. I have two questions.....

1. Since I'm using two part to maintain Calc, dKH and Mag, will it benefit me to dose kalk as well?

2. If so, I have a closed loop Kalk reactor and will set it up to stir and dose at night. How long should I let it run at night and would I do it every night????

Thank you,
Woody

 

[DonW]

Kalk is of course going to add ca and alk. It also helps keep ph up if your having issues with low night time ph. Alot of the dosing requirements especially with kalk are based on your tanks demand.
When you say "closed loop kalk reactor" what are you meaning? Kalk reactors are not a closed loop system.
What and how much are you dosing now?

Don

 

[villious]

Thanks Don. I'm sorry, I mis-spoke. I have a kalkwasser stirrir. It sucks water from the sump, runs it through the kalk stirrir and then back into the sump near the return pump.

 

[DonW]

Thanks Don. I'm sorry, I mis-spoke. I have a kalkwasser stirrir. It sucks water from the sump, runs it through the kalk stirrir and then back into the sump near the return pump.

NOPE cant do that. That is not how a kalk stirrer works nor will it work. You have to pump in fresh rodi water and it drips out kalk effluent. This is done via a auto top off or a dosing system.


Don

 

[villious]

Roger that. I was afraid of that. I have my top off system run directly from my RO unit and the kalk stirrer cant take the pressure. I was using a dosing pump kinda like on an IV machine to top off and dose kalk, but it had a bad habit of creating a siphon from the ro reservoir and over filling the sump. So I ran the top off straight from the RO unit.

Would I miss out too much by not doing Kalkwasser?

Thank you Don

 

[DonW]

Roger that. I was afraid of that. I have my top off system run directly from my RO unit and the kalk stirrer cant take the pressure. I was using a dosing pump kinda like on an IV machine to top off and dose kalk, but it had a bad habit of creating a siphon from the ro reservoir and over filling the sump. So I ran the top off straight from the RO unit.

Would I miss out too much by not doing Kalkwasser?

Thank you Don

Just depends on your demand. I think kalk is a good addition especially if you intend to have sps. Its a great patch for ph swings. I take it your just using a float valve for a top off, thus why its pressurized?

Don

 

[villious]

Yep, very good float valve with a shut off solenoid at the RO unit. My tank is pretty much all SPS, so i guess kalk is good. Maybe I'll just keep a 5 gallon ro bucket in the garage next to the salt water trash can and dose it using the kalk stirrer and pump......

But then again, that will lower my salinity.......man, I wish the kalk stirrer could take the pressure from the RO unit.......

 

[villious]

I forgot to mention that my PH is about 8.4 out of the tap....

 

[DonW]

I forgot to mention that my PH is about 8.4 out of the tap....

I'd loose the float valve and go with a holding tank and latching controller. Valves short cycle the ro and is feeding tds creep into the di resin.

Direct hook up ato systems are good if you use a timed hysteris in your ato.

Don

 

[villious]

Ok, you lost me on some of what you were saying. Could you explain more about the float valve short cycling the RO? I could go back to my old top off, but when I did that, I had a float valve in the garbage can I kept my RO water in so it always stayed full.... That would cause the same problem, wouldn't it?

Doesn't the solenoid shut down the RO/DI unit completely once it detects back pressure?

 

[DonW]

Basicly every time you shut down your ro you get what is called tds creep. The creep is high tds water on the output side of the membrane. Your di is responsible for getting rid of that tds.
So if you have the ro top off evertime the float switch or valve fall your hitting the di with high tds water. Along with this your not giving the membrane enough run time to flush so scaling is going to shorten its life.
When you top off with a direct rodi connection you need to make sure that the ro runs for awhile. Not minutes closer to an hour. The same goes for filling a top off holding container. You dont want it to stay full all the time. You want it to empty the container then fill itself back up. This way if you have a 40 can as a container the rodi will run for many hours instead of minutes. This way it only gets 1 shot of tds creep every 40 gallons.

Make sense
Don

 

[villious]

Roger that! I'm with you know...perfect sense. Thank you

Well, I've revised my plan. I'm going to go back with the peristaltic pump for the top off, and I'll feed it through the Kalk stirrer, then to the sump through the float valve. I'll set the peristaltic pump float switch right below the RO float switch so if there is ever any siphon effect through the pump, the RO float valve will stop it. Make sense?

 

[DonW]

Roger that! I'm with you know...perfect sense. Thank you

Well, I've revised my plan. I'm going to go back with the peristaltic pump for the top off, and I'll feed it through the Kalk stirrer, then to the sump through the float valve. I'll set the peristaltic pump float switch right below the RO float switch so if there is ever any siphon effect through the pump, the RO float valve will stop it. Make sense?

Not really. Never put a valve on the output of a kalk reactor. What kind of peri pump are you using that has siphon issues. This is nearly impossible unless its a two roller like the elcheapo aquamedic.

Don

 

[villious]

But the valve would never kick in unless the peri pump started siphoning......

LOL....I have the Aqua Medic SP 3000 Niveaumat.....

 

[Snowboarda42]

Another thing to consider with a top-off hooked right up to your RO/DI is the chance of the valve sticking open. If that happens, you'll come home to lake reef on your floor. But as with a top off system that has say, a 5 gallon bucket, all that will happen is that you'll either fill your sump way up, or get alot less water on the floor, and possibly break your dosing pump (depending on the type of pump). Its much better to draw auto-top off from a reservoir than a potentially limitless supply (i.e. the RO/DI).

Hope it helps.