Reactor dosing kalk from topoff

[roggy23]

So I have a reactor kalk stirrer.. The tunze autotopoff pumps water into reactor then the kalk gets gravity fed into sump.. it’s not raising my ph to the levels I want. It’s about 8.15.. I think the evaporation is not fast enough to dose the amounts tank needed to get to 8.3… does this mean I should use a doser instead and if so how do I figure out how much to dose and how often to get to 8.3?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You should determine kalk dose based on tank alkalinity, not pH. In terms of pH you get what you get.

Are you measuring alk?

 

[roggy23]

Ya I’m at 8.5

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Ya I’m at 8.5

Where do you want alk to be?

 

[roggy23]

Where do you want alk to be?

9

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Then you can either check to see if the reactor is delivering saturated kalk, and up it if not and if possible, or just add extra alk another way, and not focus on attaining the pH via kalk (which often is not enough for some scenarios).

 

[roggy23]

Then you can either check to see if the reactor is delivering saturated kalk, and up it if not and if possible, or just add extra alk another way, and not focus on attaining the pH via kalk (which often is not enough for some scenarios).

Crap I tested today with running the kalk and my alk is up to 9.5… do I stop the kalk and only start it when my kalk lowers a bit?

 

[roggy23]

Oh I know I won’t add kalk to the reactor until it drops then add 1/4 cup until I get a feel of stability

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If it’s stirring 24/7, then reducing the stirring time may be a suitable solution.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Aside from everything mentioned in other posts I would be curious on the flow rate going through the reactor (not related to the original question). My experience with the old style tunze ato pump and a k1 stirrer, was that it had too much flow. So much that it forced the solids (not just the supersaturated clear liquid) out. This led to spikes and precipitation. I myself found that a slow flow dosing pump achieved much more balanced results and kept the solids from spewing out. Avast has a thread on here where I posed the preferred flow rate question and they listed a range that was in line with my observations.