DIY Kalk Reactor

[grassi]

A new one was too expensive.
A used one was expensive.
A diy round one was expensive too..
So I made it square. Should work in the same way.
I'm almost ready to the water test and then find a MJ 400 or 600 to test it.

[Frank]

Before you put water into it call me... I see some you need to know about...

[grassi]

You scared me Frank! :-))
I did a fast water test and seems to work, except the top flange. Maybe I have to add a couple of bolts or some sort of gasket.
I will give you a call later.
Alex

[stylaster]

i want to see this thing in action!

[Ryan]

Looks good...my first DIY reactor project was square as well...a square calcium reactor. It worked great(too good in fact), my tank was just too small to take advantage of it... :(

I get my gasket material from A-Boy Plumbing on Terwilliger across from Fred Meyers. Its 1/8" thick rubber. It comes in 6"x6" sheets for $2.99. Its on the first plumbing aisle where all the toilet plumbing accessories are on the bottom shelf. It works great to seal flat surfaces.

[reef165]

Looks good...my first DIY reactor project was square as well...a square calcium reactor. It worked great(too good in fact), my tank was just too small to take advantage of it... :(

I get my gasket material from A-Boy Plumbing on Terwilliger across from Fred Meyers. Its 1/8" thick rubber. It comes in 6"x6" sheets for $2.99. Its on the first plumbing aisle where all the toilet plumbing accessories are on the bottom shelf. It works great to seal flat surfaces.

Good to know! Ive been wondering whare to get some small piece of rubber for gaskets.

[grassi]

Thanks for the advice Frank. I'm gonna setup the test like this:
Dosing pump>reactor>sump. The pressure should be minimal inside the chamber.
For now I'm gonna use an aqualifter with a barb valve before the reactor.
In december I will be back in Italy and a client of mine will give me a few peristaltic pump to test (they use them for milking equipment).

stylaster, I'm gonna start the test in a few hours as soon as the pvc cement is ready, I will post some pics :-)

Ryan, thanks a lot for the hint... I'm using a temporary gasket for now, but I will check out A-Boy Plumbing. It is alway difficult to find good sources for gaskets, o-rings and materials in general.

I'm very happy about this diy. Almost free and it was fun to built it :-)
The square shape is not used a lot for reactors and skimmers, I think mostly because of the cost of producing it vs buying large quantity of acrilyc tubes.
The amount of media a square shape can hold is way more than a cylinder. Nice for short stands like mine.

Next project is gonna be a square ca reactor :-))

[grassi]

Test went almost ok. Just some leaks near to the top flange that I'm gonna fix.
I just used weld-on N3..
The reactor was stirring well and serving kalk slowly.
Some pics:

[newfisher]

Looks great! Good job. Now, how do we order them?

[grassi]

This project started just for fun, but to be honest it could be a good idea to sell some units.
I would like to finance one project I have in mind (a cheap Reef controller based on Arduino Duemilanove).
I would buy something like this. It wasn't available so I made it.
Problem is that building a square one is cheap if you do it yourself: it requires more time than a cylinder shaped one. You have to cut, glue, test...
The materials itself are not more than $40 + pump ($14 new). But there are at least 3 hours of work.
Now I'm gonna test it for a few days connected to the tank and see what modifications are needed. There are always :-)
Then maybe I will make a few more, same size for now. It is about 2 gallons, so is good for most of the tanks in the 55-120 I think.
Alex

[newfisher]

I have a 49g corner, space is very limited in the cabinet. If I took measurements would you be interested in a customer , smaller build?

[grassi]

Sure. Mine was built considering the small cabinet I have and the tank size.
What's your daily evaporation rate in average?

[grassi]

Sent you a pm Roy. At now the reactor is running in test mode. More than 24hrs and it looks good. I'm gonna post a picture soon with the new fancy black top flange

[newfisher]

I top off 1" every 3rd day 36" canopy 2 ros actinics and 250w MH 8-10" off the surface.
I have a 12" deep x 10" tall x 10" wide space above my canister if I built a shelf to hold one.. or behind and outside the cabinet 8x8x? tall (whistle)

[grassi]

What's your total volume in gallons?
12''x10''x10'' is good....
I'm thinking about a 7''x7''x10''. It is about 2 gallons...

[grassi]

So I got about 10 pm's and emails in a few hours.... To all of you, I need to know the average daily evaporation. This is the first important data. The reactor should match that first.
Then I need to know the free space you have in your stand.
Taller is the better, but I know it is critical.

[grassi]

24 hours test

[newfisher]

What's your total volume in gallons?
12''x10''x10'' is good....
I'm thinking about a 7''x7''x10''. It is about 2 gallons...

49g corner with a Eheim pro 2 ( 2 gallons ) so, 51 ish. Evap= roughly 2 gals every 3 days. I am topping off 1-1.5 inch evap using a 5 gallon water jug and guessing the aount. I can get precise over the next week if it will help. Thanks for q's

[grassi]

Newfisher, the 10'' in height is your maximum space?
We need to leave you some room for hands so you can open the lid and put the kalk...
It could be 6x6x10 if you have some room on the top for maintenance or
8x8x8 with a pvc spray bar, so all the calk will be mixed (the elbow is probably not enought tp cover that surface).
Also I would use a 90 elbow fitting on the top flange to save more space.
Let me know

[newfisher]

Sending a P.M.

[grassi]

Thanks Newfisher, got it.

Ok, after a safe test now the reactor is up and running. The micro valve is easy to adjust to have the right flow back in the sump (about 1 drop per second in my setup).

[newfisher]

looks GREAT under there.....I think the square looks better than round!!

[grassi]

Yes it does. I like it a lot. I'm looking forward to build the square calcium reactor :-))

[Smann]

Looks good, where did you get the plastic screws and wing nuts

[ClayTheSavageFraser]

Can we make a CA REACTOR FOR ME? I need one for my 240!!

Clay

[grassi]

Looks good and it is working great, thanks.
I've found them at Lowe's. I'm looking to find a place where there is more choice, like some black ones, or different kind of nuts. I mean, somewhere locally.
Btw, thanks again for the gen-x and your frag tank overflow is amazing :-)
Alex

[grassi]

Sure we can Clay. I'm gonna start to build my ca reactor soon.
I really like the design and performances of DJ'88 square Ca reactor (http://www.melevsreef.com/dj88.html). I friend of mine in Europe is running something similar and seems to work really well.
I have a few ideas about how to make it working better, especially in the Venturi side.
How do you keep your ca level up at now?



Can we make a CA REACTOR FOR ME? I need one for my 240!!

Clay

[ClayTheSavageFraser]

Purple up. but I only have a 100 gallon right now. So I figured it would be a better deal if i put a ca reactor on my new 240.
I would really appreciate it!! What can I do to help?

Clay

[grassi]

I was using purple+ too... with a 240g it is gonna be really expensive!
Do you have a lot of room inside your stand?



Purple up. but I only have a 100 gallon right now. So I figured it would be a better deal if i put a ca reactor on my new 240.
I would really appreciate it!! What can I do to help?

Clay

[ClayTheSavageFraser]

Yes I do!! I am plumbing everything out to the garage!!

Clay

[Smann]

Looks good and it is working great, thanks.
I've found them at Lowe's. I'm looking to find a place where there is more choice, like some black ones, or different kind of nuts. I mean, somewhere locally.
Btw, thanks again for the gen-x and your frag tank overflow is amazing :-)
Alex

Great build!!, I'll be all over this when I get home (vacation). Are you going to run both?. I might try the Kalk first to help maintain Ph and see if it keeps the calcium up enough. I'm using Kent Turbo Calcium right now in the garage set ups (have Cal/Kalk in the main) It will maintain levels Ok but wont raise it at all and then it slowly falls over weeks

[grassi]

Yes, I'm gonna run both. I would like to run them with a ph monitor/controller.
I used to run kalk, gravity dripping from a jug, and it was was working well (chemically speaking).
I was just tired to make it every day and also knowing that it was working well only for the first hour or two (then the oxidation was making it pretty much unuseful).
I think that the ca reactor is a little bit too much for my setup at now (for water volume and bioload), but I'm gonna build it to have it ready when needed :-)

[grassi]

when are you gonna be ready with it?





Yes I do!! I am plumbing everything out to the garage!!

Clay

[Frank]

I run my Kalk reactor and my Ca Reactor....
Here is the DYI I did...
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e81/PortlandJetta/Reeftank/IMG_2030.jpg

[Algae]

Okay, Here is a question. Kalk forms a layer on the bottom and top, even after an hour or so. The residue in the top layer is pushed out when the dosing pump is started. Isn't that kind of self defeating? What I am wondering is if it might be benificial to weld a 1/2" X 1" acrylic tube on the inside of the top plate that goes to the output tube? This way the very top of the kalk wiould not be dosed?

[grassi]

Nice setup Frank! I read your diy post some days ago :)
How do you feed the reactor?

Algae, this is what I was thinking too...
I've looked at many designs before to build mine.
My main concern was to not having air inside. About the layers, the one on the bottom stay there so no problem. Being square shaped there will be some encrusting at the corners that can be removed every once in a while, as part of maintenance.
I was reading a guy using a similar setup cleaning it every 2 or 3 months.
The 1/4 threaded fitting on the top flange is inside the reactor a little bit deeper than the white layer. Just enough to not allowing the milky top layer to be sucked in.
I was waiting for the layer to be sucked, so I was gonna glue a rigid tube... but seems it is not necessary :-)

[grassi]

I just finished Roy's reactor. It is ready for the leak test.
It is way bigger than mine. I changed the pump "neck" making it a little shorter and it should work better.
I also changed the flange design, moving the bolts (now 8) more outside.
The white acrylic looks nice :-)

[Smann]

Which type of white acrylic is that?. It looks glossy in the last photo, I hope its not the softer type.

[grassi]

It is glossy, like the one used for skimmers caps.
It is the same as the transparent one, cell-cast... hard to drill and cut :-)