andy Posted May 7, 2008 Share Posted May 7, 2008 I got tired of inhaling a lungfull or two of Kalk dust every time I refreshed my top-off water, so I built a kalk reactor: Assembly went pretty well, I had the 6" diam. cast tube left over from my skimmer build; the rest of the acrylic came from TAP Plastics -- I love the fact that they have pre-cut circles as open-stock. I was lucky to find the thick top piece (3/4" cast acrylic!), I haven't seen one of those before. The 6" o-ring was a bit tough to find locally. I ended up talking to one of the guys at Grover Plumbing in Vancouver, and he found one for me. Routing a groove for the o-ring kind'a sucked. At 6" diameter, the groove was too small a radius for my main router. I ended up using a Dremel tool with their router/circle-cutter attachment; worked okay, but the dremel was a bit wimpy for the task so the groove ended up rougher than I wanted. What's important is that the o-ring fits and seals. Water will be pushed through the reactor by an Aqualifter (controlled by a float-valve off my ACjr). Fresh water enters the top of the reactor and descends down an acrylic tube (can't see in the picture due to milky kalkwasser) to the halfway point. Saturated kalkwasser exits from the top of the reactor and will drip into the tank through the filter sock in the sump. There's a John Guest valve on the top, which I'll use to bleed air out of the system. Since the Aqualifter is designed to connect to 1/8" ID airline hose, I had to come up with some kind of 1/8" to 1/4" poly converter. Once again, TAP Plastic made life easier. I bought a 1" acrylic cube, then drilled and 1/4" tapped it (for the John Guest fittings); then, I drilled 3/16" holes intersecting each of the 1/4" tapped sections. Each of the 3/16" holes got a short bit of rigid (styrene) airline glued in with Weld-On #16. I also decided to put a check valve into the line to prevent kalk from backflowing into the ATO reservoir. They aren't perfect, but a little bit more security can't hurt. Here's the finished item (please ignore the vintage 1970s carpeting): I tried to set it all up this morning. I couldn't get it into the space in my stand... gonna have to remove the skimmer first, then put in the reactor, then replace the skimmer. A PITA, but I guess the skimmer needs cleaning anyways... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impur Posted May 7, 2008 Share Posted May 7, 2008 Nice job! Does the recirc pump have a timer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy Posted May 7, 2008 Author Share Posted May 7, 2008 Recirc will also be controlled by the ACjr. It'll stir twice a day, and prevent ATO for 1 hour after each stir so suspended kalk has a chance to settle and not make it into the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impur Posted May 7, 2008 Share Posted May 7, 2008 Cool. Love the idea using the acrylic cube. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewie Posted May 7, 2008 Share Posted May 7, 2008 Right on Andy! What's wrong with shag carpet? You know that there are people who would pay good money to have the retro look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy Posted May 7, 2008 Author Share Posted May 7, 2008 If you know any, send 'em my way -- I'm sure we could make each others' day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lquidglass Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 Nice job! looks like that will work great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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