For about the last 4 months, I've been tinkering with a controller that will adjust the effluent through a kalk reactor based on input from a pH probe inside the tank.
It all started as a conversation about pH being the parameter that we need to be focusing on instead of DKH. At the time I wasn't quite convinced that maintaining a stable pH throughout out a 24h period was going to make much difference, and because you're using calcium hydroxide to raise pH, you're also elevating calcium carbonate.
Over the last few months I started finding videos on this very subject, and it certainly seems Chris Meckley has been beating the drum for this concept. He certainly has had time to experiment with various methods and has had great success with hydroxides to raise and maintain the pH in his tanks. I was also surprised to hear that he had DKH in excess of 13+ without negative effects on his corals. Of course, if anyone is familiar with his methods, he seems to prefer mixing calcium hydroxide to saturation in a large container and then dose that into his tanks. And he has sworn off kalk reactors because it's difficult to get and maintain 12.4pH inside the reactor.
After thinking about it, I concluded that his approach made dosing calcium hydroxide to maintain pH unattainable for people that don't have room for large storage containers. You would have to compromise and have a small container that you'd have to mix [to saturation] and fill almost daily.
My approach to this hobby is less work makes for a more enjoyable experience. I view mundane daily chores as 'butts to wipe'. And when you're overwhelmed with more time wiping and less time enjoying the fruits of your labor, it's no longer fun!
Because I wanted to explore stable pH and wanting to limit the number of butts to wipe, I decided to challenge this approach and team up with a programmer to make a controller that will work with a kalk reactor so that you can load up kalk powder in a reactor and get the benefits of a large 50g storage container in the small footprint of a kalk reactor.
Although I stated that a small footprint is ideal, I personally have the realestate to make an over the top reactor, because if you know me, then you know I like making things. But the idea of this project is that anyone can use their current kalk reactor and add this controller to their system.
I don't want to gloss over the fact that none of this would've been possible without the help of a guy that has become a friend of mine that is an awesome programmer. If it wasn't for him, none of this would've been possible. It definitely had to be difficult to take my outrageous requests and put it into code. There have been a lot of compromises thus far but with his vast knowledge in the world of arduino coding, he has made this project better than I could've imagined.
Here is a short video of the 5' tall Nilsen (Kalk) Reactor and the first version of the controller.
This next video explains in a little more detail how the controller works. I tried to keep it simple but went off into the weeds a couple times. But hopefully you get the gist of how it works.
As I work out the bugs the goal here is to provide everything needed for folks that want to make one of these for themselves. I'm going to put together a BOM, all the stl files for the base and command center, and step by step easy to follow instructions to upload the code as well as putting it altogether.
With that being said, if there are people out there familiar with circuit board design, I would love to integrate an easier solution to all the components that make up the entire project to limit all the soldering and make plugging things in easier.
It all started as a conversation about pH being the parameter that we need to be focusing on instead of DKH. At the time I wasn't quite convinced that maintaining a stable pH throughout out a 24h period was going to make much difference, and because you're using calcium hydroxide to raise pH, you're also elevating calcium carbonate.
Over the last few months I started finding videos on this very subject, and it certainly seems Chris Meckley has been beating the drum for this concept. He certainly has had time to experiment with various methods and has had great success with hydroxides to raise and maintain the pH in his tanks. I was also surprised to hear that he had DKH in excess of 13+ without negative effects on his corals. Of course, if anyone is familiar with his methods, he seems to prefer mixing calcium hydroxide to saturation in a large container and then dose that into his tanks. And he has sworn off kalk reactors because it's difficult to get and maintain 12.4pH inside the reactor.
After thinking about it, I concluded that his approach made dosing calcium hydroxide to maintain pH unattainable for people that don't have room for large storage containers. You would have to compromise and have a small container that you'd have to mix [to saturation] and fill almost daily.
My approach to this hobby is less work makes for a more enjoyable experience. I view mundane daily chores as 'butts to wipe'. And when you're overwhelmed with more time wiping and less time enjoying the fruits of your labor, it's no longer fun!
Because I wanted to explore stable pH and wanting to limit the number of butts to wipe, I decided to challenge this approach and team up with a programmer to make a controller that will work with a kalk reactor so that you can load up kalk powder in a reactor and get the benefits of a large 50g storage container in the small footprint of a kalk reactor.
Although I stated that a small footprint is ideal, I personally have the realestate to make an over the top reactor, because if you know me, then you know I like making things. But the idea of this project is that anyone can use their current kalk reactor and add this controller to their system.
I don't want to gloss over the fact that none of this would've been possible without the help of a guy that has become a friend of mine that is an awesome programmer. If it wasn't for him, none of this would've been possible. It definitely had to be difficult to take my outrageous requests and put it into code. There have been a lot of compromises thus far but with his vast knowledge in the world of arduino coding, he has made this project better than I could've imagined.
Here is a short video of the 5' tall Nilsen (Kalk) Reactor and the first version of the controller.
This next video explains in a little more detail how the controller works. I tried to keep it simple but went off into the weeds a couple times. But hopefully you get the gist of how it works.
As I work out the bugs the goal here is to provide everything needed for folks that want to make one of these for themselves. I'm going to put together a BOM, all the stl files for the base and command center, and step by step easy to follow instructions to upload the code as well as putting it altogether.
With that being said, if there are people out there familiar with circuit board design, I would love to integrate an easier solution to all the components that make up the entire project to limit all the soldering and make plugging things in easier.
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