Kalk stirrer operation

[RedReefer]

You should be fine if the pump runs water in/out the stirrer, while the slurry is mixing. My Kalk stirrer, stirs 24 hours daily.

 

[Wayofthereef]

So you're suggesting it needs to be emptied on a weekly basis? I was hoping for less maintainence !

No no lol.. just the 1 time.. once you mark it you will know exactly how much to dump in there withou measuring.. so once a week or every other week simply add my kalk up to you mark

 

[TWYOUNG]

No no lol.. just the 1 time.. once you mark it you will know exactly how much to dump in there withou measuring.. so once a week or every other week simply add my kalk up to you mark

I already know that I added 100 grams of powder and that made 1 3/4" of slurry/residue/precipitate on the bottom. I'm hoping with a closed up reactor there'll be little precipitation and most or all of that slurry will be pure kalk powder just waiting to be disolved.

 

[BiggestE22]

I honestly would return it. Keep kalkwasser in a caped container like a Home Depot bucket. I use a 3 gallon food container. Use a stem on hard airline to suck it out and a tiny air hole .
Kalkwasser stay’s near 100% concentrated for 30 days. So what’s a kalk stirrer for ? 100% ? Just an overpriced gadget. There expensive to. All you need is a container, a doseing pump and airline tube. Easy to set up for under a hundred. While I’m at it I might suggest Brightwell kalk plus 2 . It has strontium and magnesium in it in one product. Hope this helps . Ted

You have to replenish the ro water in a container much more often then you have to in a Kalk reactor. Also your brighwell kalk is a gimmick. Magnesium precipitates at such high PH so that slurry you see is your magnesium. The biggest reason is automation. Your ato adds ro water and the kale is stirred to keep the kale asset water potent. There are cheaper ways to do anything in the hobby

 

[BiggestE22]

Perhaps you are overthinking kalk . There is plenty of other people who have researched how well and long kalk maintains concentration . The scum on the top is actually necessary it keeps carbon from the air getting into the mix and never remix kalk because it ruins it . Btw 1 gallon per day is a lot . We normally measure alkalinity to gauge how much to use . Forget PH if you’re using kalk . It’s good as a given. I dose it every hour , some people dose only at night.

I believe the crust is the result of co2 entering the chamber. If you are able to avoid co2 entering the chamber there is no crust.

 

[Sweet Reef Corals]

You have to replenish the ro water in a container much more often then you have to in a Kalk reactor. Also your brighwell kalk is a gimmick. Magnesium precipitates at such high PH so that slurry you see is your magnesium. The biggest reason is automation. Your ato adds ro water and the kale is stirred to keep the kale asset water potent. There are cheaper ways to do anything in the hobby

 

[Sweet Reef Corals]

Gonna attempt to build my own stirrer with this from Amazon. Much better than $200+ for a reactor.

 

[TWYOUNG]

You have to replenish the ro water in a container much more often then you have to in a Kalk reactor. Also your brighwell kalk is a gimmick. Magnesium precipitates at such high PH so that slurry you see is your magnesium. The biggest reason is automation. Your ato adds ro water and the kale is stirred to keep the kale asset water potent. There are cheaper ways to do anything in the hobby

So far I love my stirrer. Much more compact and keeps a more stabile concentration. Not sure how he tests his kalk to determine it is 100% saturated but I saw definite pH changes and varying dosing requirements over time. As far as $$$ go, I never understand why people concern themselves with how others choose to enjoy spending it. As long as they're not too complicated to operate I enjoy my gadgets as do many others in this hobby. Personally I think it's unnecessary to spend 100's or 1000's on a device to test your water four times per day, but if it makes you happy go right ahead.

 

[TWYOUNG]

Thats exactly how you do it right there

I initiated the stirrer with 100 grams kalk powder on 5/16 and the pH of the solution three days layer was 12.2. One month later there was still 1" of slurry in the bottom but the pH had dropped to 11.6. At that time I added 100 grams more of kalk and the pH rose to 12.3. Now around one month later my tanks alkalinity dropped 0.8 over the past four days. Although there is still around 2 inches of slurry in the reactor the pH has dropped to 11.6 again. Do I continue to add more kalk powder, run the stirrer longer or more frequently, or empty the entire thing and start over? Doesn't seem like that should be necessary after just two months.

 

[Wayofthereef]

I initiated the stirrer with 100 grams kalk powder on 5/16 and the pH of the solution three days layer was 12.2. One month later there was still 1" of slurry in the bottom but the pH had dropped to 11.6. At that time I added 100 grams more of kalk and the pH rose to 12.3. Now around one month later my tanks alkalinity dropped 0.8 over the past four days. Although there is still around 2 inches of slurry in the reactor the pH has dropped to 11.6 again. Do I continue to add more kalk powder, run the stirrer longer or more frequently, or empty the entire thing and start over? Doesn't seem like that should be necessary after just two months.

Run the stirrer longer first would be my suggestion

 

[Saltyanimals]

good discussion. I'll chime in with my own stirrer (24x7) experience. I have it "tuned" to the best I can with my tank, but it's still more maintenance than I expected. My tank: 180G mix. I have a constant stirrer feeding it with ~1500 ml of ATO water on a dedicate pump. The constant stir keeps the solution milky so I'm essentially dosing kalk slurry into my sump. This is prob why I'm able to only dose 1500 and not much higher bc of the higher potency of the slurry. No major precipitation issue in the sump. Anything more I would have salinity problems because of my evaporation limits. I have a CaRX as a supplemental to allow me to tune. I've tried part time stirring and solution was simply not potent enough again going back to my evaporation limits.

Is it working? Yes, but I find myself refilling kalk (1cup) every 10-12 days. I've tuned this over the past few months keeping logs that tells me my tank pH will hit 7.9 (low) right about that 10-12 days where I need to reload that 1 cup of kalk. The problem I'm seeing is that my alk will eventually drift down to high 8s at that 10-12 day mark, but immediately jump 1-2 dkh when I reload. I can and have graphed this. While I haven't seen any major issues, I can't say this 1-2 dkh jump is healthy for SPS from a stability perspective.

Has anyone experience similar and found a solution to the spike at kalk reload? And I'm nowhere close to a monthly kalk reload because dumping in 2 cups would likely spike alk to a bad bad place. I also find myself removing the undissolved kalk every so often. pH boost from the kalk is awesome, but I thought kalk was suppose to be low maintenance and stable.

 

[TWYOUNG]

good discussion. I'll chime in with my own stirrer (24x7) experience. I have it "tuned" to the best I can with my tank, but it's still more maintenance than I expected. My tank: 180G mix. I have a constant stirrer feeding it with ~1500 ml of ATO water on a dedicate pump. The constant stir keeps the solution milky so I'm essentially dosing kalk slurry into my sump. This is prob why I'm able to only dose 1500 and not much higher bc of the higher potency of the slurry. No major precipitation issue in the sump. Anything more I would have salinity problems because of my evaporation limits. I have a CaRX as a supplemental to allow me to tune. I've tried part time stirring and solution was simply not potent enough again going back to my evaporation limits.

Is it working? Yes, but I find myself refilling kalk (1cup) every 10-12 days. I've tuned this over the past few months keeping logs that tells me my tank pH will hit 7.9 (low) right about that 10-12 days where I need to reload that 1 cup of kalk. The problem I'm seeing is that my alk will eventually drift down to high 8s at that 10-12 day mark, but immediately jump 1-2 dkh when I reload. I can and have graphed this. While I haven't seen any major issues, I can't say this 1-2 dkh jump is healthy for SPS from a stability perspective.

Has anyone experience similar and found a solution to the spike at kalk reload? And I'm nowhere close to a monthly kalk reload because dumping in 2 cups would likely spike alk to a bad bad place. I also find myself removing the undissolved kalk every so often. pH boost from the kalk is awesome, but I thought kalk was suppose to be low maintenance and stable.

Yeah, I've been disappointed with the maintenance and lack of stability. You can decrease the amt of kalk dosed after adding fresh powder but it's a constant adjustment process. If you have a Trident you could program it to hold kalk dosing whenever alkalinity raises.

 

[ReefStash]

Using K1 Kalk Stirrer from Avast Marine and I like it set up inside the ATO container using the Tunze ATO pump to feed. I have a large tank and no evaporation fluctuations living in FL. If your tank is small and or you have evap fluctuations then you’ll want to use a dosing pump to feed the kalk stirrer. Here’s a video I did on it: