Calcuim Reactor in ATS Tank

[herring_fish]

I am building a high end calcium reactor and a kalk reactor as well, for my 180 gallon re-start. I have an ATS that has served me well for 20 years.

How should it be affected by an ATS and vice versa? I plan to run the effluent (30 to 50 ml per minute) into a refugium with cheot in it and then it will be highly aerated in a plankton farm before being pumped back to the display tank.

Is there anything that I should look out for?

[SantaMonica]

High-pH kalk water, if run directly on to a scrubber (which also increases pH), may precipitate phosphorus due to the high pH it reaches. So the kalk effluent should be diluted first, or put after the scrubber.

[herring_fish]

OK Lete’s say that I get a tube …2 to 4 inches in diameter and put it in the refugium with an air stone at the bottom of it. Then I could put the effluent from the calcium reactor by the air stone.
Since the CA reactor is suppose to give you close to perfect water chemistry except for pH, should I consider running the effluent into place of aeration and then into the macro area before pumping it back through the kalk reactor.

I am thinking that the aeration will blow off some of the CO2 and the refugium macro should lower it further. Then if I put it through the kalk reactor, perhaps I would need to use less of it and make it easier to tune relative to the CaRx. Finally I dilute it and send it back to the tank.

Is this over thinking it?

[SantaMonica]

What's the reaction for the calcium? I only thought the kalk changed pH.

[herring_fish]

Calcium and kalk reactors are use together or by themselves because they are used for many of the same things like adding alkalinity and the obvious calcium for skeleton building corals but many people feel that calcium is more balanced, having more trace elements. The down side is, in order to dissolve Ca, we turn the water acidic to break it down.

Because of the infusion of CO2, the pH from the calcium reactor is low. That is the only reason that I want to use the kalk reactor. The kalk will bring it back up. The calcium reactor effluent will still be rich in CO2 which, I guess helps keep the pH depressed. If I get rid of it, I would hope that the pH would come up a little.

Then when I add kalk, it wants to bring the pH back up but it has some of the same things in it that the calcium media has in it so alk can be added again. This might make it harder to tune in the alkalinity values. I would think that the less kalk that you can use to do the job on the pH, the better but I really don’t know.

[SantaMonica]

If the CA reactor is using CO2 and lowering pH, then it should go directly into macros/scrubber. The more the better. Then from macros/scrubber to kalk.

Any pods may not like the trip though.

[herring_fish]

Thanks

So skip the aeration before the macro?

[SantaMonica]

Yea not needed if the only purpose is to remove CO2. The macros will love it.

[herring_fish]

Ok thanks