Calcium Reactor/ Kalk opinions

you know i still use kalk on mine joel I just like the fact that it helps maintain ph and alk plus it helps remove phosphate

 

i've never had issues with low pH running a Ca Rx on several systems (8.1 - 8.3), it is putting buffers (hydroxides, etc) into your water after all that help your pH. systems with a very high Ca demand i use Kalk at night, systems that stay over 400 ppm i don't because i'm too lazy to prepare it every day.

 

How does it help remove phosphate? I'm using pickling lime for my drip, but was just wondering how kalk does this and if pickling lime does it too.

 

Where's the article? Was there supposed to be an attachment?

 

haha, yea it's been a long day at work for me tonight so I didn't know if I was spacing that one off or not. Guess it was just you!

 

So just for clarification, pickling lime is food grade calcium hydroxide which is also known as kalk. Add water to the point of saturation and you get kalkwasser or limewater. I put some info on this topic in the GIRS Wiki a while back (http://www.greateriowareefsociety.o...y+of+Terms).

Also, I asked the same question here (http://www.greateriowareefsociety.o...fault.aspx) so you may want to refer to that for reference. The answers that I heard were basically that most of the people in the group that use calcium reactors do not use kalk after the addition of the reactor. Since then, I heard other info...in one case, they continued to drip kalk, but it was because the reactor was undersized for their water volume. In another case, I heard that running both makes it difficult to keep the ionic balance of the water in check. I don't have mine set up yet, but when I do, I don't plan on dosing kalkwasser at first unless I decide later that I need to for some reason. The most interesting thing that I noted from my research was that captures free carbon dioxide and converts it to bicarbonate.

--AJ

 

Joel,
This is what I do and it has been working out great. I run CA reactor, and if my PH drops below 8.00 my controller turns on kalp water pump and increases PH to 8.05 and then stops the pump, so my tank water PH never goes below 8.00, in this manner I use about 5 gallons of kalk water in 3 - 4 days, it mainly runs in the middle of the night and early morning. My Ph stays rock solid, and my alk, and calcium stays stable.

 

Just a thought here...
Using a reactor and/or dripping kalk is great - if your system needs it.
As jtesdall stated:
"My question is this: for people running Ca RX's do you also run Kalk to either buffer the low pH from the reactor or to just add extra Ca and Alk. I have always run Kalk as 100% topoff but my Alk has been dropping so my load has finally outdone what the Kalk can provide. Hence setting this thing up now"
I believe that too many people set a system up with calcium overkill and then wonder why their small frags don't grow.  Regular water changes will support a fair amount of growth but I from what I've found the overall key is stability.  This goes with dosing Mg, Alk or anything else...especialy if you don't test for it. 
I've seen great growth in tanks with Ca @ 350 and @ 500...we've all seen threads where someone states how perfect their params are but can't get anything to grow...and other threads where the tank is gorgeous without hi-tech equipment or regular maintenance.
Back to the topic...I've never used a reactor so I can't say either way .  Even in a heavily stocked 75g my Ca was around 450 w/kalk alone, ph was fine.
-Eric