madmax7774 March 19, 2007 March 19, 2007 I have a situation with my setup that would make it much easier for me if I could just use a small powerhead to draw saltwater from the sump, and feed it through a kalkwasser back into the sump, instead of using RO top off water as the water source. Is there any reason why I should not do this? does the water going into the kalkwassser have to be RO water only? can I use saltwater from the sump to introduce the kalk into the system? I am not worried about overdosing kalk, as I have an aquacontroller and could set that up to monitor PH and stop the kalk system if the PH starts to rise.
ReeferMan March 19, 2007 March 19, 2007 i think you should be ok. i have done it to bump my salinity up with no ill effects. The only reason people use ro water to dose kalk is to replinish water from evaporation and at at the same time keep up your alk and CA.
Grav March 19, 2007 March 19, 2007 It works best as a top off with RO/DI water as not nearly as much Kalk will disolve in saltwater. Think about it like this (numbers are guesses): you have 400ppm CA in your tank water, it enters the reactor and goes up to... maybe 420??? and then back into the tank. Lets say you process 1 gallon of this per day in a 100 gallon tank. You have just added 0.2 PPM to the whole tank. Compare that to adding 1 gallon of RO/DI Kalk top off water with 250 ppm CA (saturation is actually lower with RO/DI water than saltwater as without MG to breakup the chain of CA) that is 2.5 ppm for your 100 gallon system. I'm not sure about this, but I'd also be concerned about other things percipitating out of your tankwater. Besides, you need to top off anyway, you should be able to find a way to combine the two.
ReeferMan March 19, 2007 March 19, 2007 Phil good point i never thought about that but it makes alot of sense.
madmax7774 March 19, 2007 Author March 19, 2007 my real problem is that my RO water sits on a 4 ft high shelf about 10ft away from the tank, and the kalkwasser will be sitting on the ground. I am pretty sure that once I start the pump to feed the kalkwasser, it will work fine, but when the cotroller goes to turn off the kalkwasser pump, it will siphon the RO water, and I have a disaster on my hands. I can't think of a way to stop the siphon action. Putting the RO tank of the floor is not an option at this time. I am stumped on this one.... :(
ReeferMan March 19, 2007 March 19, 2007 put the container on the floor next to the kalk reactor or put a float valve on your sump.
Grav March 19, 2007 March 19, 2007 How are you topping off now? Whatever you are doing now, adding a Kalk reactor inbetween the resivoir and the sump shouldn't have any effect. When we talk about floats, there are 2 kinds. Switches turn a pump on and off, float valves will stop the flow into the tank when the water level reaches a certain point... strong enough to hold back considerable pressure. If you want to pump water, then yes you would be better off with the resevoir on the floor and the end of the hose higher. Consider dumping the Kalk into your overflow (4 ft high) instead of the sump.
flowerseller March 19, 2007 March 19, 2007 put the line to the tank up in your overflow box. This may cause you to need a swing check valve right at the pump. Works great for me. PM if you have ?
dandy7200 March 19, 2007 March 19, 2007 my real problem is that my RO water sits on a 4 ft high shelf about 10ft away from the tank, and the kalkwasser will be sitting on the ground. I am pretty sure that once I start the pump to feed the kalkwasser, it will work fine, but when the cotroller goes to turn off the kalkwasser pump, it will siphon the RO water, and I have a disaster on my hands. I can't think of a way to stop the siphon action. Putting the RO tank of the floor is not an option at this time. I am stumped on this one.... :( Use a aqualifter pump. It pulls a vaccuum so by nature fluid can only go one way (the way you want it to go). The output of the pump you put in a tee and the top of the tee goes to a check valve and then a air adjustment valve. This is a basic expansion valve that will draw air into the output line of the line by venturi of sorts. When the pump cuts off a tiny bit of air gets into the line and syphon is broke. This is the same principle used for beckett injector housings (thanks Chip ). HTH
Rascal March 20, 2007 March 20, 2007 I guess I killed this thread Use RODI. Resurrection. If I understand your situation, the water level in your resevoir is at least 5 - 6 feet off of the ground. So even if you run the outlet line up to your overflow, it will still be significantly below the water level in your resevoir. Is this right? If so, I think you will still have a syphon effect. I have never used the aqualifter pump, so maybe I am missing something. I can see how it would prevent the syphon while it was on, since the pump would be controlling the flow rate, but when the pump turns off, does it prevent fluid from continuing to flow in the same direction if gravity (i.e.--syphon) is doing the work? I have used the T-with-check-valve method that Dan wrote about and while it does work, I did not find it to be 100% reliable. If the check valve gets clogged or doesn't open for whatever reason, air will not enter and there will be no syphon break. I ended up giving up and finding a way to put my resevoir at the lowest point. That way you don't have to worry about all of the water syphoning out of it, and the back-syphon issue can be easily prevented by just making sure the outlet of your kalk/top-off is a couple of inches over the water level so it drips in. Just my $.02 as always.
dandy7200 March 20, 2007 March 20, 2007 The Aqualifter is a pretty cool little pump. It's a vaccuum pump so it pulls liquid and when it turns off it leaves a negative pressure in the billows. This pressure prevents liquid from flowing back through it (or air) so there is no possible way for a back syphon to occur. Now all you have to do is worry about a forward syphon which is what John will be dealing with. Pump the liquid uphill is one way to do it as Chip mentioned. Pump the liquid downhill with no expantion valve and kill the pump and what will happen is the liquid reserved in the billows will prevent a "syphon" as we know it to occur. In certain situations where there is not significant back pressure on the pump a drip will be all that happen. We are talking about around 20-50 ml/hour max. Best case scenerio is that since you are only pumping freshwater through the outlet of the pump the check valve will remain reliable and unclogged and blow into the tube once a month or so to make sure its working fine. Actually I guess the best sceneio would be if you needed a 20-50ml/hour dose and you only had to turn the pump on the very first time and then unplug it. ...or just put your reactor above the water line of the RO and pump up to it and let gravity take it down to the sump. No possible way for a syphon to go either direction like that.
Rascal March 20, 2007 March 20, 2007 Thanks for the info/explanation about the aqualifter. That is a very cool little pump.
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