I use an Aqua Medic kalk stirrer on my 100 gallon and run my Tunze ATU through it. However even though have a lot of SPS and other hard corals I found my calcium was getting too high while running all my top up water through it.
I could have just put a simple timer on the ATU so it just run at night but that would mean my salinity going up and down like a yo-yo so not the best solution. What I needed was for my ATU to put my reservoir water through the kalc stirrer at night and for plain RO to be delivered during the day into my sump. This way it would give me a much more stable SG and still provide enough calcium for my corals. I also wanted whatever I came up with to be quite cheap
. What I hit on, with the help of a friend, was to have a 2 pump system with a digital LCD timer switch supplying 12v to 2 X 12v mini DC pumps. I was already using such a pump and know how good they are for such a small very inexpensive pump. I had an old Nokia 3pin 230v (UK voltage) to 12v DC 4.8w phone charger and all I had to do was remove the mini plug bare the wires and wire it into the switch timer. The 2 X 12v DC pumps were wired then into the switch timer. When completed one pipe from one pump was rooted into the sump and the other attached to my Kalk stirrer which in turn puts kalk into my sump. Then all I needed to do was programme the timer so kalk was delivered at night via one pump and pure RO during the day into the sump via the other pump.
Costs. UK pounds.
Digital LCD power timer switch. £7.99p delivered.
12V mini pump. £3.05p delivered.
Both above from the eBay.
Nokia 3pinUK phone charger I already had so free.
2 meters of 2 core bell wire 50p.
Total cost £11-54p
Switch timer.
12v DC mini pump.
Reservoir with 2 mini pumps installed.
Aqua Medic Kalk stirrer.
I can now adjust the amount of kalc and therefore calcium etc to my tank by altering the times on the digital timer between the 2 pumps.
I could have just put a simple timer on the ATU so it just run at night but that would mean my salinity going up and down like a yo-yo so not the best solution. What I needed was for my ATU to put my reservoir water through the kalc stirrer at night and for plain RO to be delivered during the day into my sump. This way it would give me a much more stable SG and still provide enough calcium for my corals. I also wanted whatever I came up with to be quite cheap
. What I hit on, with the help of a friend, was to have a 2 pump system with a digital LCD timer switch supplying 12v to 2 X 12v mini DC pumps. I was already using such a pump and know how good they are for such a small very inexpensive pump. I had an old Nokia 3pin 230v (UK voltage) to 12v DC 4.8w phone charger and all I had to do was remove the mini plug bare the wires and wire it into the switch timer. The 2 X 12v DC pumps were wired then into the switch timer. When completed one pipe from one pump was rooted into the sump and the other attached to my Kalk stirrer which in turn puts kalk into my sump. Then all I needed to do was programme the timer so kalk was delivered at night via one pump and pure RO during the day into the sump via the other pump.
Costs. UK pounds.
Digital LCD power timer switch. £7.99p delivered.
12V mini pump. £3.05p delivered.
Both above from the eBay.
Nokia 3pinUK phone charger I already had so free.
2 meters of 2 core bell wire 50p.
Total cost £11-54p
Switch timer.
12v DC mini pump.
Reservoir with 2 mini pumps installed.
Aqua Medic Kalk stirrer.
I can now adjust the amount of kalc and therefore calcium etc to my tank by altering the times on the digital timer between the 2 pumps.
