Calcium Reactor Advice

[Drock169]

I just hooked up my Calcium reactor, new to calcium reactors. Its a coralife being controlled by an aquacontroller Jr. so the pH probe is inserted into the chamber. I've heard it take about 24hrs to stabilize. my concern is that the pH probe is reading 7.20 and slowly rising. I know the effluent is supposed to be around 6.8 to work.
I've set the controller to turn on CO2 when pH >6.8 and off when <6.4.
So am I just supposed to wait it out, it will correct itself?

 

[kau_cinta_ku]

you need to turn your bubble rate on your CO2 up.

 

[Drock169]

I think it may have been that my water supply rate was too high and maybe i was just flushing the system. I turned it down to ~55 drops/min. If that doesnt work i'll try turning the bubble rate up.

 

[kau_cinta_ku]

when 1st setting up start off low at around 40-60ml per minute of effluent and one bubble every three seconds through your bubble counter.

here is some more good reading
http://www.melevsreef.com/calcium_reactor.html

 

[snorvich]

Your settings depend on the calcium reactor being used. I personally don't like using a probe in the chamber to control the calcium reactor but do use it as a monitor of what pH is. Different media require different pH. To decrease pH, you can raise CO2 bubble rate or decrease water flow rate.

 

[padi200]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/sh/feature/index.php

more info!

 

[Drock169]

should i have any other timers programmed for the Ca reactor other than turn on CO2 when pH >6.8 and off when <6.4, Ca reactor On?

 

[kau_cinta_ku]

nope, no other timers are needed.

 

[Drock169]

I was also reading that people are using aqualifter to make it more reliable with a steady feed.

 

[kau_cinta_ku]

some ppl do but IMO I don't see the need of using one.

 

[Drock169]

one other thing I noticed, was that dispite turning up the amount of CO2, the bubbles slowly decreased. Its down to about one every 3 seconds. My friend said the working gauge should have a psi between 100-200, but mine is below 75. Do I need to refill my tank?

 

[kau_cinta_ku]

75 psi should still be good, but when your tank does get low it does seem to affect the bubble count. either that or the regualtor is going bad.

I have a milwaulkee regulator and even tho my tank is full it still won't keep a constant bubble count. thank goodness for my controller. but I do need to buy a new regulator so that problem is fixed.