calcium reactor for christmas!!
- Thread starter WILDTHING
- Start date
manderx
New member
reeftek or geo. i'd also consider an MRC if you could find a really good deal on one used. or barr (now austin oceans) if you can float the extra money. i just saw theirs comes with a flow meter which is nice and helps justify their price (or you could add one to any unit for ~$90 like i did to mine). you don't really need the flow meter, but it is a whole lot easier than counting drops. i used to think ph controllers were unnecessary (a good regulator should hold a steady bubble count) but after mushing media a few times from the effluent rate slowing down for whatever reason, i now would not consider running one without a ph controller. the milwaukee works well enough for cheap.
i really like the idea of the deltec being fluidized, but the grit it forms is too much wear and tear on the pump and their media is *way* too expensive. i think the schuran is junk, all of it's fancy features they brag about are there to correct a base design flaw- excess co2 bubbles in the body that don't want to dissolve from not running the body under pressure. a proper system doesn't have all those undissolved bubbles to begin with, so they don't need a complicated bubble collector on top to separate bubbles from liquid, just so the oversized recirc pump needed to build up enough pressure to suck those bubbles into a venturi, since they would stall the pump if they were simply sucked into the pump inlet like all other reactors do.
i really like the idea of the deltec being fluidized, but the grit it forms is too much wear and tear on the pump and their media is *way* too expensive. i think the schuran is junk, all of it's fancy features they brag about are there to correct a base design flaw- excess co2 bubbles in the body that don't want to dissolve from not running the body under pressure. a proper system doesn't have all those undissolved bubbles to begin with, so they don't need a complicated bubble collector on top to separate bubbles from liquid, just so the oversized recirc pump needed to build up enough pressure to suck those bubbles into a venturi, since they would stall the pump if they were simply sucked into the pump inlet like all other reactors do.
Charlie Davidson
New member
Matt, can you give me "lead" to flow meter? 
IMHO, CO2 is cheap-- al that stuff about saving it by trapping it is nice but -- is BS...
I really like a upflow unit.. and my media is a mix of deltec and El Cheapo- Gen-X media it works awsome!!
IMHO, CO2 is cheap-- al that stuff about saving it by trapping it is nice but -- is BS...
I really like a upflow unit.. and my media is a mix of deltec and El Cheapo- Gen-X media
it works awsome!!
