Feeding a Calcium Reactor

[flat broke]

My cube has been trucking along since February, and asside from the occaisional bout with GHA, everything is doing really well. I keep meaning to setup the Korallin 1502 I have sitting around, but something else always pops up (tank related or otherwise).

Anyhow, I was going through a list of things I needed and got to the feed pump. I know they say to use an aqualifter, and that would be easy and cheap enough not to give a second thought. But since I'm going to be making some changes to my tank to slow down my turnover rate through the sump, I thought I'd ask about feeding the reactor off a manifold from the return. I'm going to cut back to something like an Ocean Runner 2500, and I'm thinking that the relatively small amount of water the reactor will use could be taken from this pump. I'm looking to bring my system turnover to about 3-5 times. Asside from the plumbing hurdles of getting down to the feed line size of the 1502, are there any other fundamental flaws with this idea?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[ycnibrc]

just hook it up with a small power head 100 to 300gph and that's it. I owned this reactor and it work well after you set it up.

 

[WETFISH]

That is how mine is set up [for 6+months].Home Depot has the fittings.I used 1/4 tubing with the qiuck fittings.I included a ball valve to control input volume which prooved very handy.

 

[flat broke]

Thanks for the replies.

If I was going to use a small pump, would something like a small maxijet that feeds my phosban reactor would probably be fine, or the aqualifter pump that I use for my top off setup? I was just looking at a way to consolidate pumps, but after thinking about it, a separate/dedicated feed pump is probably best. That way maintenance on one portion of the system doesn't effect other portions.

How does the reactor handle having the sump return/feed pump shut off for other maintenance? Does the pH in the reactor start to drop immediately or will it handle up to say an hour long stint with no flow?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[burris]

Teeing off the return is a good idea and doesn't add additional heat or shock hazard to your tank. You can make a manifold but I know at least one online shop sells 1/2" and 3/4" manifolds with 1/4" barbs on it. I wish I could find that page now.