hooking up calcium reactor?

[thi7b]

Does anyone use their return pump to run a calcium reactor. Yes it would have to be split between the return and cal. reactor.

 

[aleonn]

I'm sure lots of people have a strong return pump that they plumb into a manifold. The manifold would feed reactors, chiller, etc. I was originally planning for one, but decided that my return pump should be dedicated to returning flow from my dual overflows. Search for plumbing manifolds and there should be many examples and photos

 

[rezaktp]

I agree keep the more powerful return pump dedicated to return to the tank. You can have a smaller pump on a manifold returning to the sump for skimmer and reactors.

 

[edandsandy]

+1 on the return pump... we are using a Rio 1100 to feed our calcium reactor and Eheim for the return.

 

[psteeleb]

I like using the main return for my reactors for several reasons

a) The Ca reactor takes such a minimal flow (drip rate to trickle) it's just not worth the extra pump and doesn't take much from your main return. Even with my media reactors the flow taken from the main return is minimal

b) Less chance of electrical leakage

c) Flow to the reactor shuts down with the sump shutting down avoiding Ph and dosing issues to the sump while feeding or doing maintenance

 

[shifty51008]

I agree with psteeleb. I have a mag. 9.5 running as my return and I had it turned way down so I decided why not use the extra flow somewhere else rather than adding more pumps. I then added a manifold to it and now run my carbon, GFO, and skimmer (feed) along with the return all off 1 pump. works out great

 

[thi7b]

What do you do when it come to water change. Do you guy shut down the cal. reactor everytime. I do water change weekly and think it to much of a pita to shut it down everytime. Thanks for the input.

 

[psteeleb]

What do you do when it come to water change. Do you guy shut down the cal. reactor everytime. I do water change weekly and think it to much of a pita to shut it down everytime. Thanks for the input.

be it for a water change, cleaning of the sump or other maintenance issue I would shut down the CA reactor or else you will get a significant decrease of PH in your sump assuming that's where your effluent line goes to (and you will have the possibility of oversaturation thus precipitation of Alk)

My recent history on how I've done water changes
1) Manually doing 45g on my 300g set up; turn off sump and all reactors that were hooked up to the return pump). Drain water from main. Add water back to main
2) Semi automatic doing 45g on my 300g. I added a water change tank that once mixed I would slowly just circulate tank water into the freshly mixed water and let the change tank overflow to the sump. Nothing was turned off. Once I was ready for another water change I isolated the water change tank, drained it and mixed new water, then opened the valves again. Using this method the water was changed over several hours at a slow rate and nothing was turned off on the main or sump
3) Manually changing 15-20g on my 110. I'll add 5g of new salt water to the main and let it circulate and overflow (skim) to the sump. I'll then skim off the surface water in the sump and siphon detritus out of the sump weirs. I'll repeat this 3-4 times over a couple hours to minimize potential water change shock due to slight PH, Temp, salinity etc changes. The tank and sump remain running at all times.

As you can see I initially shut everything down for a massive change but changed my philosophy to incrementally change the water with everything running