Korallin Calcium Reactor

[jdieck]

PH is still dropping. It went down to 6.45! I lowered the CO2 bubbles per minute. Hopefully that's what I need to do.

Is my ARM mush now? How could I tell?

No it is not mush, It will take several days for that to happen and mostly if you go all the way to say 6.3 My recomendation of the 6.5 is more directed toward not dropping your tank PH too much.

As a comparison to what might be too much...
My system has an incredible consumption of Calcium and Alkalinity as it is mostly populated by super large sps (12 to 16 inches diam) including a loaded prop tank.
I have a 30 pound media calcium reactor with three chambers. The reactor chamber I have running at about 6.4 PH and it takes about two months to turn into mush but it is OK because it is about time to refill. The PH is going out of the first chamber at 6.4 into a second chamber also with a recirculating pump (a secondary reactor if you will) which completes the disolution and rises PH to about 6.6, then a third static chamber rises it to 6.75.
My effluent rate is 140 ml/min and CO2 Bubble rate is about 170 BPM and yet not enough to keep alkalinity levels.
I have an additional Kalk reactor operating 16 hours per day adding the full evaporation of about 3.5 gallons a day of satrated Kalk and on top of this I usually have to add about 7 teaspoons of Baking soda and about 15 of Calcium chlorida every 5 days.
I keep Calcium at 400 to 430 ppm and Alkalinity at 3.5 to 3.7 meq/lt (9.5 to 10.5 dkH)
I estimate I add the equivalent of 5 pounds of carbonate per month.

 

[thrlride]

Wow! :eek1:

Well, my PH meter just died... Hopefully it is just batteries.

My 90 really didn't need the CR yet but I thought it was a decent deal. I've got about 24 small SPS frags and two clams, one over 4" and the other around 3". I use oceanic salt so when I do a water change the calcium rises to 480 or 500. I have to add baking soda to the water change saltwater to take it to 10 dkh or so. Then I have a float switch that adds kalk water to about 2 gallons per day.

 

[jdieck]

Wow! :eek1:

Well, my PH meter just died... Hopefully it is just batteries.

My 90 really didn't need the CR yet but I thought it was a decent deal. I've got about 24 small SPS frags and two clams, one over 4" and the other around 3". I use oceanic salt so when I do a water change the calcium rises to 480 or 500. I have to add baking soda to the water change saltwater to take it to 10 dkh or so. Then I have a float switch that adds kalk water to about 2 gallons per day.

Humm... OK; once you try the reactor you will see how it goes but my guess is that being the reactor a balanced addition (adds Calcium as well as alkalinity) and being Oceanic a non balanced Salt (Needs more alkalinity than Calcium) you may run into issues of maintaining very high Calium in your tank.
So check how it goes as you may have to switch to a more balanced salt if you find out that your Calcium stay on the high side with the reactor.

 

[thrlride]

That's fine. I'm not sworn to oceanic. What is a good balanced salt?

 

[jdieck]

I can try that too. Dragon_slayer listed the directions on the second page of this. Assuming they are right...

I am using the salifert test kit.

You said 1 ml of tank water and 1 ml of ro/di water. How does that measure the effluent?

Sorry, I sould have said Test Sample (meaning effluent) rather than Tank water.

It was not clear to me if Dragon instructions mentions diluting the samle or not but if a full shringe of tritrant is a reading equivalent to 16 dkH by using a factor of 32 he is assuming you are diluting the sample. If during normal testing on a Salifert (I use La Motte) you use 2 ml of sample then is not diluting so the factor should have been 16 and not 32 Let me check on the Salifert instructions and I will be able to tell you more.

The reason I recommend diluting the sample is to save some reagent when testing very high alkalinity. By diluting you will be using half the tritration reagent than it would normally take. If not diluting you amy need up to two full shringes or a bit more.

 

[jdieck]

That's fine. I'm not sworn to oceanic. What is a good balanced salt?

I use Kent's but Reefcrystals and Topic Marin Pro seem to be also good alternatives.

 

[jdieck]

OK I checked the salifert instructions and Dragon was right, using the low resolution alternative 2 ml sample requires the volume of tritrant added in ml multiplied by 32.

So the reading might have been one of not enough accuracy.

Try this, use 2 ml of sample, add 2 ml of distilled or RO/Di water follow the instructions for the 4 ml high resoultion test meaning add 2 drops of KH inicator and start adding the tritrator reagent until the color changes, measure the amount of reagent added (if more than 1 shringe add both. 1 ml for the first shringe and what was added from the second) and multiply the result by 32.

Basically it is the same procedure but will give you a bit more accuracy with the same amount of tritrator used.

 

[thrlride]

I did it the way you mentioned and put in an exact 2 ml before a color change! I'm only getting 40 drops per minute on the effluent and 17 bubbles per minute on the bubble counter.

Does that sound right?

 

[jdieck]

I did it the way you mentioned and put in an exact 2 ml before a color change! I'm only getting 40 drops per minute on the effluent and 17 bubbles per minute on the bubble counter.

Does that sound right?

If the sample is diluted 50/50 two full shringes indicate an alkalinity of 64 dkH! So either something is interefering with the testing (Too much CO2 in the sample? or we might be doing something wrong with doubling the measurment which in that case the reading will be 32 dkH which is right were it is supposed to be if saturated.

40 drops per minute effluent might be around 30 to 35 ml/min which is about what a 75 gal tank may need so leave it there until you see if that is enough to keep your alkalinity.
The 17 bubbles per minute of CO2 seems a bit low but the Koralin is very efficient in the use of CO2 and if it is presurized each bubble contains more CO2 that if it were not (usually for 30 to 35 ml/min you need about 20 to 30 bpm CO2) but if you are getting the PH you look for that is more important than the bubble rate.

So do not bother much about the measurment of the effluent alkalinity as it seems to come out saturated anyhow so once you add it to the tank if it maintains the alkalinity stable that is what is more relevant.

 

[thrlride]

I guess I need to order a PH controller now. My monitor is dead. I just replaced the batteries and it still will not come on....

 

[marcrothschild]

Great thread, and graet advice from dragon_slayer and Jdieck. Jdieck....Great website and an awesome system. Now in my reading this thread, I am wondering about my co2 consumption. I have a reeftek reactor I am dialing in, At 32BPM and 25ml/min I am getting a dkh of 22 and ph 6.65 from the effluent. I need to increase my effluent to keep up w coral demands. Is 40-45bpm an excessive amount of co2 for my system(100g sps)?? most people posting are under 20bpm. I assume it is highly variable, but does this seem like an inefficient use of gas? I have no problems maintaining bpm or ml/min...also no gas build-up in reactor

 

[jdieck]

I guess I need to order a PH controller now. My monitor is dead. I just replaced the batteries and it still will not come on....

Sorry to hear... Seems things breake the moment you need them the most....

I usually travel a lot and there is always something waiting to break exactly one hour before the taxi to the airport picks me up!..

 

[jdieck]

Great thread, and graet advice from dragon_slayer and Jdieck. Jdieck....Great website and an awesome system. Now in my reading this thread, I am wondering about my co2 consumption. I have a reeftek reactor I am dialing in, At 32BPM and 25ml/min I am getting a dkh of 22 and ph 6.65 from the effluent. I need to increase my effluent to keep up w coral demands. Is 40-45bpm an excessive amount of co2 for my system(100g sps)?? most people posting are under 20bpm. I assume it is highly variable, but does this seem like an inefficient use of gas? I have no problems maintaining bpm or ml/min...also no gas build-up in reactor

CO2 consumption depend on many things, media exposed surface, water retention inside the reactor, reactor design and operating pressure, the size of the orifice in the bubble counter, etc.
I usually use CO2 bubble rate just as a reference. once I set up the reactor were I want it I use the bubbles to set the gas flow again if by any reason it changes.
More important then the bubble rate is to get the amount of alkalinity you need to maintain the levels in your tank.
You can increase the amount of alkalinity by reducing the effluent PH (say to 6.6) but you can also increase the effluent rate while adjusting bubble rate to maintain the 6.65
In your case I would say increase the effluent rate to about 35 ml/min and adjust the bubble rate to achieve 6.6 PH in the effluent (at whatever bubble rate is necessary). Keep testing your tank alkalinity after every adjustment until it stay constant.

Enjoy!

 

[thrlride]

I picked up a test kit that reads down to six just until I can get the controller. I was 10 minutes away from the store when I realized it was for a freshwater system. Will it still read the PH normal or do I have to take it back?

 

[jdieck]

I picked up a test kit that reads down to six just until I can get the controller. I was 10 minutes away from the store when I realized it was for a freshwater system. Will it still read the PH normal or do I have to take it back?

I have no idea besides it is very difficult to get a proper reading with a kit when you are trying to find the difference between 6.5 and 6.7. most kits even salt water will not have the actual resoulution to be able to do that. I will reommend you postpone the setting up of the reactor until you get a proper electronic monitor or Controller.

 

[thrlride]

I turned off the CO2 after you posted to stop setting it (last night). I was able to fix my PH meter and started checking the water coming out of the CR a few minutes ago. The PH is still 6.4. So I opened up one of the outputs all the way and ran about half a gallon out of it. Why is my PH not lowering even though the CO2 is off?

 

[thrlride]

I just ran another half a gallon through output #1 and the PH went up to 7.

 

[jdieck]

I turned off the CO2 after you posted to stop setting it (last night). I was able to fix my PH meter and started checking the water coming out of the CR a few minutes ago. The PH is still 6.4. So I opened up one of the outputs all the way and ran about half a gallon out of it. Why is my PH not lowering even though the CO2 is off?

OK.. Here is an explanation form a layman so do not hold me strongly to it ...

Alkalinity in water is a combination of Carbonic Acid, Bicarbonate and Carbonate ions. The percentage of the components changes with the PH. At say PH 6.3 about 50% is Carbonic Acid, 50% Bicarbonate and there is almost none Carbonate.
At say around 8.2 to 8.3 PH there is almost no Carbonic Acid, there is about 98 to 99% Bicarbonate and about 1 to 2% Carbonate as PH continue increasing the % of Bicarbonate decreases and the Carbonate increases.

Now for the PH to change Carbonic Acid needs CO2 to turn into Bicarbonate and bicarbonate also needs CO2 to convert to Carbonate. If all CO2 inside the reactor has been converted to carbonic acid and the water is already saturated for bicarbonate there will be no more dissolution or conversion from acid to bicarbonate.
So this is as far as I understand it.
As you add new unsaturated aquarium water without additional CO2 the acid will dissolve additional Aragonite into bicarbonate then performing the conversion to increase the PH but the reaction takes some time.

You only need to do is reduce the amount of CO2 and the PH will rise within half an hour to an hour really you do not need to stop it completelly.

 

[thrlride]

So, with me keeping the slow drip with no CO2 it just takes time to get all the low PH water out? As I increased flow through the CR the PH did increase. I suppose that supports the carbonite bicarbonite info.

 

[jdieck]

Yes, with no CO2 or lowered CO2 the PH will start to rise.
It becomes a game of exasperating patiance as you try to adjust the CO2 flow to keep a stable PH.
You need to make small adjustments and then "patiently" wait for about two hours before really noticing the change. Sometimes it only takes a couple of BPM to make a change.
You can play with two variables, effluent flow and effluent PH unfortunately they are inter-related.
If you increase the flow without increasing the CO2 then the PH drops. This is why I recommend fixing the flow and only change the CO2 bubble rate until you achieve an stable PH.
Now... having said that a stable PH could be a variation of about 0.1 meaning once you adjust the CO2 even without moving it the PH will be fluctuating +/- 0.05 points. It seems that with room temperature changes and / or inside pressure changes on the reactor the CO2 varies up and down within that range so do not expect to have the PH just Pegged to a certain level forever.

Enjoy the game!