Need advise on Calcium Reactor.

robert s b.

robert s b.

Active member
I bought a used Milwaukee Regulator and the Delivery Pressure gauge is not working, should I chuck it, or will it operate without that gauge? Its up and running now, and it does not seem to leak. Also I have my bubble rate at 1 per, and my PH after 24 hours has stabilized at 7.1, so I assume I should raise the bubble count?

Thanks in advance..
 
Milwaukee is English not metric right? If so, airgas carries the replacement gauge. Harris gas carries gauges too.
 
Thanks Guys! Ok I have another issue, my PH in my reactor has dropped to 6.8 once I raised the bubble count, my issue is my DT's ph has dropped to 7.8 from 8.1-8.2. Should I increase my Alk dosage?
 
This is the reason why I advised to use a second chamber reactor to prevent your tank ph from decreasing. Another is to dose kalk periodically to counter the ph decrease. You can diy a container you can put on top of the sump put ca Rx media on it and insert the effluent hose in the bottom. It will force the effluent to go up and get in contact with the media before it overflow to the sump. Another option is to slowwww your drip rate on your effluent. The second chamber option is the best solution.
 
Robert, as you recall I have my effluent exiting in my refugium. The caulerpa gets co2 like a planted tank then water goes to a second sump with a reef octopus cone skimmer. Kalkwasser is dosed in this second sump.
 
Rob, for a quick fix take a large deli container ad fill it with aragonite media, put a drip hole about 1 to 2 inches up and let the effluent drip in there. It's a good way to get rid of the excess co2.

Also it's common for your alk to have dropped while getting your calcium reactor going for the first time. At least if your dialing it in correctly by starting slow and building up. During this time you will have to dose by hand accordingly.

Also remember that fresh air helps a ton to get ph up. Where your tank is it there wouldn't be much hassle in venting your skimmer air inlet into the garage and leaving the garage door cracked while your home. Just don't run the car in there without the garage open. And even if it's open I wouldn't let it idle for too long.
 
On the deli container to make it clear, let the effluent drip on top and run down to the 1 to 2 inches of water in bottom where it will exit for the hole you made.
 
I have a Phosban 150, was thinking about converting it to a 2nd chamber. I was looking at the advast marine SeaBones Effluent Chamber kit and all it has is a in and a out. Looks simple enough. Just do a reverse flow on the 150...you guys think its doable?
 
Yeah the phos ban will work. You don't need to reverse it though. The center port pushes the water from the bottom up.

Although in my experience I find it works better if there is a way for the trapped co2 to escape. And since the phos ban is a closed unit the co2 remains trapped. It will help but I would still drip the line into a small cup or something to give it a second for the co2 to leave. There are a lot of creative ideas on YouTube and other places about this.

I made a small container the would also hold a ph probe so that I could double check that my probe was functioning in the reactor. I just take my system probe that's located in my sump and drop it in the effluent cup. Especially when I was not home during the first month of the reactor running to act as a fault tolerance. Set my apex to turn entire calcium reactor off if ph in cup fell below 6.4 . Since I had the reactor set to run from 6.5 to 6.7 so if it fell to 6.4 something was wrong and it could shut it all down before nuking my system. I still do this when I go on vacation. I just sacrifice my orp probe to add the second ph probe. I have a total of three ph probes running then. 2 on the calcium reactor and one in my sump. May be overboard but it gives me piece of mind. Especially after I disassembled a couple different regulators, even a carbon doser II. They all could be easily compromised . I had the carbon doser stick open because of one piece of sand. I know everyone loves it but I tend to trust electronic parts more than mechanical ones after they have ran a little while. Might just be paranoid.
 
I just looked at the geo 618 instruction manual, it doesn't have a top cover air intake bleed. Here is what I would do. Once I have the phosban connected as a second chamber I would run the effluent at full blast so there is no constriction of flow within the first chamber. The excess co2 will be carried along with the effluent on the second chamber. I would then control JUST the bubble rate to tweek my reactor moving forward. The gas is accumulating on top because the flow of effluent out of the reactor is constricted. That is why I myself opt for a reactor that has a top bleed where it would suck the air back down and recycle co2. If you have a second chamber you don't have to constrict the first chamber because you are pushing water to the second chamber. I hope that makes sense.
 
After I thought I had this thing dialed in, I checked my parameters.

Elos Calcium test. 550
Elos Mag Test. 1250
API dkh test. 11
PH 8.0DT
PH 6.7 in reactor

Should I dial it down and turn off the regulator, and also I have not dosed Mag, should I put that back on line?

Should I dial it down and tur
 
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