Official: Masterflex Calcium Reactor Setup Thread

It's about 9 months old now. Any idea of their lifespan? It's lab grade from Neptune.
I haven't made any adjustments to the bubble count or drip rate since this morning and the readings went from 6.46 to 6.64. Maybe that drift is no big deal? I'll still be an extremely happy camper if it stays in the ballpark without me having to adjust it every day or two. Ideally though I want it to stay between 6.45-6.5. It's Reborn media that the manufacturer told me should be 6.4-6.5.
The tank itself goes from roughly 8.05 to 8.25 during the day so perhaps that accounts for some of the drift?
 
The ph of the tank will directly effect the measured number in the reactor. There is no need to try and compensate for that. Check out the reactors performance over a few days, see how it runs. If its irregular then there is likely something going on in the reg or its controller.

You can see these types of things when you have stable effluent. I suspect all is normal but keep an eye out for trends that may develop.
 
I finally got my calcium reactor up and running again. Haven't ordered my tubing for the masterflex pump but I've hooked up the Carbondoser electronic regulator and am very impressed. So far the reactor has stabilized below 6.5 pH.
 
Hey guys,
Running the masterflex system on a Korallin 1502 CA reactor with a 180 gallon tank. I have been maintaining 9.8 tank ph and reactor ph of 6.5 and flow rate of 50ml/min.

I tested the effluent alk yesterday and it was only 12 dkh. My media was down about a third so I added to bring it back to full. I used Coarse ARM media. Today my effluent alk is 9.4 dkh.

Why is it so low and how can I get it to where it should be?

my thoughts: The effluent flow rate is too high to allow for sufficient melting of the media. Would I be better off replacing the coarse with regular. I seem to remember something about the 1502 not being very efficient with the coarse media.

Since the tank and effluent alk are the same would that not infer that my usage is 0? So reducing the flow rate should have little effect except to drive down the reactor ph (and increas the dkh?).



If I lower the reactor ph to 6.4 or lower, will that increase the melting rate?

If I lower the flow rate will that cause a higher effluent ph as the water will be in contact with the media for a longer period of time.

OK, chime in everyone.
 
Last edited:
I suspect your test kit or the test was botched somehow.

Assuming you meant your tank dkh is 9.8 and not ph the reactor isn't going to lower the dkh.

I would drop your reactor ph to 6.3 for coarse. 6.1 for extra coarse. When you run out of media switch to regular, the reactor will likely perform better.

It may be high simply because it hasn't had time to stabilize, the regulator cooled off and needed a bit to return to operating temps, or some other factor. I would try to bump gas input a bit and see where that gets you.

Was the tank stable before the media change? Could it be be that natural demand has increased and you didn't notice until the refill?
 
The tank is about a year and half old and I have been adding frags since the tank was 6 months. The reactor ph has been pretty stable around 6.6 and tank ALK about 9.5 - 9.9 As the frags continue to grow and new ones are added I do a lot of changing of effluent flow and gas change to keep at about 9.5 tank dkh and 6.5 ph. Not so much changing that I would consider it out of normal for a maturing tank.

I generally test weekly and if I need to add ALK I use Randy's 2 part and make adjustments to bubble rate and/or PSI. If DKH dropped below 6.5 I would increase the flow to maintain the 6.5

I have currently adjust to 6.37.
 
Cool :). How about a pic or two?

Of what, my set up or my tank? Tank pics always suck for me as the lighting is LED and the camera is a cell phone with p poor white balance.

Here is a pic of my set up. You can't see the reactor hiding in the back.
 
Last edited:
Yup it is a tight fit. The sump is 48 inches and on the other side I have a hang on carbon reactor and a GFO reactor. I tried moving the pump out and put it on top of the canopy, but it too noisy out in the open. It has a whining sound that I think may be gear related. I might replace it with a 7524 as the one I use for ATO runs very quiet at lower RPM's, It runs at close to 1000 ml/minute at night for top off is at that rate is quite noisy, but I am asleep and really don't care.
 
That noise is probably typical of a brushed unit. Not an issue if noise isn't a concern. You could try changing the brushes but everyone of them i've heard has it or some variant of it. The brushed unit I have sounds like a freight train... it's seen 3 lifetimes of abuse. Works like a champ :)

Just noticed... You should put a chain on that bottle!
 
Glad you got that settled. I use NeoMag and brightwells CoraLazarus running rx at 6.5 and effluent tests at 19.8dKh salifert.

But air problems persist. Not sure if it's really a problem or a nuisance. I moved the gas recirc to the lid outtake with the recessed chamber and mflex effluent now at lid with flush fitting. Also moved intake line out of sump and into tank just below overflow teeth. Slightly better. My rx is above sump so a bit unordinary. Thought is intake at tank level helps by way of gravity.

Thoughts Mark?
e9u4e4e5.jpg


Hope pic shows
 
Glad you got that settled. I use NeoMag and brightwells CoraLazarus running rx at 6.5 and effluent tests at 19.8dKh salifert.

But air problems persist. Not sure if it's really a problem or a nuisance. I moved the gas recirc to the lid outtake with the recessed chamber and mflex effluent now at lid with flush fitting. Also moved intake line out of sump and into tank just below overflow teeth. Slightly better. My rx is above sump so a bit unordinary. Thought is intake at tank level helps by way of gravity.

Thoughts Mark?
 
Sorry on dub post. So would you advise to keep gas recirc line open or closed at this point? Thanks -Greg
 
A couple days ago I came home to see about an inch of gas/air at the top of the reactor- something I'm not unfamiliar with. I reversed the lines so the CP pump is pushing water thru the reactor and this picture shows the pH of my tank and the reactor effluent since then. Effluent pH drifted from 6.47 to 6.6 and I'm happy with that. But then I figured I went this far I might as well get a new regulator too :p Carbon Doser is on the way.
pH2a.jpg
 
Last edited:
Thoughts Mark?


Can you take some closer pics?


Effluent pH drifted from 6.47 to 6.6 and I'm happy with that. But then I figured I went this far I might as well get a new regulator too :p Carbon Doser is on the way.

Awesome, good choice! I only recently started pulling through my reactor, I am not sure but it seems some reactors are more sensitive to pulling then pushing and trapping gas. Theoretically there shouldn't be much of a difference. Something it will likely take several of us to figure out.
 
Back
Top