Reactor in 500GL

icliao

New member
I have a 450-500GL tank full of big colony of acropora and montipora only.

I just bought a double chamber Ca-reactor which holdes 15 kg of korallin media.

I set the PH in the reactor to be around 6.6 and the drip rate at 2 drops per sec and around 2 bubble of CO2 per sec. The output has KH of 35 and Ca over 500ppm (can't be tested with my Ca test kits.)

I still can not maintain the Ca/Kh without addictive, not even close.

Did I do anything wrong?
 
have you tried posting this over in the chemistry forum ?

The first couple of questions will revolve around your other parameters.. IE: your magnesium, salinity, avg calc and alk, and anything else that you currently dose (IE: kalk, etc).

Just off the cuff, the times I have had trouble maintaining calc levels, I didn't have enough flow through my reactor. When I increase the flow rate I was able to achieve and maintain the calcium levels that I wanted.
 
I am also using a double chamber but use about 25 pounds of media. My effluent flow is 165 ml/min and maintain CO2 flow to keep the first chamber ranging between PH 6.45 and 6.55 (Ouput of Second Chamber is at around 6.7 to 6.8 with a tank PH of 8.15 to 8.2 my system has a total of 330 gal. When fully loaded with super large acros the seting was not able to cope with the consumption.

So by comparison it seems you are under capacity. My best recomendation is:
a) Switch to a faster dissolving media so you can increase the effluent flow further. I recomend ARM which dissolves faster than Korallith.
b) Increase your effluent flow to about 150 ml/min. Because it will be acontinuous stream you will need a measuring cup and a stop watch to measure the flow.
c) Adjust your CO2 to keep PH 6.5 in the output of the first chamber. With ARM media it might be just slightly more than what you are adding now (Around 140 to 160 BPM)

By the way next time you try to measure the eefluent Alkalinity dilute hte sample 50/50 with distilled or RO/DI water make the measurment and multiply by two. This will improve the accuracy and save you a lot in test kit chemicals.
 
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