Where do you go to fill CO2 tank?

[Garage1217]

I am not seeing the difference in the way a deltec circulates fluid inside the chamber vs. a korallin? Both are upflow designs? What am I missing!!!? Also it is generally smarter to restrict the input on a reactor vs the output, that way the reactor chamber is not actually pressurized even a little bit. Just curious on the deltecs as you know a lot more about this stuff that I do Skip.

A lot of manufacturers that use acrylic or lighter weight materials say to only restrict before the reactor to help prevent them from blowing up. The old Korallin units are made of PVC / transparent PVC, they are not to worried about them blowing apart. That and the old eheims seem to be bulletproof!

 

[dvu]

Garage, i think he is saying to restict the input and not the output.

I'm wondering if I should of gotten the Barr Aquatic Calcium Reactor CR1200.
It comes with 2 chambers for media.

 

[Garage1217]

Yeah got that part I was curious as to how the deltec is different circulation wise.

Also, total volume & flow through them is more important IMO than multiple chambers, and yes of course multiple chambers can help the the volume thing As long as it is properly sized for your application, you will be fine. And generally most companies are a little.... imaginative on there recommended tank sizes. For example, my 1502 is rated up to 400 gallons *LOL* I think they mixed gallons up with liters as with my heavily stocked 140G total water volume system, it can barely keep up. I mean just barely as I darn near have a constant stream running out of it and I have to keep the PH quite low in the chamber to get the arm media to dissolve fast enough. Thinking about going 1/2 fine media on top of the large media next time... Either that or I need to go with a much larger reactor.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Deltec reactors have a cone shaped bottom, water is drawn from the top and pushed to the bottom to make the media tumble and fluidize. In theory this leads to a richer effluent, I have heard of Deltec's effluent pushing 60 dKH or about double the average.

I dont have any hard examples, but I have always been taught that restricting the output on most reactors is a good thing, slight pressurization is supposed to help with co2 dissolution in the water.

I dont know of a single manufacturer that rates their CaRX for heavy sps loads. What you have would probably be fine on a 400g mixed reef, mostly softies, some lps, zoas and shrooms. SPS is a whole different monster, I go through almost 2 lbs of dry Bio-Cal a week in a 90g system, its all relative.

 

[Pyrrhus]

oh, a second chamber wont help much for higher loads, the intent of the second chamber is to "scrub" the remaining co2 from the effluent and lessen the pH impact caused by the reactor. If you want a second stage for a given reactor they are super easy to make with just a bit of pvc and some fittings.

 

[Garage1217]

See, exactly why I asked oh jedi master! And they actually have enough flow to get the media to tumble? WOW. As heavy as it is, I would think it would require a massive amount of flow for that unless ultra fine media is used. Maybe it is!

 

[ScrubberOTanky]

FWIW the instructions for my Koralin state to restrict the outflow, and from what I have heard, the best way to do that is with a $50 needlevalve from hayward...