New calcium reactor

Golfinusa

Non-member
Setup my new calcium reactor. Read that I should let it run for a couple hours before hooking co2 up (to help clear the air from the reactor, so I'm doing that. Problem is that the water is super cloudy. I don't have a ton of water in storage, so I was thinking of letting it run and run the "dirty water through my carbon/go reactor.

I'm pretty sure that the cloudiness is coming from the media (I think I should have rinsed it... Was very powdery) I'm thinking if I run it long enough it will clear itself out, but I'm concerned about the dust entering my tank... Even if it's going through the carbon reactor. Can the dust increase calcium/etc without being exposed to co2?

Thought?
 
did you rinse your media first before filling your reactor?
 
you should always rinse any media being put into your system as there is usuallndust in there this goes for carbon and GFO also
 
Just purge the water from if with faster flow in and toss the output, that’ll rinse it
 
Still have yet to introduce co2 - there is a little dust settles at the bottom of the second chamber. Will the that dissolve when the co2 is introduced? Or should I clean that out?
 
Looks like it's working okay. How long before the concentration of the calcium and alk start to increase in the reactor. It's been at 6.5 oh for a few hours now but the calcium is still the same as the tank
 
When it gets there, I’d watch things for like a week and then make slow adjustments
 
Does it take awhile to get there? It's been running for a day at 6.0 ph (media says it requires lower ph... Found that out after I bought it) and calcium is at 450. I was expecting it to be more concentrated than that by now
 
I hope you know what you’re doing....
What’s the 450 ca from? Your tank? Or the effluent out of your carx?
how much water you’re pushing into it and how much co2 you’re injecting?What media you’re using? Is it turned to mush yet with PH of 6.0?
 
You need to test your alk, ca, and possibly mg of your tank daily when dialing in the carx for the first 2 weeks. It’s a slow but certain killer if you neglect to test the tank while adjusting the carx.
 
I'd expect a pretty high dissolution rate at a pH of 6. Be careful! Test the alk in this system everyday until you get a handle on how the system is working.
 
you could even check Alk.a few times a day. you will see it creeping up instead of maintaining a specific range. Be careful as your alk could skyrocket over reccomended levels in hours if you are not careful. Not doubting you but I have read some real ca reactor horror stories of people who did not do research first when setting theirs up. good luck my freind and happy reefing
 
I am learning on the fly - but being very vigilant about testing - to the point I just ordered two additional sets of hanna testing solutions/kits for alk/calc and a magnesium testing kit (which I'm not testing for right now). I am keeping a log for all parameters in my tank.

I am testing alk multiple times a day - still within parameters. All of my posts prior to this have been from the phone, so the details were sparse. I will expand on my current setup:

First, the demand for calc/alk in my tank is going to be minimal - I have some fresh coral frags in there now, but they're all very small.

I purchased the following:
SRO CR3000D 7" Calcium Reactor - Reef Octopus
FX-STP WiFi Peristaltic Continuous Duty Dosing Pump - Kamoer
CarbonDoser Electronic CO2 Regulator with John Guest Fitting - AquariumPlants
Milwaukee MC122 pH Controller
CaRx Calcium Media (22lbs) - Triton


The media is the problem with my low ph - It clearly states on the details portion that recommended ph to burn the media is 6 - 6.2 with a review stating that they had to go down to 6. It's not ideal and I'll replace it with some Two Fishies Reborn when I go through this bag (maybe even before).

Again - I'm learning on the fly, but the setup I was trying to go for was to use the CarbonDoser to get it to the correct ph and basically shut down - to keep it at that ph... which is what I did. It got to 6 and appeared to be working. I think the problem is that I was so nervous about destroying my tank that is put the drip to 1.5 ml per minute ... VERY slow. I've been testing the parameters of the effluent constantly (hence the need for more testing solutions) and it's always been at around 450 calc and 14 dKH which is slightly more than what I need, but I was expecting the effluent to be closer to 40 dKH - not 14. So I turned up my drip to ~5 ml per minute and the dKH started to rise in the effluent - which leads me to think that it's not just ph that controls the burn, but the constant introduction of CO2 along with the ph - it's closer to to 19 dKH right now. I've slowed the drip down a bit and decreased the pressure of my CO2 so that they're more inline with one another - so it takes a bit longer to hit my desired ph. I'll work on the balance over the next week to ensure that I'm not spiking my tank - no matter what I do incorrectly with the reactor.

Thoughts?
 
I don’t really care what comes out of the effluent. And rarely test the effluent unless I think there’s something wrong with the reactor itself.
My method has been keeping the effluent rate dripping to a slow and steady stream. The point where the droplets start to form a stream. Test the tank alk, ca, and mg. If it’s low, use buffer to buff it up where you want. Dial the co2 from 10second a bubble down to whatever it needs to keep the tank parameter day by day. If you go start off with slow bubble count to begin with, the daily change will be minimal. This is at least a two weeks ordeal and guaranteed minimal risk to damaging anything in the tank. But it’ll always work.
What is your tank’s PH? If you have to keep the reactor chamber to <6.
I don’t know what triton media is made out of but most media will dissolve at 7.3 or less. Just the rate of the dissolving will be more at lower PH. This is why keeping your drip rate up and co2 down at the start will prevent the media turn to mush and/or tank PH dip to dangerous level.
 
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