need help calcium reactor

[kels0948]

do i have to use a doseing pump on my reactor? i have my sump in my basement so my pump going to my tank has 16 feet of head preassure. what i was wondering is if i put a t on my return line to mt tank with a ball valve could i use the preassure from that pump to push water to my reactor if i turned it down really slow with a ball valve?

[Reefadict]

In theory yes. But if you can get a PVC gate valve use that. If not order a quality ball valve. The ones you get from the depot or manerd tend to be cheap and don't have a smooth action. They are really tough to turn and making minor adjustments with them is difficult

[kels0948]

well thanks on the gate valve that sounds way better . do you think i could run my skimmer of the same pump i was thinkn about buildn a manifold to run everything i have .. the pump is a 5000 gal hour pump and i have it turned way down with a ball valve so there is still a lot of preassure in the line

[Reefadict]

You can certainly send water to the skimmer but I don't know how you will set up the air injection? I'm not too literate on how different skimmers work but the 2 that I have owned have their own feed pump and the air injection was an integrated part of the pump

[Reefadict]

If you got your air injection figured out all you have to do is figure out how many gallons per hour the skimmer is rated for and adjust your valve for that. To figure out your flow put a 5 gallon bucket under the pipe and time how long it takes to fill and adjust accordingly. For example, if your skimmer is rated at 500GPH. Then you should fill a 5 gallon bucket in 35 seconds.

500GPH/60min.=8.33 gallons per minute

8.33GPM/60seconds=.14 gallons per second

5gallons/.14GPS=35.71 seconds to dispense 5 gallons or 500GPH