problem alk effluent reactor calcium

[agv180]

Hello everyone, I have a very big problem with the calcium reactor

I have a Schuran jetstream calcium reactor 1 these are my values

Ph reactor 6.30
Alk Aquarium 6
Alk effluent 40
ML / Min 20

I have peristalric pump coleparmer

What should I do to make the alk of the aquarium hold with the alk of the effluent?

[scuzy]

What's are you trying to get? 8-9? Dial up the effluent to 30ml/min while keeping pH 6.3 in reactor and check if it drives up your alk. Then keep testing u til it's same value each day. Sounds killer your corals is something more alk than you are dripping in.

[Martin Kuhn]

Hello agv180

a short info about Ca-reactors might help you in achieving what you want to

- Ca-reactors are an "artificial climate" where water streaming around the filling material with a very low ph "dissolves CaCarbonates" . The ph value within the reactor is far from OK for any fish, corals etc to survive. Target is to dissolve as many CaCarbonate that you then have within your reactor chamber.
(ph is very low, Alkalinity is very high)
- you "push in" some fresh seawater (only little amounts) into your reactor to "push out" exactly the same amount of effluent out of the reactor.
- as the effluent is very high in Alk, it raises the Alk level of your tank. BUT you never ever have an identical Alk Level within reactor and your tank. (even if you would be able to achieve this technical wise... you would also decrease the ph of your tank by far too much and kill everything)

so the question is: How can you increase the amount of CaCArbonates the Ca reactor pumps into your tank?
a) Pumping in more tank water and thus "receiving more effluent"
b) Increasing the amount of material within the reactor (more material is dissolved in the same time within the reactor)
c) Lowering the ph within the reactor down to 6.1 (material is dissolved faster)

In case the amount of CaCarbonates added is too much,
you can also use above methods a and b (of course in th eother direction),
or you can simply take the reactor of for some time during the day (Not running the reactors flow pump 24h/7d)

- How can i roughly control the amount of Alk added?
Measure Alkalinity of the reactors effluents. Eg 40dKH.
If you want to dose +1 dKH to your tank which has eg 100 Liter watervolume
-> 100L * +1dKH/ 40 dKH = 2,5L
-> adapt your peristaltic pump to pump in 2,5L per day into the reactor


- Can you steer the ratio of Alk vs Ca with a Ca-reactor. Unfortunately ... Not really.....

[bertoni]

I would dose the alkalinity up to 7 dKH with some sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) as a first step. I agree that increasing the effluent flow rate is a good first step. You might also need to increase the flow of carbon dioxide, as has been stated, but I'd try increasing the flow a bit first. How much media is in the reactor chamber? A picture might help.

[Martin Kuhn]

I expected you use a ph sensor/CO2 valve in your reactor. So this keeps the ph stable even if you change the effluent flow. In my eyes this is nearly a "must have" for a Ca reactor.

I played around quite a lot with my own Shuran JetStream. All my experience can be found here
http://mathgame.de/Aqua/WaterParameter_FAQ_eng.pdf
Chapter 5.12

[agv180]

Reactor with aragonite ARM extra course (indestructible) and Zeomag
http://i.imgur.com/tXstjBV.jpg

Second chamber with fine ARM and brightwell magnesium
http://i.imgur.com/ElfVXC9.jpg

Peristaltic pump, (Already set at 30 ml / min)
http://i.imgur.com/MEzUG18.jpg


Milwaukee regulator with clippard solenoid and swagelok valve
http://i.imgur.com/64SDRLI.jpg


Today I made measurements and these are the values:

Effluent 37.2
Kh aquarium 7.7
Ml / min 30

[bertoni]

Okay, how is the tank's alkalinity level shaping up?