Alk droping Calcium riesig while using Calcium Reactor

[Chris Spaulding]

I have an Avast Marine Seabones Calcium Reactor with second chamber My Allk for my tank keeps dropping while My Calcium keeps rising.
If I increase the CO2 bubble count to produce more ALK ,the Calcium will go way high. Calcium will rise 20 points in a day while the DKH drops over a point a day.
I am having to use Brightwell Allk 8.3 at about 80 mil a day to keep steady at a DKH 8.0 .Doing this way so to not raise the Calcium as it will get over 500 easy
Drip rate is stock as it has a drip ammeter about 2 ml a min
Efluent measuring at only 17.6 DKH and this is with a PH in the reactor at 6.34. trying to only use Reactor PH as a guide and not control.
I have recalibrated the PH probe and it is in line with my in tank PH probe.
Media in the Calcium Reactor is ARM with a hand full of Brightwell Neo Mag

Tank is 160 Gallon total water
SPS Dominate about 7 SPS colonies Monti and Acro. 39 SPS Frags that are all growing. 2 large Branching frog spawns about 50 Head each. 1 Branching Hammer large about 12 heads.
2 Gonies a little later than a baseball. one smaller Alveporioa and 2 Clams about 2 1/2 and 3 inches.

What am I doing wrong or is it that this Reactor can not keep up with demand properly?

I have read over and over how to tune a reactor by @jda

 

[X-37B]

A drip rate of 2ml a minute is nothing if thats what it actually is.
On my 95% sps 120 I run 80ml a minute drip rate and 60bpm co2.
Effluent dkh is 20-25.
Ph of reactor? I dont care.
Alk 7-7.5
Ca 425
Mag 1395

My ca always ran around 500 with no issues. My carx broke so while waiting for the part I just dosed alk for around 2 weeks and brought ca down to where it is now.

How long has the carx been running?
I would turn it off and let ca get back to your target and just dose alk.

What do you use to test ca?

If setup the way jda explains you really do not need a second chamber. I drip into a small cylinder of bones but its not needed.

Co2 and effluent rate need to be adjusted together to get the desired results.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

The Reactor has a drip emitter so it is set by Avast.
I have had the reactor running for about 4 months now.Tank is about 8 months old ( Upgrade from 2 year old tank) all was going fine. until about 6 weeks ago. I started the Reef Moonshine and things really started to take off.

I Have a Trident testing 6 times a day I cross reference with ATI ICP test and also Hanna Testers.

I dialed back the bubble count in the reactor to let the Calcium come down but now the ALK drops even faster.

Do I need to get rid if the drip emitter and add a Kmore Parasitic pump ?

 

[X-37B]

The Reactor has a drip emitter so it is set by Avast.
I have had the reactor running for about 4 months now.Tank is about 8 months old ( Upgrade from 2 year old tank) all was going fine. until about 6 weeks ago. I started the Reef Moonshine and things really started to take off.

I Have a Trident testing 6 times a day I cross reference with ATI ICP test and also Hanna Testers.

I dialed back the bubble count in the reactor to let the Calcium come down but now the ALK drops even faster.

Do I need to get rid if the drip emitter and add a Kmore Parasitic pump ?

Im not famimiar with the drip emmiter or the moonshine.
I will look at the avast system later today. If you can not adjust it then that may be your issue.

I guess I would go back to basics with a peristaltic pump if thats what you want to control effluent.

Add alk manually and let ca drop by turning off carx. Then reset carx with the peristaltic pump and go from there.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

The Moonshine Method is kinda like the Triton method.
The drip Emitter is a restrictive device that controls how fast the effluent flow through the reactor and into the sump. It kinda reminds me of something I use for my drip sprinkler system for my garden.

SeaBones Calcium Reactor v2

Balanced replenishment of calcium and alkalinity is among the most important water quality corrections required for a thriving reef aquarium. The SeaBones calcium reactor achieves this by liberating calcium and bicarbonate ions from aragonite media, typically old coral skeletons, using CO2 gas...

www.avastmarine.com

 

[X-37B]

The Moonshine Method is kinda like the Triton method.
The drip Emitter is a restrictive device that controls how fast the effluent flow through the reactor and into the sump. It kinda reminds me of something I use for my drip sprinkler system for my garden.

SeaBones Calcium Reactor v2

Balanced replenishment of calcium and alkalinity is among the most important water quality corrections required for a thriving reef aquarium. The SeaBones calcium reactor achieves this by liberating calcium and bicarbonate ions from aragonite media, typically old coral skeletons, using CO2 gas...

www.avastmarine.com

I read the whole thing.
Seems like its trying to copy the destaco type of carx.

I did see that they want an almost steady stream out of the emmiter and 1 bubble per second per the instructions to achieve 30-40dkh effluent.

I believe your system is not close to close to this.
If not I would bring it back inline.

Maybe stop and let the ca fall to your desired level and restart.

Maybe someone that runs one can give some advice.

 

[X-37B]

Do a search here. There are people running this carx and I would pm them for advice.

For me its just reinventing the wheel when the old style carx that have worked for decades are very simple to run.
Keep us posted on your results.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

Thank You I have been reading through the whole thread on Avast Marine CX reactor. Contacted Avast one question they had was if I was running any type of GFO or other filter Media as some will absorb the Alkalinity. I use about 1 Cup of Rowaphos atm to bring Po4 down some and I run about 2 cups of Brightwell Purit.

Tonight when I get home I will take the reactor out, remove the ARM media and replace with Reborn. Recalibrate the PH probe again. Clean the drip emitter. and bring all back on line and see where that takes me.

 

[ck24]

Thank You I have been reading through the whole thread on Avast Marine CX reactor. Contacted Avast one question they had was if I was running any type of GFO or other filter Media as some will absorb the Alkalinity. I use about 1 Cup of Rowaphos atm to bring Po4 down some and I run about 2 cups of Brightwell Purit.

Tonight when I get home I will take the reactor out, remove the ARM media and replace with Reborn. Recalibrate the PH probe again. Clean the drip emitter. and bring all back on line and see where that takes me.

What is your PH now? Has that changed in the last 6 weeks? Higher PH will increase your Alk demand.

 

[X-37B]

Thank You I have been reading through the whole thread on Avast Marine CX reactor. Contacted Avast one question they had was if I was running any type of GFO or other filter Media as some will absorb the Alkalinity. I use about 1 Cup of Rowaphos atm to bring Po4 down some and I run about 2 cups of Brightwell Purit.

Tonight when I get home I will take the reactor out, remove the ARM media and replace with Reborn. Recalibrate the PH probe again. Clean the drip emitter. and bring all back on line and see where that takes me.

I run 1 cup brs high capacity gfo and it does not affect alkalinity at all.
It does keep po4 between 0.02 and 0.08.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

What is your PH now? Has that changed in the last 6 weeks? Higher PH will increase your Alk demand.

My PH at night bottoms out at night 7.99 and during the day tops out at 8.29 it has been running like this for months

 

[ck24]

My PH at night bottoms out at night 7.99 and during the day tops out at 8.29 it has been running like this for months

Very odd I run the Komora Pump to control the flow thru the CARX. Hard to explain where the extra CA is coming from. I have to dose CA if I want it higher.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

I just got home I am only getting a 13.9 dkh from the effluent. I should be getting much much higher