AquaWiz CRA Thread

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

So I Looked and didn’t see anything specific only to the CRA (Calcium Reactor Controller, I know they were so close, they got 2/3 correct)

I’ve been running the AquaWiz (v4, blue) for about 3 months. For what it is intended, it works well. It has quarks like just ignore the PH probe it’s junk, the lines on the two tubes will disappear and once you open it you will realize you over paid by about $700, but it works and works well with DKH readings.

So, I also have the CRA. I haven’t used it yet, I am going to attempt to install it tonight when I get home. However, @CollectorsCorals LLC mentioned somewhere that the CRA will not work if your CARX has an off gassing chamber. Questions:

1) Is anyone here running the CRA?
1a) If you are, over all feedback? Any tips?
1b) Are you running an off gassing chamber?

 

[KrisReef]

@tbrown

What’s the hashtag again for inactive threads?

 

[tbrown]

@tbrown

What’s the hashtag again for inactive threads?

Most people call the #reefsqaud but equipment questions can be tricky since they're usually very specific questions.

But if you're looking for #threadmedic all I've got equipment related currently is that on the island of Waldron it's illegal to have more than 1 bathroom in a building. Imagine having a family of 4 living there!

 

[Fish Styx]

Most people call the #reefsqaud but equipment questions can be tricky since they're usually very specific questions.

But if you're looking for #threadmedic all I've got equals related currently is that on the island of Waldron it's illegal to have more than 1 bathroom in a building. Imagine having a family of 4 living there!

...and they all ate Taco Bell.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Thanks all, AquaWiz reached out to me today via IG. For anyone reading this looking for the same answer I was -

AquaWiz distributors have reported that the CRA will not work properly if you have a second chamber, the degassing chamber, as part of your CARX set up. Included is a picture of my GEO 1218 SSE w/Carbon Doser. AquaWiz asked to see some specific items in a video. After reviewing that video attached was their positive response:

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks all, AquaWiz reached out to me today via IG. For anyone reading this looking for the same answer I was -

AquaWiz distributors have reported that the CRA will not work properly if you have a second chamber, the degassing chamber, as part of your CARX set up. Included is a picture of my GEO 1218 SSE w/Carbon Doser. AquaWiz asked to see some specific items in a video. After reviewing that video attached was their positive response:

Did they give any explanation of why?

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Did they give any explanation of why?

No, actually they didn’t. Which is surprising. My reviews of the AquaWiz are mixed. It works great for what the prime reason it is needed, measuring Alkalinity. But, being it’s way overpriced, the ph measuring is a useless piece of crap, it’s prone to algae growing in it and when you go to clean the algae, the white lines to fill and level the tubes instantly disappears. But, so far, it really measures alkalinity very well without the need for reagent.

I don’t get why their distributors are saying you cannot use the CRA with a second chamber and AquaWiz is in conflict with that. My Reactor is big, but nothing abnormal (GEO 1218 SSE). I see AquaWiz now has a branded CARX they are bringing to market. It’s a single chamber set up. So, it is very confusing at best.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

No, actually they didn’t. Which is surprising. My reviews of the AquaWiz are mixed. It works great for what the prime reason it is needed, measuring Alkalinity. But, being it’s way overpriced, the ph measuring is a useless piece of crap, it’s prone to algae growing in it and when you go to clean the algae, the white lines to fill and level the tubes instantly disappears. But, so far, it really measures alkalinity very well without the need for reagent.

I don’t get why their distributors are saying you cannot use the CRA with a second chamber and AquaWiz is in conflict with that. My Reactor is big, but nothing abnormal (GEO 1218 SSE). I see AquaWiz now has a branded CARX they are bringing to market. It’s a single chamber set up. So, it is very confusing at best.

Thanks. I’m at a loss to think why a second chamber in the reactor would be a problem, or how the device would “know”. Perhaps they are just guessing.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Thanks. I’m at a loss to think why a second chamber in the reactor would be a problem, or how the device would “know”. Perhaps they are just guessing.

 

[ScottJazz]

I purchased one of these controllers and needed a little support from them to get it working correctly. They provided it quickly and were very helpful. It turns out the flow needs to be set higher than the default (it's very low). This wasn't clear from the videos I watched. Anyways so far it's working well, but I have noticed it dumps a lot of CO2 at once. I wonder if a CaRx with a saturation chamber would better utilize the CO2. My pH has dropped about 0.2 after switching from ATI 2-part to the CaRx.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Agreed with everything you say. Their customer service is incredible. There are some goofy things though:

Simply said - there should be no PH probes or ports at all.

- it is holding my my DKH +\- 0.2 from my set target per 24 hour average.
-I am not using the dosing feature in the AquaWiz so that the CRA AI truly learns my tank. They say it takes 3 days, it settles down inside of 5
- I’m doing Kalk,
- my system PH is dropped 0.3, brutal.
- this unit is similar to the Deltec where it massively floods CO2 as needed. It does not rely on CARX PH at all.
- I got my PH back to 8.5, but I had to hammer my system with my exact evap rate in Kalk plus 60 mil of sodium hydroxide dosed over 20 minutes 2 hours into my photo period
- this has caused my DKH to swing about. A full point. I don’t care bout the swing. I’m curious to watch the CRA self correct to counter this.
- I am not sure about flow. AquaWiz wanted to see how much flow I was pushing, the unit is still at 95%. The videos show you something which really is just a WAG. My affluent is currently running at 180 mil a minute.
- If you run a PH probe in your cARX, get ready for some insane swings. At first, I thought I was about to melt 60 pounds of reborn but, this thing simply works. I’m going to shoot a video this weekend.

Don’t be e though. My first night - dosing kalk with it creates a long runway to stability in my opinion, but just a few days. But, my dummy ran out of gas on day 2, so I was chasing my tail for a minute because of that.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I sent them a message asking any thoughts on smoothing out my DKH. I think the amount of Kalk I am pushing about 35,000 mil of Kalk in 10 hours. I’ve got my PH back where I want it 8.35 - 8.5+. But, it is helping the swing. My tank should be called the Swinging Reef (lol…) as my DKH has always swung and my temps can swing 2-4 degrees too. I don’t or haven’t seen any ill effect from that. However, last night it dropped into the 30’s and my chiller’s metal frame became very efficient as it sits outside.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Look at my set value and look at the average though…

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

It’s currently rolling through approaching hour 20. 21 should jump huge as I am currently -0.3 dKH

Also, these “bubbles” are not like a normal bubble that you see in a bubble counter. These are giant bursts. These bursts are designed to flood the CARX chamber. It works! It also is a PH killer.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I sent them a message asking any thoughts on smoothing out my DKH. I think the amount of Kalk I am pushing about 35,000 mil of Kalk in 10 hours. I’ve got my PH back where I want it 8.35 - 8.5+. But, it is helping the swing. My tank should be called the Swinging Reef (lol…) as my DKH has always swung and my temps can swing 2-4 degrees too. I don’t or haven’t seen any ill effect from that. However, last night it dropped into the 30’s and my chiller’s metal frame became very efficient as it sits outside.

I reached out to AquaWiz about this graph and smoothing it out. AquaWiz is just such an incredibly customer focused company. Being that my CARX has 3 chambers (albeit one is for gas exchange) and that it is large (12”x18” main chamber) they said that the CRA isn’t ideally suited for my application. They offered a full refund to return the CRA. I told them NO. I knew that it would be a challenge, having talked with them through this process. I have a second system that is about ready for me to load up with SPS. I will relocate the CRA there and use it with a more conventional CARX. I just will need to get my hands on another AquaWiz dKH tester.

Frankly- my average DKH over the last 7 days is 9.53, my target is 9.40. If I keep playing with the Kalk, I’m going to continue to screw with the CRA. I think I got the Kalk dosing close, my PH was 8.28 going into my photo period. I should see 8.50 again today. Now - this causes the CRA to have a second headache. As my PH goes back north of 8.5, my consumption exponentially grows. This, my dKH has dropped faster the last couple days in the back half of my full spectrum portion of my lighting.

 

[ScottJazz]

I’m seeing similar with dosing 4-5 liters of Kalk at night. I even schedule my filter roller to advance most of its fleece to allow me more space in my sump to overfill at night with Kalk. The flooding of the reactor with CO2 is one reason iM not liking the CRA. I’m leaning towards apex control of my CaRx instead of CRA to see if I can minimize CO2 injection with similar alk output. Also not being able to run a secondary chamber is odd per AquaWiz.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I’m seeing similar with dosing 4-5 liters of Kalk at night. I even schedule my filter roller to advance most of its fleece to allow me more space in my sump to overfill at night with Kalk. The flooding of the reactor with CO2 is one reason iM not liking the CRA. I’m leaning towards apex control of my CaRx instead of CRA to see if I can minimize CO2 injection with similar alk output. Also not being able to run a secondary chamber is odd per AquaWiz.

I think this is a very similar operating principle as the automated Deltec. I’ve read similar struggles from people with that unit.

Last night from 10pm til 20 minutes ago I pushed 31,000 mil of Kalk(slightly down from where I was a couple days ago). I’ll turn my fans on now and force evap to go up. Without fans, that’s about my exact evap, I can nearly double it if I leave my fans on for 12 hours. But, with the cold weather setting in, my heaters are turning on then and I’m not a fan of 1800 watts running to keep it at temp due to me forcing evap up. But, it does tick my salinity back a little, I’m around 600g in my system.

I am going to play with one thing today. My affluent is running at about 150mil or so a minute. I’m going to push it to around 300 for a couple days and see what happens.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

My 2 cents on this topic:
- AquaWiz has incredible customer service
- Their gear, while not the flashiness of other gear, works
- If you dose kalk, for the CRA to work properly you need a very consistent strategy for dosing kalk. I don’t think chasing evaporation rates and the use of a reactor will render the results possible when using the CRA.
- For whatever reason that the Effluent Gods see fit, you can only use single chamber CARX.
- AquaWiz said my system was too big/high demand but others larger higher demand have had success. But - they had a stable Kalk strategy and single chamber -

Here is my Emmy Award Arthur Morrow Pulitzer award (all wrapped up in one)

 

[ScottJazz]

Last night I took the CRA offline. My conclusion was that with hourly alkalinity and an existing Apex I could pretty easily control the CaRx. I just need to get in the ball park of bubbles/flow rate to produce a 25-50 dKh effluent. Then once I’m there if dKh is getting too high I’ll just turn off the CO2 via solenoid. I already have all the things I need to operate without the CRA. I’m curious to see what the change will look like. The reactor I have is designed to capture excess co2 to help the user tune it (korallin) better.

Final conclusion: I just don’t understand why they can’t offer programming for a slow and steady operation of CO2 control.

 

[ScottJazz]

Update, I ordered a T-2 calcium reactor. This design seems to recirculate co2 better. It’s also similar to the “Aquawhiz” calcium reactor. Gonna give it a try with the CRA again. The pH control via Apex is more finicky that I was expecting.