Reef-Engineer
Active Member
Disclaimer: This thread is intended to be an objective review of the features, performance, vulnerabilities, and experience of owning an Automatic Calcium Reactor by Aquarium Engineering. It is not a thread about the company, the owner, war stories, or what have you. Please join the conversation if you have comments, questions, or interest, and lets discuss this piece of reefing gear!
Ok, lets get started!
Aquarium Engineering ACR - Review and Walkthrough
Model Reviewed: June 2020 Stacked 8" ACR
I bought the unit because I like "different" reef gear, solid engineering concepts, and I dislike how my pH probe was always wandering out of calibration and getting fouled in my old Calcium Reactor. This unit seemed worth the money, whereas I must say some of the other saturation reactors are just insanely priced.
Here are pictures of it disassembled and one of it running. As you can see, it is a saturation reactor, which means, it maintains a bubble of CO2 at the top of the reactor, and recirculates this through the volume of the reactor, maintaining a low pH in the water, dissolving the media until a state of saturation is reached upon which time the CO2 stops being absorbed by the water. The alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, and trace element rich water is then dosed into the aquarium by the controller. That same controller also feeds more CO2 into the unit when the float valve in the lid says the CO2 bubble has been depleted.
In this fashion, the reactor runs with no pH probe to wander out of calibration or foul. It pushes water up through the two chambers, and then recirculates it with a sicce pump.
The reactor must be fed with a pump, and ideally from an area devoid of microbubbles.
Here's a shot of the lid with the: Effluent out (left, clear), Purge line (middle, yellow), and CO2 recirc line (right, yellow). Also you can see the float switch cable (black).
Here is a pic of the regulator that comes with the unit, you can see that it is feeding the reactor at about 8 or 9psi.
Performance Review:
Construction is solid, parts are machined from PVC, the large tubes are clear PVC, and a lot of thought went into the design. Perhaps too much thought, because the units are constantly changing and being updated and improved.
The reactor is quiet during operation. In fact, the solenoids in the control module are the loudest part. Based on feedback in the facebook group, the control module is also the most failure prone portion in previous variants, though mine has been problem free.
Setup was straightforward using the instructions from AE, the unit does not come with instructions, or any assembly guidance at all, but the owner recently released a set of instructions online.
I am pleased to say that my unit was leak-free from the vendor, setup went exactly as planned, and it has been reliably churning out effluent for weeks now. Tomorrow when I get a chance I will test the reactor effluent alkalinity again, but it is very high as you would expect (30-40+dKh).
Media/Maintenance:
The suggested Magnesium media to go in the bottom chamber is remag (dolomite) and then reborn (coral skeletons) go in the top, larger, chamber. Although the new reborn (after the shutdown) is much smaller particles and seems more likely to clog and less prone to efficient water flow.
Basically, the unit then runs itself. Maintenance includes:
The Control Module and valve module:
Effluent delivery is controlled by a super simple “time on, time off” control box. The top button is the “time on” that the solenoid will open for, then the bottom button is the “time off” that the solenoid will close the effluent line for. Want more alkalinity? Increase time on, or reduce time off. Want less? Reduce time on, or increase time off.
The CO2 bubble float switch is a simple conductivity switch, so your Apex could just as easily read it via a break-out box and control a Carbon Doser regulator to maintain the CO2 bubble in the unit, and the effluent could just as easily be metered with a Kamoer, Versa, or Masterflex peristaltic pump, but the stock system is working well so I have not had to enact “Plan B”.
Here is the inside of the valve module. On the left you can see the CO2 control portion, a check valve and a solenoid. Then on the right, the effluent control portion, a big old solenoid to pinch the effluent tube.
Final Thoughts:
So in summary, thus far, I'd give the unit an 8.5 out of 10. Only docking it 1 point for not coming with any instructions (people shouldn't have to join a facebook group to get instructions), and 0.5 point for the loud effluent control box. My unit is in a fishroom, and I can still hear the "CLUNK" of the solenoid opening and closing as it causes a water hammer. I may try a less forceful feed pump and see if that helps the situation (currently using a dedicated small magdrive). That being said, if the unit is in your living room, you may not love the bubble noises and solenoid noises. However, the unit is very solid construction, and other than the pinch-hose in the effluent control, I don't see many wear items if any, so I would expect the unit to last ages. AE uses high quality O-rings, excellent attention to detail of all machined parts, and everything fits together very well. When one buys a boutique piece of equipment, created by a largely one-man show, there are certain issues that are worth mentioning. For example if you have problems, shipping issues, need parts, etc, you need to find the owner, which can be easy or hard depending on the day, but I will say, based on the ownership experience thus far, I would buy this unit again.
Ok, lets get started!
Aquarium Engineering ACR - Review and Walkthrough
Model Reviewed: June 2020 Stacked 8" ACR
I bought the unit because I like "different" reef gear, solid engineering concepts, and I dislike how my pH probe was always wandering out of calibration and getting fouled in my old Calcium Reactor. This unit seemed worth the money, whereas I must say some of the other saturation reactors are just insanely priced.
Here are pictures of it disassembled and one of it running. As you can see, it is a saturation reactor, which means, it maintains a bubble of CO2 at the top of the reactor, and recirculates this through the volume of the reactor, maintaining a low pH in the water, dissolving the media until a state of saturation is reached upon which time the CO2 stops being absorbed by the water. The alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, and trace element rich water is then dosed into the aquarium by the controller. That same controller also feeds more CO2 into the unit when the float valve in the lid says the CO2 bubble has been depleted.
In this fashion, the reactor runs with no pH probe to wander out of calibration or foul. It pushes water up through the two chambers, and then recirculates it with a sicce pump.
The reactor must be fed with a pump, and ideally from an area devoid of microbubbles.
Here's a shot of the lid with the: Effluent out (left, clear), Purge line (middle, yellow), and CO2 recirc line (right, yellow). Also you can see the float switch cable (black).
Here is a pic of the regulator that comes with the unit, you can see that it is feeding the reactor at about 8 or 9psi.
Performance Review:
Construction is solid, parts are machined from PVC, the large tubes are clear PVC, and a lot of thought went into the design. Perhaps too much thought, because the units are constantly changing and being updated and improved.
The reactor is quiet during operation. In fact, the solenoids in the control module are the loudest part. Based on feedback in the facebook group, the control module is also the most failure prone portion in previous variants, though mine has been problem free.
Setup was straightforward using the instructions from AE, the unit does not come with instructions, or any assembly guidance at all, but the owner recently released a set of instructions online.
I am pleased to say that my unit was leak-free from the vendor, setup went exactly as planned, and it has been reliably churning out effluent for weeks now. Tomorrow when I get a chance I will test the reactor effluent alkalinity again, but it is very high as you would expect (30-40+dKh).
Media/Maintenance:
The suggested Magnesium media to go in the bottom chamber is remag (dolomite) and then reborn (coral skeletons) go in the top, larger, chamber. Although the new reborn (after the shutdown) is much smaller particles and seems more likely to clog and less prone to efficient water flow.
Basically, the unit then runs itself. Maintenance includes:
- Topping off media when it runs low
- Checking effluent potency from time to time to ensure proper operation
- Maybe changing effluent tubing in the control box? (unknown how long it lasts getting pinched)
- Recirculation and Feed Pump maintenance
The Control Module and valve module:
Effluent delivery is controlled by a super simple “time on, time off” control box. The top button is the “time on” that the solenoid will open for, then the bottom button is the “time off” that the solenoid will close the effluent line for. Want more alkalinity? Increase time on, or reduce time off. Want less? Reduce time on, or increase time off.
The CO2 bubble float switch is a simple conductivity switch, so your Apex could just as easily read it via a break-out box and control a Carbon Doser regulator to maintain the CO2 bubble in the unit, and the effluent could just as easily be metered with a Kamoer, Versa, or Masterflex peristaltic pump, but the stock system is working well so I have not had to enact “Plan B”.
Here is the inside of the valve module. On the left you can see the CO2 control portion, a check valve and a solenoid. Then on the right, the effluent control portion, a big old solenoid to pinch the effluent tube.
Final Thoughts:
So in summary, thus far, I'd give the unit an 8.5 out of 10. Only docking it 1 point for not coming with any instructions (people shouldn't have to join a facebook group to get instructions), and 0.5 point for the loud effluent control box. My unit is in a fishroom, and I can still hear the "CLUNK" of the solenoid opening and closing as it causes a water hammer. I may try a less forceful feed pump and see if that helps the situation (currently using a dedicated small magdrive). That being said, if the unit is in your living room, you may not love the bubble noises and solenoid noises. However, the unit is very solid construction, and other than the pinch-hose in the effluent control, I don't see many wear items if any, so I would expect the unit to last ages. AE uses high quality O-rings, excellent attention to detail of all machined parts, and everything fits together very well. When one buys a boutique piece of equipment, created by a largely one-man show, there are certain issues that are worth mentioning. For example if you have problems, shipping issues, need parts, etc, you need to find the owner, which can be easy or hard depending on the day, but I will say, based on the ownership experience thus far, I would buy this unit again.
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