Equipment Review: Aquarium Engineering ACR (Automatic Calcium Reactor)

ca1ore · Oct 19, 2020

I don't see many reviews on the performance of this rector .... and none that I recall after having owned one for a while. I suppose its a bit tricky to make direct comparisons because AE are always making running changes, but @Reef-Engineer please do keep updating this thread.

AE is a polarizing company, so it can be hard to get past the negatives. I suppose either you 'love' them or 'hate' them LOL.

Manny Tavan · Oct 19, 2020

Manny Tavan · Oct 19, 2020

I would rate the performance as a 3/5 when everything is working correctly. Mostly because you need to purge the unit all the time to keep a stable alk. A 0.75 swing over 4 days is not ideal

build quality of the controller is an issue. The clippard pinch valve in my controller is undersized and probably failed because of that. The tubing inside the controller is a 1/4”OD and the pinch valve in there is sized for 1/8”OD tubing

Manny Tavan · Oct 19, 2020

Also I wouldn’t recommend it if you plan to have it in a living area. This thing is noisy! Between the sicce pump constant humming. The buzzing sound recirculating bubbles of co2 and the valves actuating. It’s too loud for any living room. Even inside a cabinet

Reef-Engineer · Oct 19, 2020

Those are excellent points, and this is definitely what I want here. Objective and subjective input from owners, so that prospective buyers can make educated decisions.

A few items:

Purging - Need for purging seems to depend on your setup. Some folks need to purge frequently, others never. A possible contributor is microbubbles in the sump being pumped into the reactor. I can only provide my experience here which is that when feeding my reactor with a small dedicated pump from a calm return chamber of the sump, I don't seem to have to ever purge. I am also dosing at "3 on, 300 off". Perhaps the others that are having to purge can share how they are feeding the reactor and what the dosing numbers (on/off) are.
Noisy - these kind of reactors are pretty noisy. When I visit my buddies house with a reef octo reactor and it is dead quiet, I am a little jealous. It seems that any of the reactors that recirculate large volumes of gas just make a lot of noise from the gas constantly running through the recirculating pump, my Reef Dynamics CARX does the same thing. The solenoids are also pretty noisy in the controller. I have mine in a fish room and I can hear the "clunk" through the house all the way in my bedroom when the effluent solenoid actuates (my wife has not mentioned it yet so I am hoping she doesn't notice!).
@Manny Tavan I agree that ALK wandering is not ideal. Is it effluent strength causing it? It might be interesting if you could test your effluent dKh daily for like a week and post your numbers here (if you are willing?). I will test mine again and let you know if it is any weaker than when I tested it a couple of weeks ago (suggesting a need for a purge). My controller seems to have a different pinch-valve than yours, perhaps that pinch valve is now a known issue? You may be able to contact Bill to get one of these new ones (not sure if user replaceable). Here is a pic of the pinch valve in my controller box:

@ca1ore I will sure do my best to keep the thread updated. AE is for sure a polarizing company. It is all over FB and the forums. That is kind of why I am keeping this discussion more on the "technical" merits of the product, since if we go down the "love them or hate them" route, fireworks will undoubtedly ensue.

Reef-Engineer · Oct 19, 2020

Just tested my effluent. I had to cut it in half with DI water twice again. So only 2ml of effluent in a 10ml hanna vial, the rest is RODI with 0 TDS. So I believe I double the result TWICE to get the answer.

Measurement was 10.9 dKh, so doubled twice that is 43.6 dKh. It was 52 dKh on October 7th. So I will check again in another week and see where it is at. If it keeps going down, maybe I need to purge it.

Accuracy of a hanna alk checker is about +/- 0.3 dKh. so if you double that twice, the accuracy of a twice diluted sample is about +/- 1.2 dKh. (if my thinking is right).

So if my measurements are good, and that accuracy is correct, then my effluent has decreased in strength by about 20% over a week.

For kicks, I will let it go another week and measure. Then I will purge it, let it settle, and see if it goes back up to 52 dKh. If so, then I will have shown that I have the purge requirement too (which would be weird because my sump is SUPER calm with zero microbubbles so the air must be getting in elsewhere, or perhaps impurities in CO2 are gathering in reactor).

If that is the case, maybe Aquarium Engineering can send me a controller that has the new auto-purge function to try out.

Manny Tavan · Oct 19, 2020

My effluent is 70 (7 on hanna after 10:1 dilution)

dadnjesse · Oct 19, 2020

Reef-Engineer said:
If that is the case, maybe Aquarium Engineering can send me a controller that has the new auto-purge function to try out.

How do you get one of these when they are not on his website?

BrianReefer · Oct 19, 2020

I’m one of the lucky ones I guess. I’ve had it for almost a year, yes had some issues at first including a leaking controller box. And yes it took a few call attempts and some time for Bill to replace. I run mine on a timer from 5am to 1am each day, else Alk spiked at night. But with current setup I’ve been rock solid for months. I feed from a tee in my return line and never have to purge. Back feed is an issue but it only back feeds 2 inches for me which increases tank all about .75, which doesn’t destroy anything, and only happens if return pump is off and I am not able to turn off tee valve at same time (eg failed pump or power outage)

Reef-Engineer · Oct 20, 2020

dadnjesse said:
How do you get one of these when they are not on his website?

I think you have to reach out to Bill to see what the timeline is on them.

dadnjesse · Oct 20, 2020

Reef-Engineer said:
I think you have to reach out to Bill to see what the timeline is on them.

I have already tried to call him, sent him a message through Face Book. You would think he would hire someone to answer the phone if he refuses to.

Manny Tavan · Oct 22, 2020

So I did receive my new controller today. It’s a different design. The new pinch valve is much better but because it’s bigger you now get two modules. One with the valves and one with the control board. I think the new controller is much better. I am still going to try to control the effluent with apex using a 24v pinch valve that I ordered online

dadnjesse · Oct 22, 2020

Manny Tavan said:
So I did receive my new controller today. It’s a different design. The new pinch valve is much better but because it’s bigger you now get two modules. One with the valves and one with the control board. I think the new controller is much better. I am still going to try to control the effluent with apex using a 24v pinch valve that I ordered online

It's good you got it replaced. Mine has the 2 box design also. After many headaches my seems stable and I have not had to purge it lately.

Manny Tavan · Oct 24, 2020

so the new controller leaked water. Filled up with water and eventually started pouring water inside the cabinet. Luckily I was home and the controller started acting crazy which alerted me to something being wrong...

dadnjesse · Oct 24, 2020

Manny Tavan said:
so the new controller leaked water. Filled up with water and eventually started pouring water inside the cabinet. Luckily I was home and the controller started acting crazy which alerted me to something being wrong...

wow that sucks

ca1ore · Oct 24, 2020

Reef-Engineer said:
@ca1ore I will sure do my best to keep the thread updated. AE is for sure a polarizing company. It is all over FB and the forums. That is kind of why I am keeping this discussion more on the "technical" merits of the product, since if we go down the "love them or hate them" route, fireworks will undoubtedly ensue.

That’d be good. I’m most interested in reliability. I had picked up some used AE equipment and was quite surprised at the poor level of QC for such expensive gear. Never ended up using it. Interested to see if things have improved in any material way.

BrianReefer · Oct 24, 2020

Manny Tavan said:
so the new controller leaked water. Filled up with water and eventually started pouring water inside the cabinet. Luckily I was home and the controller started acting crazy which alerted me to something being wrong...

Open it up and see where it disconnected. Should be relatively easy fix (but super annoying I know). Make sure to dry it out fully and the connectors as well, else they’ll rust over time and then eventually break off / disconnect causing other issues. After I had that issue once I put my reactor and mounted the controller inside a 20g plastic tub with a water leak sensor in the bottom, but I haven’t had an issue since.

And before you try to fix take a picture of it full of water and call Bill to get a replacement going...it can take time as we here know...

Reef-Engineer · Oct 26, 2020

Geez @Manny Tavan I am super sorry to hear that happened to you!

Honestly I'd just start running effluent through a peristaltic pump (Versa, MAsterflex, Kamoer)...

Hope Bill gets another controller to you ASAP. Where did it fail? Geez I hope mine doesn't fail.

I have the "water on the floor" sensor diiiiiiirectly beneath my ACR control box...

I'll do another effluent strength test this week and report back!

Reef-Engineer · Nov 7, 2020

I just measured effluent, this time 9.9 dKh. So definitely getting weaker every week. Not good. My tank alk was sinking so i figured this was the case.

Oct 7th 52 dKh
Oct 19th 43.6 dKh
Nov 7th 39.6 dKh.

So in one month the effluent reduced in potency 20 percent. I will now purge it and check it again tomorrow.