Sawdonkey’s 210 Rebuild / Redo

Mjl714 · Feb 15, 2020

sawdonkey said:
Hate it! It is supposed to use suction to draw water into the reactor and eliminate the need for a peristaltic pump. However, the effluent rate always slows down over the coarse of a few days, drop almost comes to a stop, and I have to manually readjust.

Roger at Tunze has been a great help, but after about 20 emails back and forth and constant tweaking. I’m about to throw this thing in the garbage and go with the proven peristaltic/Geo route.

ouch, that sounds painful. Can you simply add a peristaltic pump?

sawdonkey · Feb 16, 2020

Mjl714 said:
ouch, that sounds painful. Can you simply add a peristaltic pump?

I don’t think so because this draws the water into the case of the reactor where it mixes the water and gas. I also don’t like that it needs to be in my sump.

So who’s got a used geo for sale???!!!

dwest · Feb 16, 2020

Just read through the thread. Awesome!

I’ll be following as I might get a calcium reactor soon as well.

sawdonkey · Feb 17, 2020

dwest said:
Just read through the thread. Awesome!

I’ll be following as I might get a calcium reactor soon as well.

Thanks. I’m going to let this thing ride for a while and see it it magically straightens itself out. I plant to disassemble it and put it back together to see if there is any quirks...but I’m not hopeful.

On a side note, I’ve noticed that my biopellets that are in a manifold off my return, have barely been tumbling lately. I also noticed that the flow from my return was really slow. Yesterday I took apart my return pump to discover that the impeller was absolutely covered in slime. I cleaned the whole pump, soaked it in citric acid, hooked it up......and WOW, I completely forgot it is supposed to actually push water! I don’t know what my tank turnover was, but it probably wasn’t more than 1X. This might explain some of the minor tank issues I’ve been having.

sawdonkey · Feb 17, 2020

Got a new torch a few weeks ago!

mfollen · Feb 17, 2020

Nice pick up! Hope it grows well for ya and good luck on the calcium reactor.
Can’t go wrong with GEO though, I have a kamoer running on it, but those new versa dosers look nice.

sawdonkey · Feb 17, 2020

Thanks! You can probably guess who I got it from. His name rhymes with Bryan Thumbingham.

X-37B · Feb 19, 2020

I had the same issue with my 3171. I found the hose kinked in the screw adjustment. Make sure its flat and not skewed.
Also I tried running at 20 mlm and it would not stay constant always going lower. I have now ran it at 30 mlm and it has been steady for over a week.
I dont think the adjustment is precise enough for very low flow.
Roger suggested higher flow and adjust your co2 and that has seemed to work.
I run the tunze media and in 2 months usage the carbonate level is down about an inch from where it started.
I am running 30mlm effluent and 60 bpm.

sawdonkey · Feb 20, 2020

90's reefer said:
I had the same issue with my 3171. I found the hose kinked in the screw adjustment. Make sure its flat and not skewed.
Also I tried running at 20 mlm and it would not stay constant always going lower. I have now ran it at 30 mlm and it has been steady for over a week.
I dont think the adjustment is precise enough for very low flow.
Roger suggested higher flow and adjust your co2 and that has seemed to work.
I run the tunze media and in 2 months usage the carbonate level is down about an inch from where it started.
I am running 30mlm effluent and 60 bpm.

Thanks for the input. Im so fed up with this thing that tonight, I cut the intake line and put a needle valve inline. We’ll see if the dumb screw thingy was the issue. I tried everything with adjusting it. Just a really bad design.

Ive been going with a drip that if it were dripping any faster, it would be a stream. I’m doing one bubble every two seconds or so and my reactor ph is about 6.4.

I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m considering smashing this thing in my alley and buying a bubble magus with a peristaltic pump.

Mjl714 · Feb 29, 2020

Any improvement In calcium reactor performance?

sawdonkey · Feb 29, 2020

Mjl714 said:
Any improvement In calcium reactor performance?

Yeah, a little. I talked to Roger via email a whole bunch. He ended up talking with the engineers that designed the thing. He informed me that they thought then tube on the intake was oversized ant that was the issue. I replaced the tube with a smaller one and it seems to maintain a drip rate now. I imagine the big tube is the equivalent of trying to suck on a huge straw verses a small one. Takes more sucking power?

Everything seems to work now. Now I can actually try to dial it in. I’m still frustrated.....but a little more optimistic now.