Starting Calcium Reactor?

[penguinexdeus]

Having problem with reactor not seeming to do much at moment/ being unstable.

Just set up my calcium reactor with Carbon Doser and a secondary chamber. Using Apex and pH probe to control via trying to maintain a steady pH. Instructions for reactor and a lot of recommendations I saw say to try and keep the on/off of the CO2 to a minimum and "dial in" the bubble rate.

I started at manufacturer recommended CO2 and effluent rate (15ml/min and 1bubble every 3 sec at about 10psi) - but the pH moves so quickly up and down it was turning the CO2 regulator on/off every few minutes. I've dialed down the injection rate to almost as low as I can and reduced effluent rate. Right now I'm running 10ml/min with about 1 bubble every 10 sec at 5psi.

It takes about 10 min for pH to drop and another half hour for it to raise up again; currently controlling 6.35 to 6.55 pH. At the higher rates it was only a few minutes for pH to swing between on and off.

Effluent out after secondary chamber is currently about 16dKH and 7.4 pH. Using Arm extra coarse in reactor and coarse media in secondary chamber. Tank is around 8.1 pH and 8.2 dKH.

Does it take a while for the reactor to get "up to speed" and going? I was kind of expecting to dial in the bubble rate to 6.4 without it constantly cycling the regulator except maybe a few times in day and was thinking it would take some time to even drop to 6.4 in reactor. Based on BRS info I was expecting effluent to be about 30dkH and with online calculator to replace my 2 part I should be around 15ml/min with the assumed effluent dkH.

Eveything just seems very off right now. I haven't cut back on my two part at all yet since the reactor doesn't seem to be doing much at moment and I don't want to have any large alk swings.

Reactor has been running/ circulating about 24 hours but I've only turned CO2 on about 10 hours ago.

Does it just need time to get up and going to have less pH swing and more dKH effluent?

 

[Jason_MrFrags]

Your system will still have a ph swing even with a calcium reactor. Have you tested the Alk to see if it has gone up? With the reactor running for 24hr you should see some sort of increase.

 

[jmichaelh7]

start off at 25ml effluent and 1 drip every other second .

I got help on this forum when setting up my tank. Plenty of help check my threads

 

[Dennis Cartier]

You will need to wait for your effluent to completely replace the water inside your secondary chamber before you will see the accurate dKH from your CaRx. Secondary chambers are awesome, but they do cause a lag in being able to detect the affect of adjustments you make. The delay is approximately the volume of the secondary chamber divided by the flow rate.

If you want to test the dKH without waiting for the effluent to pass through the secondary chamber, if you can temporarily remove the line feeding the secondary, and take a sample there, it should show your current real time dKH. The BRS 1/4" 3 way valves are great for this. Installing 1 of those between the CaRx and the secondary makes it easy to take samples without disconnecting anything.

However, keep in mind that your secondary chamber is going to raise your effluent strength by about 40% once all the secondary water volume has been replaced with effluent. So any reading your get straight out of the CaRx, will only help you to know that your CaRx is running properly, but you will still need to wait for your secondary to be completely filled with effulent to see the final dKH strength that it will eventually produce.