Scottiemac
Active Member
Thought I had calcium reactors down, but perhaps not. There's two issues.
First, what am I doing wrong with my regulators?
I've gone through four regulators, going from expensive to cheap. They all had their relief valves pop. On the last two I was aware of loosening the knob on the front but they still popped eventually.
For these, I put the regulator on the closed tank, loosened the knob in front all the way or even took it off. Turned the gas on, and then slowly tightened the knob on the front until gas stopped escaping from it.
Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? I've got a new MA 357 coming in a couple of days and don't want to make this one pop.
Next, I'm having trouble tuning it when it works. It seemed to hold Alk between 8.5 and 10.5 until I got some new corals last week. Since then I've had to add Alk solution to make up the difference.
The pH in the reactor was holding pretty steady between 6.55 and 6.65. I turned the bubble count to about 3 bubbles every 2 seconds; any more than that and it would drop below 6.5 and turn off.
I'm using a Kamoer Pro T2 pump at anywhere between 45 and 70ml/M, and this doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm seeing conflicting reports that the effluent will be stronger at the lower speed, or that the faster speed will get more of the slightly weaker effluent into the tank. Either way, I've tried faster and slower.
What I want to do is hold the alk at round 9 dKH or so instead of having it fluxuate.
First, what am I doing wrong with my regulators?
I've gone through four regulators, going from expensive to cheap. They all had their relief valves pop. On the last two I was aware of loosening the knob on the front but they still popped eventually.
For these, I put the regulator on the closed tank, loosened the knob in front all the way or even took it off. Turned the gas on, and then slowly tightened the knob on the front until gas stopped escaping from it.
Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? I've got a new MA 357 coming in a couple of days and don't want to make this one pop.
Next, I'm having trouble tuning it when it works. It seemed to hold Alk between 8.5 and 10.5 until I got some new corals last week. Since then I've had to add Alk solution to make up the difference.
The pH in the reactor was holding pretty steady between 6.55 and 6.65. I turned the bubble count to about 3 bubbles every 2 seconds; any more than that and it would drop below 6.5 and turn off.
I'm using a Kamoer Pro T2 pump at anywhere between 45 and 70ml/M, and this doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm seeing conflicting reports that the effluent will be stronger at the lower speed, or that the faster speed will get more of the slightly weaker effluent into the tank. Either way, I've tried faster and slower.
What I want to do is hold the alk at round 9 dKH or so instead of having it fluxuate.
