Dual Calcium Reactor

[bcobra]

I am currently running one of geo's dual reactor on my 120.Using a mixture of ARM and geo marine aragonite.My question for you that run dual reactors should the media in the first chamber dissolve a lot quicker than in the second chamber. And when I say quicker I mean like the first chamber is about 3" from the bottom and second still almost full. I have also had a heck of a time getting this one dialed in not like my single. TIA

Robin

 

[golfish]

Yes, The media in the second chamber will dissolve much slower.

 

[bcobra]

Thanks golfish now for the second question of corse you knew there would be a second.Do I just refill the first with new media?
Robin

 

[golfish]

Yes indeedy

 

[Anonymous]

I am not really new, but still learning we shall say. What does a reactor do for the tank, do I need one for the 55g I am running, and how does it work? Lots of questions and more to follow.


RLTW

 

[Anonymous]

Where is a good place to get a single stage? I do have a high rate of calcium loss and would like to get a more stable platform for the corals than dripping kalk. Thanks for the replies and keep em comin.

 

[SPC]

Ranger, Myreef and Geo both make excellent calc reactors and both are great to deal with. For me, just to be able to buy from a fellow hobiest that you can communicate with when needed is the way to go.
Steve

 

[bcobra]

Thanks again golfish for the info.
Ranger it's a calcium reactor it helps to maintain your calcium,ph and alkalinity levels so that you dont have to dose with additives to maintain them.Do you need one on your 55 well it depends on what type and how many corals you are keeping and how demanding they are for calcium. I have a single stage on a 40 but it has about 35 sps pieces in it sm.colonies and frags high cal. demand.Basically it's an enclosed cylinder with a water line in and out.It is filled with media crushed coral an such.You add co2 to the line going in which lowers the ph of the water inside to about 6.5 or so. This low ph will dissolve the media which will release the calcium. I am sure someone on this board can go into more detail and correct me if I am wrong but HTH.

Robin

 

[Anonymous]

Do you havet here eamils or a price list?

 

[Emperator]

Check out Myreef's Site

 

[davelin315]

From what I have gleaned so far about Calcium Reactors, as I am investigating building a very large model for my tanks, is that the second stage is more or less of a pH adjusting stage than anything else. The water that flows through the second stage will still be at a somewhat lower pH than what you want in the tank, and to push it back up to where you want it, you filter it through media again. This will tend to eliminate some of the CO2 that is still present in the mixture coming from your 1st stage, and also add a tiny bit more calcium etc. to your water. It is my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong, since I don't own one, and have only recently been studying the addition of one) that the first stage does multiple passes of the CO2 enriched water through the media, slowly dissolving it, and letting some of the mixture trickle back into the tank. As the media dissolves, the inert substances that make it up are released back into the water column, including calcium, trace elements, etc. The media is dissolved through the slow addition of CO2 to the water, which lowers the pH. As the water passes through the media and dissolves it, the pH goes up (due to the buffering capabilities of aragonite). The second stage bumps the pH up a little more, as no additional CO2 is added to the water passing through it. The end result is a constant, readily available source of everything that corals use to build their skeletons in the first place.

 

[davelin315]

Hey Todd, any advice would be appreciated. One question thing I have been trying to figure out is what diameter tube would be the most effective for a reactor? Is it like a skimmer where the more contact time you have the better? If that is the case, would a taller, thinner reactor chamber be best? Most of the acrylic tubes I am looking into come in 5' minimum lenghts, and this is what I am debating currently in the construction. One consideration is that the larger diameter tube I see, the more expensive it is, so I am probably going to limit myself to something under 4 1/2" or so, maybe 5" at most. If a huge diameter tube is the best, then I will consider that, but it may become too cost prohibitive. Also, if you have a picture of yours, it would be appreciated. I would like to make mine as nice as I can, because I don't have room in my stand for it, so I'd like to have it be almost like a display piece next to my tank. Thanks for any advice in advance.

 

[THillson]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by davelin315:
<STRONG>From what I have gleaned so far about Calcium Reactors, as I am investigating building a very large model for my tanks, is that the second stage is more or less of a pH adjusting stage than anything else. The water that flows through the second stage will still be at a somewhat lower pH than what you want in the tank, and to push it back up to where you want it, you filter it through media again.</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The second chamber just helps use a bit more of the dissolved CO2, making a more efficient machine. The pH of the effluent from a single or dual chamber reactor would be the same, 6.8-6.5 depending on the media type you use. You dial in a reactor based on the pH of the effluent and the Alk levels/usage of your tank.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

<STRONG>This will tend to eliminate some of the CO2 that is still present in the mixture coming from your 1st stage, and also add a tiny bit more calcium etc. to your water. It is my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong, since I don't own one, and have only recently been studying the addition of one)</STRONG>

From what I understand, you've got it all correct except the pH part. If you are interested I just finished building a large dual chamber reactor for my 170 gallon system. This thing kicks #%*, effluent volume of 90 ml/min with a pH of 6.5 and Alk at over 18meq/l.

bcobra, I would replace the media in the second chamber when you do the main chamber. The media gets soft as it is dissolved and begins to collapse on itself restricting water flow. If not every time at least every other time. A little more work now to head off a headache down the road.

[ September 08, 2001: Message edited by: THillson ]

 

[THillson]

Here is a picture of it

The large and small tubes are 6" and 4" respectively. The recirc pump is a Sen 700. Try http://www.sdplastics.com/index.html for acrylic tubing in cut lengths. I also have the acrylic tubing to make one more like mine. What size is your tank?

As far as size goes the bigger the better, height or width. You want as much media in the main chamber as you can get. If you are thinking of building one like this yourself know that you will need a router and a router table. This tool is the secret to working with acrylic and getting these things to seal up.

 

[davelin315]

I've got the router and table, just need to decide what size I want to make the reactor. I've got a 125 reef and also a 510 gallon capacity (including sump and refugium) pond that I'd like to the reactor up to at the same time. All I've done so far is make a possible cap for the reactor out of 6"x6" acrylic squares. Still need to figure out my budget, though, for what size rod to get. Did you cut your rod yourself, or did you have SD Plastic do it for you? If you did it yourself, what did you use?

 

[THillson]

You are going to need something huge to cover both of those systems if you like SPS corals. Soft corals, anemones and the like will require less supplementation. SD plastics will cut to length for a fee. I ended up buying mine locally from TAP plastics. FYI, there will be two types of tubing available, one is more expensive and it is very smooth walled, the other is a rougher finish but much cheaper. You are going to want to look at a very large recirc pump for this sized reactor as well. If this is going to be outside the cabinet you might want to go with two 6" tubes (prices really go up for bigger)and make it as tall as you can. Look at the plans for Sanjay's reactor, I think they are posted at his web site (my bookmark isn't working anymore).

This may be frowned on by some but you could call a commercial maker of reactors, like Precision Marine or Knop, and see what size they would recommend for your system. With this knowledge you would know what to build. One of the LFS uses a large PM reactor to supply a 500 gallon SPS system and it seems to work so you may want to follow that one. That's kind of what I did and I added the second chamber for good measure.

Hope this helps.

 

[davelin315]

Thanks Todd, I was thinking of going w/a five foot reactor since that's the size of the tubes I can get from McMaster-Carr, which has a local warehouse, but I am still looking into price concerns. If only I had this old 4 foot tall countercurrent skimmer I bought for $90 a long time ago. It fell over in my basement and cracked the top foot off or so, but I should have saved it anyway.

 

[Twinspot99]

The two types of acrylic which Todd mentioned were cell cast and extruded. The cell cast type is more expensive and of better quality. IME 1/4" thickness works better. If you can find it locally, another place you can check is www.usplastic.com. They have very good price for acrylic tubing. Seems to be better than I could find locally (before shipping). Any place which you get your tubing from should be able to cut it to length for you. If not, just use a table saw with carbide blade. Do a search on DIY with acrylic and you should get plenty of suggestions.
HTH