Calcium reactor impact on tank Ph

[danimal]

Struggling a little here with the use of a Reactor..

Ph is 8.2, alk is 8.2 and Ca is 420

If you run a Calcium reactor to maintain or increase your Ca what is the impact on the tank?

Your adding CO2 to get the effluent at Ph of 6.6 if your constantly feeding the tank with this don't you have to balance it somehow?

thought i would find lots of info , but I have not run across it yet.

 

[ChrisRD]

There are several ways you can minimize the pH impact on your system when using a Ca reactor, for example:

-Discharge the reactor effluent into a high-flow area. This allows the excess CO2 to be off-gassed thereby minimizing the effect on system pH.

-Use kalkwasser for evaporation top-off. Kalkwasser use raises pH, thus countering the pH lowering effect of the Ca reactor. Also, use of kalkwasser can help precipitate phosphates out of the system water that can be introduced by your Ca reactor media, feeding, etc.

-Use a kalkreactor. Similar benefits to using kalkwasser - only more automated.

-Use a second "effluent" chamber on the Ca reactor. This allows the reactor to work more efficiently and allows for some of the excess CO2 to be used-up in the second chamber. The final effluent pH is higher and thus has less impact on the system.

HTH

 

[ChrisRD]

BTW, CaribSea A.R.M. seems to dissolve at a higher effluent pH than some of the other reactor medias...

 

[Anonymous]

Ditto what Chris say.

>the effluent at Ph of 6.6 if your constantly feeding the tank with this don't you have to balance it somehow?

The beauty of the calcium reactor and kalkreactor is that the pH will be self balanced because either the CO2 will come out of the solution, or the water will absorb CO2 from the air and "normalized."

Beside, the effluent rate is so slow that it does not affect the pH all that much if you dose it in a high flow area.

 

[TeddyLuv]

This is a little off of the topic BUT since we are talking about Ca reactors and the like, I am setting up a reef aquarium for the first time. I don't understand the need for BOTH a Ca reactor and Kalkwasser. Isn't one of these enough?

Thanks in advance,
Ted

 

[Anonymous]

People that have both are typically those that have a really hard time in keeping the calcium level in the tank up to their expectation.

Majority of them started with kalkreactor, and when more coral is added, they get into trouble with calcium even when enhanced evaporation does not get enough kalk into the tank. Then they get a calcium reactor, and decided to keep both running and get the benefit of complementing property of Ca rxtor and kalkrxtor.

 

[danimal]

What if you start out with a Ca reactor - do you need the kalkwasser to keep the Ph up where it belongs?

My understanding is that if the CO2 feeding the reactor is shutoff the PH in the reactor goes up causing the reactions in the reactor to stop. If thats true you will get a big reduction in the Ca in the effluent and the effluent going into the tank will have a "normalized" Ph.

When the CO2 is on- the effluent should be at around 6.6 to get the most Ca in solution .

Seems like the reactor can only lower the Ph or have little or no impact on the tanks Ph when the CO2 is off.

- is that close to whats happening?

 

[Anonymous]

Right. But keep in mind that if the CO2 in the reactor output escapes (such as when you drip it in a high flow area of your sump, near the skimmer, for example), there will be very little effect on pH from the use of the calcium reactor.

One of the main reason that some people used kalkreactor first is because the ca rxtor is more costly to purchase. Other than that, I feel that people should consider ca rxtor (instead of kalk rxtor) first if automated ca dosing is desired.