raising calcium with a calcium reactor?

[AWD]

I've been running my calcium reactor for a month now. I just raised the amount of co2 and lowered the amount of water entering the tank. Two weeks ago the Ca level was 360. Now it is at 300. How do I raise this? The bubble count is a 1 1/2 bubbles per second. I do, however, have the water going through 8' of pipe full of ARM media to help raise the PH. The PH is about 6.7 when it leaves the reactor.

Also the tank is new and I don't have many corals in there. The calcerous algae seems to be covering the rock well though. I've just begun to add corals.

Thanks,

andy

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.
Try to raise the bubble rate as well as the output rate and see if you can raise the calcium level gradually. With calcium reactor, it going to be a slow process, maybe 2 or three weeks until it is 400 or so. If you can't wait, use two parts or calcium chloride.

 

[Anonymous]

You shouldnt be raising the ca with a reactor anyway

do a big water change (I dont mess with less than 50 % water changes) to get things back to normal, then match demand with the reactor.

if the tank is new, are you sure you didnt precipitate out the calcium? I would check the pump impellers for calcium deposits, sounds like your running the reactor a tad fast for an empty tank.

However you didnt post the effluent rate (ml or cc/min) or co2 rate (cc/min), or reactor size, or tank size, so I'm guessing.

 

[AWD]

Total water volume is 900 gallons. There is 600 lbs of live rock. There are a quite a few corals in there but they are small. I usually have to point them out. I've heard the the reactor will only maintain ca levels, but mine has dropped. I don't understand why it wouldn't raise ca level though. If it can replace CA used by corals then it should be able to replace original CA level shouldn't it?

This is the first time I've dealt with a reactor so pardon my ignorance.

I don't know the effluent rate exactly it is a fast drip, almost a steady stream. The CO2 is ~90 bpm.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Reactors can and will raise ca/dkh, but just getting them dialed in to match demand is hard enough, but due to your tank size, water changes to get things back inline will be difficult.

If you can use excel, the spreadsheet below should help, you need to test effluent speed, and effluent dkh on the reactor, and tank dkh. Nothing else really matters, ph means diddly poo on a reactor, 6.5 on yours will NOT produce the same ca/dkh effluent as 6.5 on my reactor. What you really want to monitor is tank & reactor dkh, it's an easy test to perform too, and cheap!

http://216.130.145.21/pics/reactordialin.xls

use that spreadsheet, so you at least will know if your matching or raising dkh/ca. Dont go too fast with the changes either.