Reactor questions

[AWD]

I am new to using a reactor.

I've had it running for a week now and the calcium level is 360 and alk is 12dk. There is only 500 lbs of live rock and no additional corals yet. I tried raising the ph of the effluent by running the effluent through 8' of 1 1/2" pipe full of ARM. that helped raise effluent to 7.3. Before I did that it was 6.7.

Anyway how do I raise calcium level? Does it just take more time, or should I increase effluent rate or CO2 injection?

Thanks,

Andy

 

[dgasmd]

First of, Ca reactors are painfully slow and difficult to use to increase levels. They are meant to keep them at a certain level once you start it. In other words, they are meant to replace what your tank consumes only. Yes, you can crank up the hell of it, but it wil take a long time and you are likely to put a lot of CO2 back into your tank making the pH suffer.

If your levels are at where you say, I would buy some CaCl and add it until you get to 450. Then, keep testing your levels every other day to make sure your current setting in the reactors are mantaining it.

As far as the pH of the effluent, that is what mine is (6.7-6.8) and my pH runs at night 8.05-8.10 and during the day 8.1-8.18.

Hope that helps.

 

[Len]

Yup, I concur. Ca reactors will elevate calcium levels to an extent, but seem to buffer the Ca/alk/pH levels after it reaches a certain point. IMO, instead of straight CaCL, i'd recommend a two part solution like B-ionic or C-balance.

FWIW, My tank was about 350ppm Ca when I was running with just the Ca reactor. It's about 400ppm now after I threw on an additional Nielson kalkwasser reactor. At 350ppm, everything grew fine though.

 

[Entacmaea]

There is only 500 lbs of live rock and no additional corals yet.

8O Wow. How large is this tank? Pics please!

 

[Leopardshark]

I used to have a low calcium and alk levels because I didn´t run my ca reactor for about a month (those stupids at the place where they refill the co2 tank took so long to refill it) so what I did is to set the reactor at a very high outflow (60 ml per minute) and about 150 bubbles per minute, the alk is now 9 dkh and calcium is at acceptable levels again.
Good luck
marco

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.
It took them a whole month to give the cylinder back to you? Sounds like it is time for you to switch the vendor.

Almost all the time I get my cylinder right on the spot (~5 minutes). If not, I will get a different cylinder that was pre-filled. Either way, you should be able to get out with full tank of CO2 in a few minutes.

 

[Leopardshark]

Yeah RObin, usually they took about 2 days (they don´t fill it in there) but 1 month is an abuse.
I will never take my tank to them never.

 

[monkeyboy]

There is only 500 lbs of live rock...

Only... hehe... 8O

 

[AWD]

Only meaning the tank is 600 gallons. I am still in the setup process. I would love to post pics but over the weekend the temp kicked up to 88 degrees and it doesn't look good. I had some really neat corals that I am worried about.

Andy

Thanks for the replies. I'll check the level again and measure the output. I'd rather not by calcium supplements yet.