Another calcium reactor question about media

[jda]

The mined media is likely Calcite. It does not take that much more co2 to melt if you let your reactor run 24/7 and don't try and "control" it with a pH probe. If you are dumping co2 with a probe/regulator, then it will take more co2 and more will escape into the tank. With any type of media, your tank pH will be higher if you have no extra co2 leaving the reactor, so just tune it well by hand and you will be fine.

 

[Snoopy 67]

MTC, Marine technical Concepts, no longer in business used Florida Crushed Coral as a media.
I still us it on my unit.

 

[jda]

You can always use crushed coral for CaRx media. It is smaller and gets compacted as it dissolves, so you have to change it more often if you do not have a reverse flow reactor. It worked great decades ago and still works great today. Reborn and the old ARM was just aragonite, just like the crushed coral is.

 

[X-37B]

I have ran Tunze manmade media for 1.5 years now.
I run my reactor 24/7 with no ph probe or controller.
Ph of the tank does not fluctuate and my alk is steady at 7-7.3.
I have access to medium and large crushed coral at a lfs and have around 100lbs on hand if I want to use it.
The manmade media does not turn to mush like many people I know who run the coral media.

I also run a very small reactor, <2 liters of media, on my 120.
The surface area of the manmade media alows a smaller reactor to be used on large systems.

I like manmade media and plan on using it when I go to a larger system.

 

[The Opinionated Reefer]

The mined media is likely Calcite. It does not take that much more co2 to melt if you let your reactor run 24/7 and don't try and "control" it with a pH probe. If you are dumping co2 with a probe/regulator, then it will take more co2 and more will escape into the tank. With any type of media, your tank pH will be higher if you have no extra co2 leaving the reactor, so just tune it well by hand and you will be fine.

You're always preaching this and it may work for you but if even if you do tune your reactor to run 24hrs a day it will just mean that you need to sustain a lower PH in the reactor. I have used both Calcite and Crushed coral type media with the reactor tuned to run 24hrs a day. I can tell you that it was around a sustained PH of 6.1 to melt the calcite sufficiently vs 6.7 for the crushed coral. Dumping in that much low PH effluent was killing my tank. I was lucky if my ph got above 7.8. And don't say it wasn't tuned right, that is BS. If you dump low PH effluent into your tank it will lower your tank's overall PH, doesn't matter if no extra co2 is leaving the reactor. I have moved back to dosing and I can tell you my tank is doing much better now. I have come to the conclusion that Calcium reactors are only good for really large tanks with relatively low demand. Smaller tanks that have a high KH demand like over 1.5dkh a day, then your just asking for trouble with CX reactor. You also have to take into consideration the daily fluctuations in alkalinity demand. Just tuning a CX reactor to run 24hrs a day is not optimal, your causing daily swings in your alkalinity. Consumption needs to be tuned to 66/33 ratio based on the photoperiod. Calcium reactors are anything but set and forget, its far less hassle for small to medium-sized tanks to just dose.

 

[jda]

It doesn't work like that and they can work great on small tanks. You are missing the stop and dump part when using a pH controller. When the pH gets high and the co2 shuts off, the reactor is way past where it needs to be to start to melt. Then, the pH controller turns things back on and dumps a bunch of co2 into the reactor to get the pH lower again. Even if this is only .1 pH, it is still way more co2 than if you just left it running. A lot of that excess co2 will leak out into the tank and it takes time for the rest to dissolve and you need to go lower in your reactor to account for the time period when you stopped dissolving before and soon will again. You DO NOT need to run a lower pH in the chamber to run the thing 24/7... but watching pH is not important. What is important is uninterrupted dKh output.

If you read the paper in my signature and tune your reactor to do this, then you can run the smallest tank with the smallest reactor. Throw your pH probe away (or just set it aside to monitor after you are done figuring out how to tune it) and get the tune right. It is not even that hard.

I am not the only one who thinks that CaRx are mostly set and forget - nothing is completely set and forget, so nobody should be saying that. You just have not gotten to the point where you understand them enough yet - nobody wants to hear this hard truth, but there have been many others who thought the same thing, thought that only a fool would not use a pH controller with dump and stop or that they were just too out of control and not steady, but many of them dug in and learned. This is basic chemistry - it works for everybody. Chemistry in the UK is the same as in Colorado.

There is a 60g cube, which has since been donated to a local school in my signature. It had a CaRx on it and a CaRx alone. Here are starting and wall-to-wall after one year. I did have to change the media once and turn it up once. 2 things in a year, so not set and forget, but also not much work. Reactor is there too.

If you don't want to do it, then cool, but at least dig in and use the method before you throw it away. It has worked for decades.

 

[The Opinionated Reefer]

I am not missing the stop and dump part when using a pH controller. I had a PH Controller that was just there as a backup. I followed your article and advice and tuned it so that the PH controller would never have to kick in. I was just interested in seeing what the PH inside the reactor actually was. At no point did I say you have to run a lower PH to run 24/7 I meant you need to run a lower PH to use Calcite media than you would with reborn to get the same DKH output. In fact so low a PH that it will have negative effects on the tank. I completely understand what your saying about excess co2 leaking into your tank if you have not tuned it well. But even if you tuned it absolutely perfectly and there was zero excess gas leaking into the water it would still lower your overall tank's PH!

The higher your dkh demand the more low PH effluent you will need to dump into the tank and therefore the more negative effects it will have on PH. It's plain and simple! I have a complete and total understanding of how these simple devices work and what I am saying is they may work yes but they are far from optimal and dosing is a better solution in most cases. Even @Randy Holmes-Farley agrees with this.

 

[bdare]

Not sure about these claims about ARM needing to run at a lower pH to melt... I have a geo 618 full of coarse ARM media. My reactor is a steady 6.6 and my effluent is 20+DKH. Currently dosing about 25ml / min.

 

[jda]

If you are having display tank pH issues and blame a reactor, then this is akin to blaming low flow on a weak return pump. If your home is not all full of co2, having a CaRx will not even budge the display tank pH. I just have a pH pen, but that tank linked above was like 8.15 to 8.4, but we do keep our house full of fresh air even in the winters in Colorado. The low pH of the effluent will not move the tank pH nearly at all... but excess co2 can move it a bunch.

I just stuck the pH pen into my display. 8.11 with the lights off. This will likely get to 8.35 to 8.40 later. I am the running ARM calcite. I have not idea what the reactor pH is, but the effluent dKh was 26.X when I checked a week ago.

 

[The Opinionated Reefer]

If you are having display tank pH issues and blame a reactor, then this is akin to blaming low flow on a weak return pump. If your home is not all full of co2, having a CaRx will not even budge the display tank pH.

Garbage! No CaRx can be tuned perfectly enough to leak zero co2 and if you put liquid into the tank water that is lower than that of the tank water it will lower it.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Not to derail this thread, but all the new saturation style reactors (Dastaco, Deltec, ACR) dispense with bubble counters, PH probes, etc. and just dump an excess of CO2 into the reactor until no more will dissolve into the water column and the reactor runs at the saturation point of CO2. The PH in my ACR is 5.5, 5.1, 5.8?? Frankly I have no idea what the PH is, and I don't need to care. All I need to worry about is the flow through the reactor from my peristaltic pump and keeping the CO2 tank full. The last time I tested my effulent it was around 100 dKH. Seems like a high dKH right? Again, I don't need to care. I just adjust the ml/minute to maintain my alk target and let the reactor figure the rest out.

Anyway my point is, that using the logic that you need to tune a CalRx to get decent operation would mean that the saturation mode reactors should be terrible. Their results in the field show that they work very, very well and the amount of reefers switching to them support this.

Dennis

 

[Skragan]

I´ve been using ARM extra coarse for a year now in my DaStaCo and it works great. The extra potassium really helps, my magnesium and ca are very stable - a lot better than pure marble media. And eventually you will have to clean the reaction chamber anyways, as every media will shrink to smallest pieces eventually.

Regarding the CO2 - yes, if running a large CaRx you will have to fight low pH permanently. I´m doing that with a little extra reactor and an air pump, that design has proven to work over the last 8 months, raising my effluent from 6.3 by one unit to 7.3 pH. In addition to that, I have just finished installing a PaxBellum ARID. Now my pH is usually not lower than 7.7 at night (Hanna pH tester) and 8.2 during the day. Still room for improvement, but the algae has to grow out first and I´m still playing around with the flow rate of the reactor.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I´ve been using ARM extra coarse for a year now in my DaStaCo and it works great. The extra potassium really helps, my magnesium and ca are very stable - a lot better than pure marble media. And eventually you will have to clean the reaction chamber anyways, as every media will shrink to smallest pieces eventually.

Regarding the CO2 - yes, if running a large CaRx you will have to fight low pH permanently. I´m doing that with a little extra reactor and an air pump, that design has proven to work over the last 8 months, raising my effluent from 6.3 by one unit to 7.3 pH. In addition to that, I have just finished installing a PaxBellum ARID. Now my pH is usually not lower than 7.7 at night (Hanna pH tester) and 8.2 during the day. Still room for improvement, but the algae has to grow out first and I´m still playing around with the flow rate of the reactor.

I am curious about your extra reactor and air pump solution. Is it like the AquaCare ones sold in Germany? Turbo Chalk Reactor

Last year I did a test of a making a reaction tube that I dripped my effluent into, that contained an air stone, and found it was very effective. In fact, the PH rose too high as the air stone was uncontrolled and the effluent dKH dropped as calcium carbonate precipitated out. What I took from it, was that it would work great, but the air flow needed to be tuned and adjusted to raise the PH, but only so high, to avoid precipitating out the effluent.

The AquaCare manual suggest 7.3 as the sweet spot, which I noticed you also seem to be using. I would love to hear more about your solution.

Dennis

 

[jda]

I think that you are missing the point of tuning a little bit. The point is to maximize co2 usage, keep tank pH as high as possible (or at least not low) and have stability. The saturation reactors are stable, but don't really do the other things.

I do agree that they are more stable and reliable than trying to use a pH probe and worrying about chamber numbers and stuff. They also allow undissolved co2 down the line, from what I understand. I would mostly likely trust one of these over a Apex/PinPoint "controlled" reactor since the gasses, liquid and mechanicals have been solid for millennia.

Easy to admit that co2 tank efficiency is not a huge deal... who cares if you refill 2 months or 6 (to a degree). I just don't want that co2 in my tank. Some who have a closed up house might object to more co2 in their living areas, but this is no issue for me who has about 10 windows open more than a foot right now and a 10000 CFM whole house fan running.

I have never used one and don't know if I ever will since all of my reactors work plenty fine and have for decades. I also don't think that it is smart to run even a saturation reactor without knowing how to (or be able to) adjust it if you get in trouble... just working or not does not seem helpful to me, but I totally understand that I might be missing something.

Back to carbs/cars/injectors and air and gas and all of that... you can just dump a bunch of gas into a cylinder and the engine will run, but there are consequences of this out the exhaust valve and down the pipe. This can be great if you have a race car and don't care and can just spew excess gas into the atmosphere/ground, but can ruin your sensors and cats if you do this for long on a normal car. ...sorry for the false equivalency.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

My answers were a bit facetious just to highlight the point that a simpler option exists. I completely understand how saturation mode reactors operate. In my reactor's case, it uses a float switch in the cap of the reactor to maintain a gas bubble in the cap of the reactor. This is also where the CO2 that is being re-circulated using a venturi injector collects. As the CO2 is diffused into the water column in the reactor, the gas bubble size decreases and eventually triggers the float switch to top up the CO2 back to the preset amount. The CO2 will only diffuse up to the saturation point of CO2. Using this property, the reactor always runs at saturation. See below for what can affect this.

The only thing I need to keep an eye on (with my reactor) is that gases other than CO2 can collect in the gas bubble as the media melts. This will eventually impact the dKH of the effluent, so venting the reactor periodically is needed. Replacing the CO2 bubble with a vent cycle every few weeks avoids this. Though I sometimes go for a few months before I remember to vent it. The DaStaCo and Deltec reactors include venting functions that are intended to be a daily occurrence.

As for CO2 usage, the manufacturer of my reactor claims it uses far, far less Co2 than the old bubble style reactors. I can neither confirm nor deny this. I have had mine running for several months, but have not used any appreciable amount of CO2 yet (that I can tell). I have a second 10# tank on hand to swap in and an automatic tank switcher project that I want to undertake, but at the rate I am using CO2 it would be awhile before that could be tested or needed.

The reactor is only on a small 80G frag tank, but once I have my 500G running, this reactor will be moved to that tank and that tank is what it was purchased for. I am only using it on the frag tank to test it's operation and because I got tired of mixing up 2 part.

Dennis

 

[jda]

I get it. I would also like to see if these things all still function without expensive replacement parts in a decade - my Korallin is from the 1990s and I have had to replace an Eheim impeller and all tubing gets hard eventually. I worry that they could become like getting parts for Red Dragons, but I have nothing to back this up other than some history with equipment from the EU.

Does the media have all of the traces of the natural stuff? Even dolomite and calcite have more than just carbonate and calcium, which would turn to mush in a saturation event. I used some KZ stuff once and I had to dose mag and strontium or change water more often. Same with some AquaMedica man made stuff. They totally could be putting minor traces in the media now, but I have no idea... so just curious.

My fried who has the DaStaCo uses more co2, but who cares? I guess at some point, it matters, but at some point, it does not. I do melt 25kg bags of ARM or Reborn and barely use a bottle of co2, but at $14 bucks or whatever it is, I don't care about the usage rate and bottle replacement or cost, just that I don't want it in my tank. It probably uses less than a reactor that lets co2 down the tube into the tank, but I don't know how it could use less than one that traps the excess and and has a good tune.

I do not know that saturation reactors are simpler than tuning a normal reactor, but they surely are more simple than one with a pH probe... still more moving parts with purgers and all of that, but I would much rather rely on states of matter, gravity and pressure than a probe and hobby grade micro-computer. Probably a wash in the end where certain personalities would be happy with either. Again, I might give one a try in another half a decade if I have the chance and once I know that they are reliable... but only the media has at least all of the micro traces of calcite and preferably aragonite.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

When I started using my ACR, I was also wondering if man made media was going to be required. The vendor recommended using TLF Reborn, which is what I use, and it has worked fine with no premature breaking down issues. Luckily I had 6 cases of Reborn on hand for another project and then the Reborn drought hit. So I saved the Reborn for CalRx usage and will be using Florida Crushed Coral for the other project. Sometimes procrastination pays off, lol.

I am not sure why the ACR can use Reborn or ARM where the DaStaCo and Deltec recommend the man made medias only. Perhaps something different in the recirculation design.

Dennis