Aquarium Engineering ACR

DangerDave · Apr 16, 2020

Yes, leak tested. No on the John guest fitting. After seeing some issues people have had with air getting in, i made a bubble catcher to keep air out of the salt water going in. this hasn’t been an issue for me, so little is going in I haven’t needed to use it in weeks. I’ll leave it in place, but it’s a non issue for me.

ScottB · Apr 16, 2020

DangerDave said:
Yes, leak tested. No on the John guest fitting. After seeing some issues people have had with air getting in, i made a bubble catcher to keep air out of the salt water going in. this hasn’t been an issue for me, so little is going in I haven’t needed to use it in weeks. I’ll leave it in place, but it’s a non issue for me.

The fitting in the base is just for draining the reactor. Not that that is a frequent requirement (I pray). I have tapped fittings before so going to give it a go, then leak test, then fire it up.

Did you experience kind of a slow DKH production start or was it producing pretty much right away?

DangerDave · Apr 16, 2020

it n took a few days to get full strength (not sure what to call it). Having the trident supplement 2 part made it much easier.

Little Mo · Apr 30, 2020

Hi I'm a newbie to this group. I need some help with my AEC reactor. I bought the 8in stack automated reactor in December 2019 and still can't get it to dial in. I'm using caribsea arm media because I cannot find the reborn media anywhere due to it being discontinued. The pH in the reactor is 6.4 with a DKH of 14 coming out the reactor. I have a fully stocked 180 sps domain tank with a water volume of 225 gallons. The dkh in my tank is barely above 8.0 I would prefer if I can get a dkh of 9.0 to 9.5. The settings on my module is 26 / 200. To maintain my target dkh I now have to currently run my calcium reactor and my dosing pump at the same time to reach my targeted dkh. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

wishntoboutside · Apr 30, 2020

truly blown away in Bills lack of customer service. he builds nice stuff but his service and lead times make me run away from him. I have heard of multiple people waiting for months on this. Know of one waiting of 6 months as well.

ScottB · Apr 30, 2020

Little Mo said:
Hi I'm a newbie to this group. I need some help with my AEC reactor. I bought the 8in stack automated reactor in December 2019 and still can't get it to dial in. I'm using caribsea arm media because I cannot find the reborn media anywhere due to it being discontinued. The pH in the reactor is 6.4 with a DKH of 14 coming out the reactor. I have a fully stocked 180 sps domain tank with a water volume of 225 gallons. The dkh in my tank is barely above 8.0 I would prefer if I can get a dkh of 9.0 to 9.5. The settings on my module is 26 / 200. To maintain my target dkh I now have to currently run my calcium reactor and my dosing pump at the same time to reach my targeted dkh. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

I am a noob as well so take this with a pound of salt but, here goes some second hand info:

There was a question on the FB group asking "how do I know if/when I need to purge air from the reactor?" The answer from a few folks was "when the reactor stops producing strong effluent."

Now I don't know what "strong" really means as a noob. But 14 strikes me as weak. I've done 4 effluent tests that somehow are reaching 82 dkh. I have to dilute like heck or use 5-6 syringes to get color change. My media is primarily personally sourced stony coral, topped off with ARM. Oh, and about 3 pounds of Reborn MAG too.

Little Mo · Apr 30, 2020

wishntoboutside said:
truly blown away in Bills lack of customer service. he builds nice stuff but his service and lead times make me run away from him. I have heard of multiple people waiting for months on this. Know of one waiting of 6 months as well.

I know I've been trying to get in contact with him for quite a while now and no response.

Snoopy 67 · Apr 30, 2020

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/so-a-carx-noob-buys-an-a-c-r-calcium-reactor.714822/#post-7402703

Read this

ScottB · Apr 30, 2020

Snoopy 67 said:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/so-a-carx-noob-buys-an-a-c-r-calcium-reactor.714822/#post-7402703

Read this

That title certainly sounds familiar to me...

ScottB · Apr 30, 2020

@DangerDave you are certainly the prime candidate for a calcium reactor! I thought I used a lot of ESV.

Have you yet unplugged your dosers? I am still running a little through the lines just to keep them clear while I dial in. I may actually keep them on indefinitely as backup.

I've had mine for a few weeks but had to take it down to fix a small nuisance leak and just restarted a couple days ago. (And that is where the Guest drain tap in the base is handy although I wish I had made it 3/8ths.)

Here is a sheet I started just to help me track/understand the dial in process a little better. I have the memory of a goldfish so it helps.

I "feel" like my end goal is fewer, more potent(?), doses over a day. The valve module strikes me as a point of mechanical failure, so the fewer cycles the better. In fact I am going to buy a backup valve module.

	28-Apr	29-Apr	30-Apr

Avg dkh	7.7	7.6	7.4

Secs / day	86400	86400	86400

Dose	2	3	4

Delay	200	300	350

Dose / day	428	285	244

Units / day	855	855	976

APEX DOS ESV	110	10	10

ScottB · Apr 30, 2020

As to Bill, I did enough reading to have a sense of what I was getting into. Bill has a real company (medical instruments) and a reef system larger than my swimming pool. And then he has this hobby of coming up with better indoor marine ~~mousetraps~~ reactors. We would be wise to plan for redundancy and assume some measure of DIY around the edges. I kinda fell for the design & user simplicity.

Lastly, we OWN this equipment now. Kind of like the neptune community, we need to help each other out. Once I am done being a complete noob with this stuff, it will be kinda fun to do that.

DangerDave · May 1, 2020

ScottB said:
@DangerDave you are certainly the prime candidate for a calcium reactor! I thought I used a lot of ESV.

Have you yet unplugged your dosers? I am still running a little through the lines just to keep them clear while I dial in. I may actually keep them on indefinitely as backup.

I've had mine for a few weeks but had to take it down to fix a small nuisance leak and just restarted a couple days ago. (And that is where the Guest drain tap in the base is handy although I wish I had made it 3/8ths.)

Here is a sheet I started just to help me track/understand the dial in process a little better. I have the memory of a goldfish so it helps.

I "feel" like my end goal is fewer, more potent(?), doses over a day. The valve module strikes me as a point of mechanical failure, so the fewer cycles the better. In fact I am going to buy a backup valve module.

28-Apr
29-Apr
30-Apr
Avg dkh
7.7
7.6
7.4
Secs / day
86400
86400
86400
Dose
2
3
4
Delay
200
300
350
Dose / day
428
285
244
Units / day
855
855
976
APEX DOS ESV
110
10
10

I havent kept kept records like you have, but it’s off right now, I expect to have dosing started again tomorrow. I’ve been playing with the times on the acr to try and keep it stable without almost no ESV. Once I’m close I’ll let the trident do it’s thing. The ACR is at 6/100 currently.

Do you have a place to order that valve?

ScottB · May 1, 2020

DangerDave said:
I havent kept kept records like you have, but it’s off right now, I expect to have dosing started again tomorrow. I’ve been playing with the times on the acr to try and keep it stable without almost no ESV. Once I’m close I’ll let the trident do it’s thing. The ACR is at 6/100 currently.

Do you have a place to order that valve?

I am going to order a backup of the entire valve module unit from Bill. That way, when a part of it fails or leaks, I can just swap it out. It buys me time to get replacement parts for it from Bill, which can take some time.

Little Mo · May 1, 2020

ScottB said:
I am going to order a backup of the entire valve module unit from Bill. That way, when a part of it fails or leaks, I can just swap it out. It buys me time to get replacement parts for it from Bill, which can take some time.

Smart move. I like that idea

ScottB · May 11, 2020

My reactor is creeping up past my target levels now. Or my consumption is falling. Effluent dkh was already 75-82 but will test again.

Was running 10/450 for several days to get from 7.4 to 8.3 target but overshot. (I also had a WC in the middle which added a couple points.)

300G frag system
Was running ESV 2-part before at 110ml each part.

ScottB · May 26, 2020

Thought I would share this bit of delightful news:

Dear Scott,

The out of stock situation for ReBorn was a temporary supply chain issue. We will be shipping ReBorn to our suppliers starting Friday of this week, so it should become available again as soon as next week.

Sales Support Two Little Fishies

Forshurley · Jun 14, 2020

I just unpacked my unit I ordered 2 months ago and it is a beast, might be private messaging some of you for set up after I get my media, whats people using instead of reborn?

NeverlosT · Jun 14, 2020

ALK of effluent for a saturation reactor should be quite high, like 30+dKH I would expect.

If having an issue with effluent strength, then purging the reactor may get it back up, as some of the gas bubble in the reactor that should be pure CO2 may now be air (if microbubbles are getting in).

I plan to use Bill's control module for a bit, but if I have any problems I will just run effluent through my Kamoer or Masterflex as I currently do for problem-free dosing.

You are right, we have to take care of each other with this equipment. I am super on the fence about it all. On one hand, I like the solid construction of these things, and most of the designs, on the other hand....

Good to hear that Reborn will be back soon

ScottB · Jun 14, 2020

Forshurley said:
I just unpacked my unit I ordered 2 months ago and it is a beast, might be private messaging some of you for set up after I get my media, whats people using instead of reborn?

I'd been planning for a CaRx for a long time as I have ESV buckets stacked to the ceiling. Over that time I re-scaped my display chopping up a ton of monti, blue stag and green slimer. Also, my LFS coral display crashed (ATO stuck on over holiday weekend) so between the two I started with 2-3 gallons of skeleton. Added some ARM course and Reborn Mag.

ca1ore · Jun 16, 2020

ScottB said:
Thought I would share this bit of delightful news:

Dear Scott,

The out of stock situation for ReBorn was a temporary supply chain issue. We will be shipping ReBorn to our suppliers starting Friday of this week, so it should become available again as soon as next week.

Sales Support Two Little Fishies

I have yet to see any at retail .....