Clogging output from calcium reactor

[outhouse]

Its all flow and bubbles, and most of us who have tuned these things over a decade do it by feel.

And your not alone, we all learned to set flow like that the hard way, less those wanting to be more precise buying a pump. What you will do is adjust your bubbles not by ph but by how much your tanks needs are.

Check it in 3 days and if alk is on the high side just cut bubble count lower until you hit your sweet spot

 

[lost66]

Its all flow and bubbles, and most of us who have tuned these things over a decade do it by feel.

And your not alone, we all learned to set flow like that the hard way, less those wanting to be more precise buying a pump. What you will do is adjust your bubbles not by ph but by how much your tanks needs are.

Check it in 3 days and if alk is on the high side just cut bubble count lower until you hit your sweet spot

Should I just increase the flow without touching anything and just test? And then if alk is raising limit the amount of bubbles? Without changing PH in the reactor?

 

[outhouse]

Should I just increase the flow without touching anything and just test?

You need to increase to a point it does not clog, you could test after 3 days sure. Yes use bubbles to get desired alk levels, and dont worry about PH provided you dont melt your media. I have mine set so it shuts off if PH gets to low anyway.

 

[HuduVudu]

What do you use to restrict the flow from calcium reactor? I use something like this and after few days it is clogging. I have to manually open it to flush the build up and close. Annoying because I have to check drops each few days. If I forgot I have alk swing.

So, I am having the same sort of struggle. My tank is small and I didn't want to switch to a CaRx because of this very issue. Finally my coral demand is such that I need to take the plunge to get a reactor. My usage for the reactor is very low and the drip rate and bubble rate are REALLY low.

I am going to put a caveat right now, I have just started messing with this but I am starting to get something stable.

I am using a Koralline reactor and I am not using a dosing pump. I don't have a sump so I am pulling with the Ehiem. So here is what I did. First I put a pre-filter on the input. This is just a RO cartridge with a 5 micron filter in it. This slows the flow down quite a bit. It also has the advantage of filter the incoming water. I saw some algae when I first put it on so I think that for me the algae was blocking the needle valve. After the filter I have the Hayward PVC needle valve:

Hayward Needle Valve

Hayward Needle Valves are used when extremely accurate and reliable fluid metering is a must. This needle valve is one of our preferred methods of flow control for calcium reactor effluent, where getting the flow dialed in to the mL/min is required for system stability. This needle valve ensure...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

Then the it goes into the reactor. I slow this down to a medium drip and then on the output I have a small needle valve.

Slowing this whole thing down has allowed me to get the drip rate down to 20 drops/minute and because of the slowed flow I have been able to adjust my CO2 to one bubble per minute.

I just started this but I thought it might be helpful. The big thing was to use the RO pre-filter and those are really cheap:

Reverse Osmosis and Reactor Canisters

We carry a wide variety of reverse osmosis canisters, and depending on your system or reactor we most likely have the canister to fit your needs. The most common RODI systems along with the BRS systems use the 10" Canister with 1/4" ports*. The standard and dual BRS Reactors use the same 10"...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

 

[lost66]

$75 for a valve which will still clog? heck no... It is 50% of the price of a pump.

 

[HuduVudu]

$75 for a valve which will still clog? heck no... It is 50% of the price of a pump.

You don't need to use that valve, you can use the one that you have.

Honestly not quite sure what to make of your response. Seems pretty aggressive.

 

[lost66]

Yesterday I opened the valve to pass the dripping point, reduced the bubbles so it is like 1 per each 2-3 seconds and raised PH setpoint by .1 so reactor operates at 6.6-7.1. I know I should wait like a week to see if it is working but after 12 hours I noticed drop in hp in my DT by like 0.3, ph in the reactor is changing from 7.2 to 7.5 and alk raised by .3 in only 12 ours.

I think this is bad idea for my tank. I feel like I have a bomb waiting to nuke everything in my tank in a single day.
I pulled the trigger and ordered Kamoer stepper pump. Too bad BRS doesn't have free t-shirt or any other cool bonus to order above $150 right now. Well, I hope they will put some extra into my box

Thanks everyone for your input.

Seems pretty aggressive

I am sorry, I didn't want to offend you.