My Trouble with 2-Part: What does a Calcium Reactor Fix?

[pickupman66]

I buy the BRS ones. I likely need to get one but everytime I check mine, it is dead on with my pinpoint reactor. what aint broke dont get fixed. as for bubble rate, what I do with mine is I set it to jsut provide is 2-3 bubbles per second. this way if the solenoid does stick, its not wide open. this seems to work well for my setup. now ive been known to open the valve a little bit more and let it rush in, but this drops the PH considerably below what the controller wants it to be at.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

I used to calibrate my lab grade pH tester periodically. In the wet lab at work, pH testers are checked to make sure that they are in calibration before every testing session begins. So they are checked more than once a day for sure. I was not that diligent with my tester at home. I probably checked it once a month. I calibrated my tester when the reading is slightly off from the value of a fresh calibration solution.

When I replaced a probe on the tester, I calibrated the tester-probe. It is correct that you cannot check or calibrate a probe by itself. A good probe will typically stays accurate for more than a year although lab equipment manufacturers recommend you to replace a pH probe every 6 months to a year. The pH values start drifting quite a bit (the number does not stabilize on the display) when a probe is shot. My last one started drifting like that after almost 1-1/2 years of use. I no longer use it at home since I don't really measure pH that much.