question about new calcuim reactor

motortrendz · Jan 21, 2018

hey guys, i finally decided to get a calcium reactor for my 100g mixed reef,(hoping to be predominantly sps soon)..
i got the vertex rx-c6d im using a milwakee sms 122 controller, its being fed from my manifold and returns with thw needle valve supplied, im running it with co2 at 2 bubbles per second, and retunr drip is at 1 drip per second and the ph is about 6.8-70 within the chamber...
my alk has been stable at 9.0 and things are looking good on that front.

i also use the 2 little fishes large granual media and zeovit magnezium in the large chamber and a mix of large ans small in the second chamber...

what i have noticed was a spike in po4, normally i have a bout 0.07 without any gfo running, very rarely does it go above 0.10 and thats usually when my ro/di starts to weaken bc i have high phosphates in my city water... after 2 weeks of running the reactor i have tested(3x, 2x with the milwalkee colormeter and once with the hanna) an have gotten 0.44 both times, also noticed nitraes have gone from about 16 to about 30..

is this normal during the breakdown of the media? andwill it stabilize?or do i need to constantly run gfo now?
(i just added 1 cup gfo to a media reactor today and also did a 15g water change..)

135zman · Dec 5, 2019

Hi - did you ever get feedback or figure out if rise in nutrients was linked to breakdown of reactor media? I’m starting one up soon so wanted to be prepared if I should anticipate this happening.

motortrendz · Dec 5, 2019

I honestly have no idea. It leveled out and has been running flawlessly since. My nitrates are about 4 and po4 is about 0.1, I just bought a kamoer fx doser so I'll be switching from the manifold fed and needle valve to the doser soon.
Thw only issue I have had is that the needle valve gets gummed up with precipitate and slows the drip rate down. So I constantly need to flush the valve. Hoping the doser eliminates the need for any of that.