Building a custom Calcium Reactor - Need Help

[tkmak]

I have kept marine aquariums for many years, just not in the last 15 years. Diving back in, everything has changed.

Doing a lot of research here, and setting up a 50 corner tank, a 20 gal refugium, euro reef skimmer, submers Rio 1700, 10k mtl halide/moonlights/actinics. Pentair mech. filter, chiller, UV, quiet one pump - equipment wise.

Was going to buy a Geo 612 Ca Reactor with Milwaukee controller/solenoid/gauge, but I'm pretty handy with acrylic and was considering making my own.

Question: How does water flow through a Ca Reactor?

I saw this poster on melev's reef, DJ88 who make a upflow dual chamber Ca reactor and he makes his instructions pretty simple.

the main pump basically recircs the water/CO2 through the media to dissolve the media - I got that. Most use some sort of Venturi action to get the CO2 into the system just after the pump outlet - I got that. People place a pH probe in the chamber to measure pH and to automatically turn off the CO2 at the solenoid once ideal pH in the chamber is reached - I got that.

There is a smaller powerhead in your sump to the chamber and the effluent is returned via a small diameter vinyl tube. Is the powerhead always running? or is the powerhead somehow controlled via another pH sensor in your sump to turn the effluent off based upon Tank pH? If so, do you need another pH controller, or are there some that will tell tank pH and Ca Reactor pH???

How does one decide bubble rates of CO2 and sump powerhead flow rates? Based upon chamber size???



HELP!

Thanks!


Todd

BTW: the attached pics are DJ88's.

 

[kgross]

The Co2 bubble rate is partially controlled by the flow rate through the reactor. The flow rate through the reactor is determined by how much Ca and Alk you need for your tank. Chamber size mainly determines what the max flow rate through the reactor can be, so it controls the max amount of Ca you can get out the reactor, ie how large of a demand it can replenish.


Normally the flow through the reactor is setup as a constant, determined by how much Ca demand your tank has, as the Ca demand increases you increase the flow through the reactor. As the flow through the reactor increases you have to increase the CO2 amount to keep the pH the same.

You can have a second pH controller, but what it normally does is turn off the CO2 if the pH in your sump goes to low. It does not control the amount of Ca, just the extra CO2 so you do not drop the pH in the tank to low.

Kim