Neat observation about my new system and reactor
 

Just a tidbit for you all to ponder.

So on my old 90g with 75g sump aprox 140g total watervolume I ran my very large reactor. The setting's were aprox 45ml/min of water output and about 80 bpm of Co2. These setting's kept up with the demands of the tank and I did not add anything as far as additives go to the tank.

The new system (as most of you know) is a 230g tank, 100g sump and 75g refugium. Now when I swapped over the corals and equip and such I just plugged the reactor in and used the same settting's it was set to as the coral load has not increased just water volume. When I tested my alk and Calcium they dropped substantially over a few day's. the alk was dropping 1.0meq/l a day with the old reactor setting's :eek:

I am still adjusting the reactor but I now have it set to about 75ml/min of output water and about 160 bpm of co2.

I think it's very intresting results considering that the coral load has remained the same. My coraline is actually growing now that I am using a diffrent lighting setup than just Iwasaki's. In the other tank I just had coraline on the bottom of rock's so it was not outstanding like it seem's to be in the new tank.

Anyway, my reactor uses a 26" tall by 6" reactor tube and easily hold's 2 container's of ARM, so 16 lbs of media. In the past 3.5 month's it's dissolved aprox 5 inches of media in the chamber.

Cheers

coralline can consume alot of Ca/Alk. perhaps that is where it is going.

That's kinda what I am figuring. It's only been two week's or so and I can allready see coraline growth on my DIY rock.

Jon, if you used any new sand, some Ca will adsorb to the grains.

Really! I never new that. The whole sandbed in the 230 is new.
How come this happens?

Coraline and sand notwithstanding (which I assume is a big part of course) I would still have expected you to need to dial up your reactor, without an increased coral load, because the ratio of reactor turnover to tank volume has decreased significantly. This may be a bit of an oversimplification, but think of it this way: If it takes a given density of calcium and carbonate ions in the water column, simply increasing the volume equates into "needing more ions" to maintain the same density. No?

Yea that makes sense as well Tony.

Hmm it's all comming together now

What surprises me is how much water turnover both you & I need (well, how much you "needed" and how much I "still need" because only one of us upgraded their tanks.. :redface: ) in the first place. I thought a larger reactor would need less water turnover and less CO2. I wonder if there's an optimal balance of "amount of media" to "amount of tank/coral load" and if it's too much one way or the other then you end up with settings that don't seem to match other designs?? On that note I actually have a question about reactors and media but I'm going to put that in another thread so as not to hijack this one.. :biggrin:

Thats an extremely high co2 bubble rate. I,m slowly cranking my large reactor up. So far up to about 60bbm and an effluent rate of almost a steady stream, as compared to a distinct drip. {maybe I will measure the amount}.

All evaporated water is kalk replaced. Most of my sps are smaller, growing frags, but my walls and rock are heavily coralline encrusted. My reactor keeps my alk at around 13dkh, but still bringing the calcium up. Currently around 360ppm.

What bubble counter are you using Doug?

It's amusing to see the discrepancy's between some peoples reactor's and the bubble counter they are using. For example in DJ's case with his new reactor design. He is touting 8 bubbles per minute but that's on his DIY bubble counter which has a much larger output size than say SWC's bubble counter (which is the one I am using).

I do agree though, I am using a very high bpm rate. My outflow looks like a steady stream as well.

If you have time measure your's and see what you get.

Thanks