How do YOU control your calcium reactor?
 

Looking for information from people who use calcium reactors.

How do you control your calcium reactor?

1. Manual adjusting of the bubble count and drip rate to get desired calcium and alk levels
2. Ph controller hooked up to display tank
3. Ph controller hooked up to effluent from reactor
4. Other method

Basically I want to setup my calcium reactor and am looking for what people have done and tried and found successfull. I currently do not have a Ph controller but would invest in one if it makes maintenance easier, because I am a big fan of low manual maintenance.

I haven't done this yet... but plan on doing the following with the ReefKeeper 2 controller

1. I have my Kalk reactor turn on when ph goes below 8.2 and turn off once it hits 8.4

2. Have my Calcium reactor go on whe PH is 8.4 and off when it is below 8.2 (when i get one)

This way I can maintain my ph at a steady 8.2 - 8.3... I'll need to get the reactor dialed in manually at first i guess.

Manually, but I hope to someday afford a controller to handle it for me.

And how would you set the controller up? To controll the Ph of effluent or of the display tank?

I do method one...one day it'll be automated...I hope.

Cal reactor setup
 

I used to control it manually, but I cant stand sitting there and counting bubbles all the time. So now I use a pH probe in the effluent and set the controller to 6.5 to 6.7, then adjust effluent flow up or down as necessary. Only took a couple days to tune this way.

Manual control for me.

This is what I have been leading towards. Why do you need a Ph probe and controller though?

Manual.

I use a controller to turn my CO2 solenoid on and off. The cheapest I found for continuous monitoring cost $110. For $10 more, I got the controller.

I have controllers for both of my calcium reactors and still do it manually and just use the controller as a monitor. Jeezz one of these days I am going to have to hook them up. I will monitor the effluent - my gro-tech calcium reactor has a port to insert the PH probe right into the body of the reactor to get a really accurate reading too!

#1 for me, I usaly adjust bubble and flow to get my output Alk about 3X higher than my desired tank Alk, then after that I just adjust the flow through the reactor to fine tune the tank Alk.

Steve

similar method but I shoot for a Ph of 6.7-6.9 then adjust the effluent rate to control the tank ALK

If you want your alk to be about 10 in the display tank, how do you measure effluent with an alk of 30 when the test kit charts only go half that? Do you just keep adding more reagant and continue to follow the same scale?

Use a titration based test kit (i.e., add drops until you get a colour change) instead of one with a colour comparison chart ("is this shade of green more like this yellow-green or more like that green-yellow?"). Seachem and Salifert are both titration based for alk.

Good info everyone, thanks.

If you do go with a PH controller, IMO, the best way to do it is set the controller to the tanks PH , ie: to shut off at 8 PH
Remember the idea of the controller is to protect the tank and it's inhabitants.
That is how I have mine set up anyways

break your test sample into 1/2. so if your unit calls for 4ml of tank water, you put 2ml in and then 2ml of pure RODI water (I use distilled when I do this) I have even gone as far as using 1/4 of the sample. I usaly go for a Alk of 13 so I am looking at 39 as a measurment.

Steve