Some random coral pics

[christyf5]

Gorgeous corals Marie!

[muck]

Excellent growth as well! (judging by the cap shots)

Are you running a calcium reactor or dosing with anything Marie?
Curious to hear more about your setup..

[marie]

Originally Posted by muck

Excellent growth as well! (judging by the cap shots)

Are you running a calcium reactor or dosing with anything Marie?
Curious to hear more about your setup..

Trying to keep up with the calcium demand is the bane of my existence . I have a calcium reactor, kalk drip and I dose every 3 days with a 2 part.

I wish they would rate aquarium equipment accurately. The reactor is supposed to be good for a 200g system unless it is heavily stocked and I didn't think my tank was even close to being heavily stocked yet

[mark]

Love growth sequence pictures.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by marie

I wish they would rate aquarium equipment accurately. The reactor is supposed to be good for a 200g system unless it is heavily stocked and I didn't think my tank was even close to being heavily stocked yet

I sorta agree with you for the most part, but I tend to believe a reactor is something that is adjustable to the situation. If it's not keeping up the levels, that to me is more a sign of it not being dialed-in. Ie. it's a function of how it's set, not it's size or rating. I've run many different reactors and the one key thing I can take away from the experience is that the major difference between a large reactor and a small reactor is how much media you have to buy in order to fill them up (and how much CO2 they consume to get the pH down in the reaction chambers). So if it's not keeping up the levels, it needs to have its flowrate increased and the CO2 adjusted to maintain a pH of 6.7 (or whatever your setpoint is) at the new flowrate.

A smaller reactor will simply run out of media sooner. If you find you're replacing media too often then a larger reactor might suit your needs, but a larger reactor won't service your tank any better than a smaller one would.

I found with my systems I would have to replace my media about once a year anyhow, because after a while it just gets kinda mushy. My largest reactor takes 4 containers of ARM to fill, whereas my smallest takes about 1/3 of a container. So roughly $120 versus $10 from empty to full. But both can be dialed in to my tank. Oh I also found I needed about 160 bubbles per minute on my larger reactor versus about 80 bpm on the smaller reactor, *at the same flowrate*. So all the larger one was doing for me was costing me more. I don't run that one anymore and I just generally use it to scavenge parts when I'm DIY'ing something else now.

[marie]

Tony, I have my reactor dripping 70ml/min of effluent at 60bpm, If I push it anymore then that the dkh on the effluent starts to drop. I'm also getting a build up of co2 at the top of the reactor do you think I need a bigger mixing pump?

[Delphinus]

I'm not sure I follow?

To me, the alkalinity of the effluent is directly proportional to the pH you're running your reactor at. If the alkalinity is too low then the pH is too high, so increase the CO2 to decrease the pH and thus increase the alkalinity.

So if you're running 70 ml/min and 60bpm, and your effluent pH is (say) 6.7, and the levels are not being maintained, I'd increase to 100ml/min and increase the bubble rate to whatever it is needed to make the effluent stay at 6.7. Retest after a week or so and see where it goes. Maybe at the higher flowrate you need to make your pH setpoint lower like 6.6 (I don't think you need to though, I think 6.7 is an ideal target and the alkalinity should be the same no matter what the flowrate is, so long as the pH is still the same).

As for the bubble of CO2 at the top .. Do you not have a recirculation line on your reactor? If not you should see about getting one put in. It's just a 1/4" line from the top of the chamber to the pump intake (usually just T-d into the CO2 input line). It gives the CO2 that builds up at the top, a place to go (gets re-used basically). If you do have a recirc line, see if it's blocked or see if you need to shim the reactor so that the recirc line is at the high point (gas wants to go up, so make the gas go towards the recirc input).

[danny zubot]

Nice pieces Marie. My Purple cap used to look like yours until I moved. Its still a bit brown but recovering.