So it's 2010 now. Who still uses a calcium reactor and who's all on 2-part dosing?

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by lastlight

The regulator reliability was the big reason I've never liked reactors. Which do you use? I know the aquariumplants.com is supposed to be one of the better hobby ones but I'm guessing yours is not hobby marketed.

mine is a full sized one from a welding setup for shielding gas. it is rated in CuFt/min so it is an actualy flow meter not a pressure regulator.

sounds like a small differance but depending on your set up a pressure regulator (which is what is used on most CO2 reactors) will let in more or less CO2 as long as the pressure is the same, causing your bubble count to change. all it take to change this is a little change in the internal pressure of the reactor or even water evaporating out of the bubbler.

with mine it couldn't care what the pressure is as it will always let the same volume/time into the reactor so I get no changes. you can get a cheep flow meter for about 100 bucks but the deicent ones start at 200 and up.

I also made both chambers in my reactor upflow which got rid of the problems Tony was mentioning.

Steve

[PFoster]

Delphinus, yeah i did actually choose both when i voted on the poll but it doesnt show it in the results thats all.

Also have you tried adding the different trace elements?
I have seen a difference in both growth rates and color from my tank to a friends tank that uses everything the same, save the trace elements. Yeah, yeah I know its a different system so that on its own will cause growth and color differences but still.

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by gobytron

How can you improve on something that already works perfectly...

Denial is a nice place to visit.

I go there frequently too....

Mitch

[lastlight]

Oooohhh...we're gonna have some A.R.M.-wrestlin' going on here soon.

Saweeet.

[gobytron]

Originally Posted by MitchM

Denial is a nice place to visit.

I go there frequently too....

Mitch

Obviously.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I also made both chambers in my reactor upflow which got rid of the problems Tony was mentioning.

You know, I tried that too on a couple different units I had. I can't remember what the issue was but it wasn't a complete slam dunk either. Upflow does make more sense, for one you can do away with the CO2 recirc line. I wonder if it was I was losing too much CO2 into the tank and I was noticing a depressed pH. Might have been something else. I can't actually remember now.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Oooohhh...we're gonna have some A.R.M.-wrestlin' going on here soon.

Saweeet.

Good one! Very Witty!

[Myka]

In the end I think it all comes down to money when the "set and forget" feature is added.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

well I account the consistancy of the bubbles to a few things, the first being a large CO2 tank. smaller ones run out faster and you pressure starts to drop a while befor you run out so you end up getting more variation. a larger tank that stays at pretty much its full volume and will give you 1.5 to 2 years worth will be a lot more constant.

the second thing which may have more of an impact than the bottle is the regulator you are using. most of the ones being used in this hobby are true garbage. the cheepest offshore thing they could find as a good regulator would cost more than the reactor. for example a new version of my regulator would be about 350 to 450.00 retail.

as for keeping up with demand in the tank, pure size matters, most places were touting reactors that held 1 jug of media for tanks up to 200 or even 300 gal tanks, with a add on stage up to 4 or 500 gal. they had small pumps, most had no recirc for trapped gas, ect.. the one I designed was big, 4 jugs of media when full, 500 gph recirc with in the unit, gas bubble evacuation, plus a built in water reserve. I used a combanation of high flow and acidic water to desolve minerals. it was big, had a 12 X 20 foot print for the box with two 6" wide towers on the top that were about 12" tall so overall high was about 18".

Steve

Hmmm, very interesting. Thanks for elaborating. The cost of this thing would be rather substantial though I would be thinking (much more than a basic reactor or dosing system), and take up a lot of real estate. The "set and forget" feature is pretty sweet though. How often were you testing parameters? What variance did you find in that time?

Originally Posted by marie

Unless you are using some 2 part I know nothing about then I assume you have the same fiddling.

Oh you bet! I fiddle with my dosers at least as much as I fiddled with my reactors in the past. I think this dilemma in both methods would be significantly reduced provided a controller is used. I have never run a controller. I prefer fiddling with the dosers than the Ca reactor simply because each parameter can be fiddled with separately. I always found alkalinity to drop quicker than calcium when using a reactor - I was always dosing alkalinity separately.

[Delphinus]

I remember why the upflow mods failed for me - it was too hard on the pumps as it must have been just a little too restrictive on the intake side. They would get super hot, one got so hot the casing of the pump melted (warped and started leaking water all over).

I guess definitely something you want the reactor to be designed for rather than arbitrarily switching the input/output lines on the pump.

Originally Posted by Delphinus

You know, I tried that too on a couple different units I had. I can't remember what the issue was but it wasn't a complete slam dunk either. Upflow does make more sense, for one you can do away with the CO2 recirc line. I wonder if it was I was losing too much CO2 into the tank and I was noticing a depressed pH. Might have been something else. I can't actually remember now.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I remember why the upflow mods failed for me - it was too hard on the pumps as it must have been just a little too restrictive on the intake side. They would get super hot, one got so hot the casing of the pump melted (warped and started leaking water all over).

I guess definitely something you want the reactor to be designed for rather than arbitrarily switching the input/output lines on the pump.

, um dude, you had something else going on there, what kind of pumps?

Steve