Reactor Feed Pump

[EmilyB]

So what does everyone use to feed your reactor. We were using a mini-jet for almost two years, but it seems to have crapped out.

[Ruth]

I use a quiet one 100 to feed my phosban reactor, a maxi jet 400 to feed 1 calcium reactor, and gravity to feed the other.

[Doug]

I always used the little pumps that came in the salt buckets. Still have a couple of them. One fed kalk from a pail to an electronic float switch for years & still werks well.

I found them to push just enough to feed a reactor. When I used a larger Hagen 301, I had a bleed outlet on it.

[BMW Rider]

My CA reactor is fed off a line tapped into the return pump. I have a Phosban reactor to setup, and plan to do the same thing for it. Less stuff to keep running that way. Just use a ball valve to control the flow rate.

[Delphinus]

My CA reactor is fed off a line tapped into the return pump. I have a Phosban reactor to setup, and plan to do the same thing for it. Less stuff to keep running that way. Just use a ball valve to control the flow rate.
Just be sure to put the ball valve before the reactor and not after when doing it this way. I found out the hard way you can pressure up a reactor really nicely (and maybe pop a seam or two) if you try to control the flow on the effluent side as opposed to the input side. I didn't think the head pressure of the sump return was as bad as all that but apparently it was.

Nowadays I just use minijets to feed my reactors and a needle valve on the effluent. The minijets don't put out so much pressure to worry me, they're inexpensive (and who doesn't have a half dozen of them lying around anyhow, finally a way to use them up!!).

I thought about a peristaltic pump for a reactor feed maybe, but it looks like you can't really control the speed of those (they're either on or off) -- at least the one I tried didn't have variable flowrate control.

If you really wanted to get funky, how about a dosing pump? Hey, didn't you buy Chad's dosing pump there Deb?

[Jason McK]

I just use gravity. Never had a pump on the reactor. Hummm, now you got me thinking

J