Air in calcium reactor
 

Anyone ever have an issue with air getting into the reactor somehow?
I have had this reactor for a while and have battled this issue ever since i bought it. Every night or every second night i have to try and get rid of the bubbles and if i let it accumulate, it slows down my effluent drip rate.

I thought i might have been getting micro bubbles from my sump but i even tried putting the pump into a filter sock to prevent any bubbles going through, and i still get the bubbles.

any idea? its a precision marine 622 reactor fed by a maxijet.

Sounds to me like C02 accumulating in the reactor... not a bad thing as that is what lowers Ph to dissolve the media... U may need to slow the gas bubble rate or increase the water flow through the reactor depending on your effluent water pH and the calcium and alkalinity levels in your tank ... My personal experience with running a calcium reactor is I always had to set the drip rate of effluent water a bit higher than I wanted it to end up as it seem to slow down over the next day or two
VR

I thought it was a buildup of co2 at one point as well so I turned off the co2 bottle for a couple days and the bubbles didn't disappear. If anything got worse. My ph is 6.95 and effluent is 100ml per minute.

I'm thinking now one of the fittings must be letting in some air. I'm going to replace the uniseal on the reactor and see if that helps any.

Any micro bubbles getting into your feed pump? That happened to me recently.

I would check all your connections for sure. Are you running it externally?

I put my feed pump in a calm area in the sump and I even put it inside a 200 micron filter sock to guarantee bubbles weren't getting in. I ruled that possibility out already as well.

All the fitting connections look good and all have silicone around them as well or extra protection. The only thing I can think of is the uniseal which I will try to replace today or tomorrow.

What kind of reactor media are you using? Do you have a CO2 recirc line?

I'm fairly certain it's a CO2 buildup. The reactor I use right now doesn't have a recirc line and it's prone to this issue as well (I'm tempted to retro one in at some point "when I have some free time" giggle giggle! ... <sigh> but I digress).

Even reactors I've had with a recirc line were eventually prone to this issue. Especially with the older style finer-grained ARM media it would eventually soften enough that the flow through the media would be too resistive and the CO2 would build up. That was always the cue for me to replace my media and it was one of the reasons I actually stopped using a reactor at all for a few years and went to 2-part dosing. The only thing is I don't really like 2 part dosing, the results of coral growth are just better overall with a reactor, at least for me. So here I am back to CO2 and reactors. :lol: But yeah, the unit I have right now always has a huge bubble at the top. I was sort of hoping that coarser media was less prone to this but I bet in enough time it will happen with it as well (especially without a recirc line).

This i the same reactor i use http://premiumaquatics.com/themes/pa...RFCa4600px.jpg

It does have the recirculating line at the top and brings the water to the pump and pushes it back out at the bottom of the reactor. When the air bubbles go to the top, and then get forced down into the pump, you can hear them.The effluent line sits a little lower on the lid than the recirculating line so that allows the air to keep recirculating in the reactor.

The media i use is A.R.M. extra course and it still pretty new. the rocks haven't shrunk too much and i can also see the little bubbles passing through the rocks.

What I mean by recirc line is a secondary line, usually 1/4", that can bring the gas bubble into the pump intake. The pipe that carries most of the water is likely inset into the lid a little bit thus giving the gas bubble a place to form. The recirc line would have to be flush to the inside of the lid, or even recessed a little so that it's drawing from the absolute highest point in the reaction chamber thus mitigating the size of the bubble buildup.

I'm probably not explaining this well enough. I'll see if I can dig up some photos or diagrams.

I think I know what your trying to explain. The outside of the lid is flat but the inside is actually cone shaped so that the recirculating line is at the absolute highest point, thus not allowing any bubbles to form at the top and pushing them down into the recirculating pump. The effluent line sits at the lowest part of the cone lid.

I have the same problem with my Vertex calcium reactor. It started while I was on vacation, after using the reactor with no problems for over 6 months. Since then I tried everything; burping the gas recirc line, messing with the pump, etc. I even contacted the Vertex people and they didn't have a good explanation or suggestion. So, I'll be watching this thread with great interest....