Looking for serious CA reactor advice

[ickmagnet]

So I did the pump mod on my calcium reactor (changed from aquabee to eheim 1260) and thought that I had the hard part out of the way. There were no leaks in the plumbing and I was rather proud of myself. That was until I hooked everything up and realized that the battle had just begun.

I have absolutely no idea how to adjust the parameters of this thing. I've been searching online for tips on how to make sure everything is fine but they all insist I use a bubble counter and adjust to approx. 1 bubble/sec at first. I am currently not using a bubble counter.Do I need a bubble counter if I have a pH controller? The reactor has a bubble counter and in addition, the regulator itself appears to have a bubble counter on it similair to the setup on this link:

http://www.blueworldaquariums.com/pr...hp?prod=059322

I would prefer to use the one on the regulator. Am I supposed to fill this with water (1/2 way)? I don't want anything crazy to happen. If I put water into it, would it not seep into the cylinder when the C02 turns off? Ideally, I would rather not use a bubble counter at all and just let the pH controller take care of the tuning.

I've set the second gauge on the regulator to about 20 and fooled around with the needle valve to get some gas flowing. I have no idea as to what rate it is. The pH controller is set to 6.5. The effluent is dripping into the sump once every two seconds or so.

Finally, my last question is, how do I know that the proper chemical reaction is taking place? I tried checking the effluent pH to ensure that it is 6.5 but my test kit only measures as low as 7.6. It does appear to be below 7.6. I can't really take my pH probe out of the reactor to measure without causing some serious leakage. I tried testing the alkalinity of the effluent but it never seemed to change color even after adding 30 drops or so. Should I check the Ca level? If so, what should the value be?

I know this is a lot of stuff to answer but any help would be appreciated. I am on the verge of going back to only leathers and fish and smashing this thing to bits.