Aquatic essential calcium reactor how to?

[shiftline]

Now I spent a chunk of the day redoing the plumbing and replacing parts.

Now does anyone know where to get a PH probe port?

[whatcaneyedo]

In my experience a feed pump is necessary. A reactor can easily lose suction without it and will then no longer work until the situation is corrected. A little pressure also makes it easier to maintain a steady flow rate.

A pH probe port can be purchased from Home Depot or most other hardware stores. The hard part is then finding a large tap to thread a hole for the fitting... https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.f...000124751.html

[whatcaneyedo]

I like to keep the internal pH around 6.6, let your pH monitor or controller determine how much gas is needed to achieve that. How much flow you need through the reactor depends on the calcium carbonate demand of the tank. Start slow (probably just a slow drip), keep testing and adjusting Alkalinity and Calcium, and gradually turn up the flow until the output matches the consumption.

[soapy]

To expand a bit on what he said:

From what I have read you want the PH inside your reactor to sit between 6.5 and 6.7 in order to dissolve your media. Below 6.5 is too fast and turns the media to mush? above 6.7 and you aren't doing much. So you have two ways to control what your ph is, CO2 bubble rate(gas amount) and effluent rate. High gas rate plus high effluent rate equals more alk and calcium. Low gas rate and low effluent rate equals less alk etc. It is about hitting your PH target while finding the demand of your tank. So you adjust either in whatever combination to get where you want to be.

Because I have a low demands at the moment my gas shuts off in the evening for several hours also. On my setup the gas release amount will only go so low, luckily I have an electronic regulator so it can be controlled by a timer.