calcium reactor help

[kelloggreef]

I was wondering how you determine if your calcium reactor is dialed in right.The past few weeks our tank has had high alkalinity. So bad our whole colony of palm palm zenia melted away along with some acans.I think the cause was my fault by adding to much ph during a water change a couple weeks back.Since then Ive done three water changes and the alkalinity is staying at 14. Could my calcium reactor be doing this? My Ca is 420 and is 6.8 ph coming out of the reactor at about one drip every couple of seconds.The tank ph is 8.3. Any suggestions? Thanks,
Jason

 

[william1]

I think if you speed up the enffluent drip by a couple drops per second this should reduce the media from being disolved to fast. Is your PH probe inserted into the top of the reactor?

Or are you using a "drip cup" persay? I use a drip cup where the enffluent drip cup has the probe in it. Thus meaning my enffluent in the cup is different from the reactor. Becuase of the slow drip theres a delay in PH reading from the cup to the reactor.


So I have to set my PH meter at about 7.0 giving me a little room for the difference between the two. I dont check Calcium readings as often as Alk becuase they IM LAZY. I think Alk is more important to test for when using a reactor not saying dont test both.

This is my 2 cents.

 

[william1]

Your using a bubble counter? How many bubbles per second. I started using the instructions from melevs reef.

 

[kelloggreef]

Thanks for the info.Wow, this can get confusing.I only have a ph probe from my RK2 in my sump. I just fill a little water from the out put drip into a cup to test the ph from the reactor.I didn't know you had to have a probe.

 

[william1]

You need to have a PH meter with probe. This tell the CO2 tank when to turn off when optimal PH range is reached in the reactor.