Tuning Calcium Addition

[nicfirth]

Hi

After several months of strugling to keep calcium levels above 400 I re-tuned my calcium reactor and started getting an increase. Unfortunatly I left it a month without testing and ended up with a level above 500.

The reactor is fed from a 2lph fixed rate peri pump and I've got a solenoid for the CO2 shut off.

I turned the reactor off on Sunday, just leaving the stirrer doing timed additions over night, and the levels have dropped down to 470.

What I propose doing is leaving the reactor off and testing daily to establish what the average daily drop is, then running the reactor for a few days to establish the daily excess that provides. I should then be able to calculate a rough amount it provides per day and just run it for a timed period daily.

E.g. if the daily drop is 30ppm and it provides 40ppm then I would need to run it for 18 hours per day.

Does this sound sensible or does anyone have a better idea?

Having got the settings such that the reactor is working well I don't really want to change them, and the CO2 rate is somewhat governed by the fixed flow rate I have.

Cheers
Nic

P.s. its a Ratz reactor with ARM

[stm]

Hi
The easier way to do it would be with KH a more accurate method,KH in the tank daily usage KH out of the reactor volume of the tank voila.

Then just stick the solenoid valve on a timer and away you go

regards Jez

[nicfirth]

Thanks for that, not an idea that had occured to me.

I'm using the tropic marin kH test which I don't think will be quite defined enough. ;) Better get a salifert!

Cheers
Nic