i was looking into one of these units and they say it needs no co2 and keeps nitrates low. cause the effluent coming out of the sulfur chamber already has low ph it dissolves the calcium media. i am very interested in getting one of these units but i would first like to know if anyone here has had experience with one. how well does this thing really work?
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sulfur/calcium reactor combo anyone?
- Thread starter zoidberg
- Start date
We ran a sulfer denitrator for a while. You need to run the flow through it pretty slowly and as a result ours kept clogging so I finally gave up on it. I suppose that you could do it so that it didn't clog, but I gave up before I got that far.
We used a low end dual chamber Ca reactor and put the sulfer in one chamber and dolomite (magnesium media) in the second chamber. We didn't need to feed it CO2. The sulfer reduces the PH without it.
I'm not so sure that you could run it slowly enough and get enough Ca out the other end for the combo to be worth the aggrivation.
We used a low end dual chamber Ca reactor and put the sulfer in one chamber and dolomite (magnesium media) in the second chamber. We didn't need to feed it CO2. The sulfer reduces the PH without it.
I'm not so sure that you could run it slowly enough and get enough Ca out the other end for the combo to be worth the aggrivation.
We used a low end dual chamber Ca reactor and put the sulfer in one chamber and dolomite (magnesium media) in the second chamber.[/]b
Dolomite
That is a no-no and should not exceed 10 - 15 % or so of the total reactor media. Meaning 90 % Aragonite and 10 % Dolomite. It can raise your Mg++ up to high and raise hell with the Alk, as Dolomite has ~ twice the Alk as Aragonite. Now if was a low % Dolomitic limestone that may be another issue.
CaCO3 ( Aragonite or Calcite) ===> Ca++ + CO3-- ( 1 Alk unit)
Ca, Mg(CO3)2 ( Dolomite) =====> Ca++ + Mg++ + 2 CO3-- ( 2 Alk units)
This also means that for very ppm Ca++ you will add 1 ppm Mg++. And tank have a very low Mg++ demand compared to Ca++. Your plugging up may have been from the Dolomite leaving solution and then precip out of solution and plugging the unit up. Dolomite does not like to be in water at all. And its close sister Mg(CO3) (Magnesite) likes water even less. Both of these require lower pH's to put into solution and will leave solution at lower pH's also
Dolomite
That is a no-no and should not exceed 10 - 15 % or so of the total reactor media. Meaning 90 % Aragonite and 10 % Dolomite. It can raise your Mg++ up to high and raise hell with the Alk, as Dolomite has ~ twice the Alk as Aragonite. Now if was a low % Dolomitic limestone that may be another issue.CaCO3 ( Aragonite or Calcite) ===> Ca++ + CO3-- ( 1 Alk unit)
Ca, Mg(CO3)2 ( Dolomite) =====> Ca++ + Mg++ + 2 CO3-- ( 2 Alk units)
This also means that for very ppm Ca++ you will add 1 ppm Mg++. And tank have a very low Mg++ demand compared to Ca++. Your plugging up may have been from the Dolomite leaving solution and then precip out of solution and plugging the unit up. Dolomite does not like to be in water at all. And its close sister Mg(CO3) (Magnesite) likes water even less. Both of these require lower pH's to put into solution and will leave solution at lower pH's also
Actually it was our infeed line that was getting clogged (aqualifter). The feed was in our frag tank and was clogging with algae. D'oh. We didn't run a lot of flow through it. We actually didn't see any crazy increase in our Mg numbers at the end of the experiment. We tend to dose a lot of Mg anyway in order to keep it up. I've often wondered if LPS ate more Mg than SPS.
I don't run any dolomite in our Ca reactor.
I don't run any dolomite in our Ca reactor.