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Tuning DIY calcium reactor help need.

S

samksy

Hi,

I brought Charlie's DIY 2 chamber calcium reactor which was a NJ group DIY, i believed...... I'm not sure if there's thread on how to tune this DIY calcium reator. If so please point me to the link.

I'm am having problem running the reactor. I'll try restrict effluent rate to one drop per minute. Everything is fine, but after a minute or two. The top part of both chamber start leaking water from the top, where the seal closes. I tried to make it tight but there's still water come out. Do i have to put vaseline on the seal to seal it or any tricks?

thanks,

-Sam
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
You should try vasaline. That may help. The biggest issue is that those fittings are not designed to be under pressure (after all, they are for waste lines, not typically feed lines). We ran this reactor for a bit over a year. We ran it in-sump as we never really did manage to get it completely leak free. There is a very long thread, with some VERY helpful people over on RC in the DIY forum. That's where we got the concept from. GreenEyedBlackCat was one of the really helpful folks on the topic at the time. Let me know if you can't find the thread over there and I'll take some time to search for it.
 
S

samksy

Phyl,

tried with vaseline, didn't work.

I replumbed part of the pvc tubing, and elliminated the feed pump part. It's now working properly and no feed pump needed and no leaking. The feed pump is creating too much pressure within the chamber causing leak on top.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Great! That's wonderful. How are feeding it now? How is your effluent flow?
 
S

samksy

Phyl said:
Great! That's wonderful. How are feeding it now? How is your effluent flow?
Click to expand...

It's kind of hard to description without a picture, I'll get a picture up later today. I have restricted the efflluent flow to like a drip every two second and no leak.

I relocated the water feed line jack closer to the pump where enough suction would allow water to flow into the reactor instead of using a feed pump which caused excessive pressure inside the chamber and cause leaking.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Great solution. Thanks for sharing. Wish I had thought of that!
 
S

samksy

I only changed the circled part in the picture. I left the maxjet feed line as is but closed the valve.

calciumreactor.jpg
 
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