Vince, You're in luck!
At the request of a number of folks at the last two ARC meetings in Atlanta, I will be going through a complete setup from start to finish for one of Andy's MRC CR-3 reactors, and will show some of the things needed to tweak it to low-CO2 use and high-Ca and alkalinity output so that it will not have such a major impact on the daily pH swing.
I'm planning on setting it up initially on a tank with low Ca and alk use, then moving in a ton of frags (so it will become a high-use Ca/alk system) and show how to maximize the production of the hermatypic substances.
I think a lot of folks don't realize that all Ca++ reactors have to be gradually tweaked up as growth and population density goes up for the
hermatypic corals. Some of the less than obvious things to remember as you get into your second and thrid months of reactor operations are little details like keeping the valve seat for the effluent clear of CaCO3 deposits, cleaning the controller probe, and testing for probe function with the borax test as well as the potential need for the addition of a second column to either boost Ca++ and CO3-- production or to scrub out excess CO2 if necessary. I'll also post some charts to make evaluating reactor output and testing the effluent make more sense. If I get off my butt next week, I might even post a flow chart on tweaking output based on effluent test values and
flow rate tagged to tank values and goals (although I really like the calculators out there on-line)
Hold my feet to the fire, I might even get the two extra tanks set up next month!
The really good thing about this will be that FINALLY I am getting a decent camera, so the photos will be in focus!
Give me a few days this weekend to set up the tank for this and I'll start posting photos and details. Might even get Tony up here to help...
Congrats on getting an awesome reactor!
