Calcium Reactor Question

I am not familuar with the exact workings of a calcium reactor so if this is a silly question please bare with me.

I have a spare Phosphate Reactor and I was wondering if it would be possible to use this with Calcium Media instead of the phosphate media and use this as a calcium reactor...

The idea is to just force the passing of water through the media right? Or is there some sort of process that I am missing

 

no, acalcium reactor uses co2 to break the media down. without co2, it would be useless

 

Well, the big thing that differentiates a calcium reactor from a media reactor, it that carbon dioxide needs to be injected into the chamber to "melt" the media.
So you would need a CO2 tank, CO2 regulator, and a bubble counter at bare minimum. I strongly suggest not running a calcium reactor without a ph controller to open the regulators solenoid.
Also, calcium reactors have recirculation pumps on them.

So, it's quite a bit more complicated than simply trying to add calcium reactor media toa fluidized bed reactor.

Now you could buy make a nielson or kalkwasser reactor to add kalkwasser (which will add calcium) to your tank. Those don't need all the CO2 related equipment like a calcium reactor does. Please note that a kalkwasser reactor and a calcium reactor don't quite do the same thing.

 

OK Thanks guys!!!!! Learn a little more every day

 

To explain it a little further, CO2 lowers the pH of the water in the reactor to somewhere around 6.0 to 6.8 depending on the calcium reactor and media used, which causes the calcium media to dissolve and put the calcium back into suspension.
As horkn said it then recirculates the water in the chamber so the media dissolves and you then drip the effluent or calcium rich water into your reef system. A pH controller then starts and stops the flow of CO2 to keep the pH in the reactor at the optimum level tslowly dissolve media but not so much it turns to mush.