Colorado Reefs
here fishy fishy ::…
H&S 90 Calcium Reactor first thoughts.
Thanks to an AWESOME Friend, I made a trade, and we both got what we needed 
. That said, this post will be about the H&S 90 Calcium Reactor I just received. The H&S 90 Calcium reactor is rated for a 100 Gallon tank, which should fit my tank quite well at a combined size of 95 Gallons. The system consists of a 4′ long 75 Gallon Acryllic tank, and a 14 Gallon Biocube, modded to allow for inlets and returns from the shared sump. The Calcium and Alkalinity requirements are quite low currently, so we’ll get to see how this reactor does with the growth of the tank, having started out from a small load. Since this was a freebie(in relative terms) to me, I had to supply a few parts of my own, that were missing or not included with the original reactor. There are a few accessories that help quite a bit in running and maintaining a calcium reactor:
H&S 90 Calcium Reator (90CRX-01)dfds
The reactor feels solid, and is built well. It came very well recomended, and the ease of use is very pleasing. If anything it’s more accomodating to a beginning user, as there are few things that can go wrong. The reactor features a built in bubble counter, which as can be seen in the picture to the left is mounted higher up on the side, making it easily viewable.
Effluent is fed off of the top of the reactor, and the provided valve is makes for easy control of the drip rate. The only minor gripe I had was that there is no re-circulation of co2 built in, but in this configuration, would be hard to do.
The reactor also features a built in pH probe inlet, which, when not in use, seals well. I’ve opted to run a Milwaukee SMS122, and the probe installation was very simple, and made setting up the reactor a breeze.
The Reactor has a twist lock top which is very sturdy, and makes mainenance and resupply of ARM on the reactor very simple. The base is also very sturdy, consisting of an upside down T, which the pump of the Aquabee 500 pump mounts to. Once set up and running, the system seems quite quiet and matches the hum of the rest of the pumps in my tank’s cabinet.
The only reactor I had before this was very hard to work with, and did not have the probe slot, which I think, besides the sturdy build to be it’s best point.
Tags: 90, Ac Voltage, alkalinity, Amp, calcium, calcium reactor, Calcium Reactors, Circulation, Co2, Co2 Reactor, Dfds, Drip Rate, Effluent, First Thoughts, Freebie, Gallon Tank, HS, inlet, Inlets, Milwaukee, Modded, pH, pH controller, Ph Probe, probe, reactor, Relative Terms, Seals, Shut Down, solenoid, Twist Lock
BioCube 14 Plumbed into 75G Show tank
Recently I got tired of topping off water on the only reef system in my house that didn’t have an auto top off system set up. That would be the nice little BioCube 14, which has remained mainly stock, with the exception of upgrading flow, and creating a fuge in the 2nd rear chamber. My requirements for the plumbing of the tank, were mainly to share the great water qualities of the 75G, as well as benefit from the 75G’s auto top off, reduceing my weekly workload even further.
To the right is a nice little google sketchup drawing showing the estimated heights of where I wanted the bulkheads to be added. Originally I planned on 1/2″ bulkheads, and during the build out, upgraded them to 3/4″ bulkeads. As you can see in the picture, the bulkhead in the second chamber is lower than the bulkhead in the third. I set the one in the third higher, incase the flow was too strong, and needed directing, as well as to mitigate any issue of backflow if either of the pumps were shutoff. what also is not pictured is that the bulkhead in the third chamber, is positions way left of center, due to the outlet into the display of the tank, I wanted to keep from having any restrictions of flow, etc.
Unfortunately this is the only picture I have, as I did this mod on the fly, with about 1/4 of the water still in the tank’s display. To keep glass dust from getting into the back chambers, I cut pads, and wrapped them with filter floss to give a nice tight fit in the back chambers while I dremeled. When working with this glass, it’s imperative that you go very slowly, and keep vibrations and heat down to a minimum. Cutting the holes for the bulkheads to size took about 1 1/2 hours total. Better to be safe than sorry. After the bulkheads were cut and everything fit, I bolted the bulkheads down, inlets on the inside.
Fitting the bulkheads after that was simply a matter of figuring out how flow would be entering and exiting. I decided on 1/4″ water tubing for the water into the BioCube via the third chamber bulkhead, and 3/8″ water tubing for the water return to the sump of my 75G. My decision on this was solely based on the fact that I already had 1/4″ tubing run for the calcium reactor, and it was quite simple to throw a T in place and a ball valve after.
My 75G has a Blueline Aqua 20 as the return pump, which feeds to the tank, the calcium reactor, and now the 14G Biocube. At the current rates, this rotates out the water volume 320 times every 24 hours, as well as always keeping the level correct in the 14G as well, and saving me time running up and down the stairs with a gallon bucket every day(Colorado is a very dry climate). The drain from the Biocube returns back to the Refugium, so corals, water quality and all benefit immeditately from skimmer, calc reactor, etc.
Tags: Auto Top, Backflow, Biocube, BioCube Mods, Bulkhead, Bulkheads, Chambers, Floss, Fuge, Google, Google Sketchup, Holes, Inlets, Plumbing, Pumps, Reef System, show tank, Tight Fit, Vibrations, Water Qualities, Water Tubing, Workload
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