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Alternate uses for fluidized media reactors


Ira

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I was thinking, since I'm not using my two FR-304s right now for phosphate remover or carbon. What other things could they be used for?

1. Fill it with kalk and put a trickle(Very small trickle) of water through it from my return pump and make it sort of a kalk stirrer.

2. Itty bitty teeny refugium.

Any other thoughts?

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calcium reactors work better under pressure i believe

Maybe true, but most of them aren't or if they are very very low pressure. Mine is feed by syphon from the display tank via one of those thin air hoses (Pies has a similar setup, but far classier reactor ;-) ) so this is the only pressure ours are under. The seals in mine wouldn't hold any more pressure than this anyway.

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I have mine fed off a tee from the return line. I think there's a bit of pressure since I tried to make a second chamber to eat up any excess C02 out of various plastic containers with screw tops and it kept blowing the tops off. :o

I'm also using the next size up Eheim pump on it for circulation since I ordered it from overseas without the pump and it's the only small Eheim that I had lying around. Don't know if that causes any more internal pressure or not though.

The guys at Korallin said that it would actually work better with the bigger circulating pump.

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of course it will, the pump lph and size of its outlet is greater than the effluent outlet lph and size. how about you send an email to the manufacturers and argue that with them...

All Korallin reactors now come with the more powerful Eheim 1048 (nearly 2x the output) with compatible connection set. This increase in pump output enables a higher internal pressure to enhance overall dissolution & performance

http://www.marinedepot.com/cr_korallin.htm

http://www.korallin.de/limeng.htm

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Think about it, how can it? It's a closed loop, the more pressure at the output the more at the input, same as a closed loop in your tank, is your tank water under pressure????? It will make the water move through the media faster but it is the same water going round and round, the faster it comes out of the pump the faster it sucks in.

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Think about it, how can it? It's a closed loop, the more pressure at the output the more at the input, same as a closed loop in your tank, is your tank water under pressure????? It will make the water move through the media faster but it is the same water going round and round, the faster it comes out of the pump the faster it sucks in.

I would have thought the reason the tank water is not under pressure is the huge area at the top of the water column that has nothing holding it in to "be" under pressure. A calcium reactor is somewhat different in that it does not have that to provide a release of pressure. Am i missing something?

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Think about it, how can it? It's a closed loop, the more pressure at the output the more at the input, same as a closed loop in your tank, is your tank water under pressure????? It will make the water move through the media faster but it is the same water going round and round, the faster it comes out of the pump the faster it sucks in.

a calcium reactor 'drips' at about 1 per second, whereas the water into the reactor is not restricted. the pump "sucks" the water into the reactor faster than it drips out creating more pressure. simple.

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But, you said you don't have a pump forcefeeding the reactor. Just the overflow, right? Then the only pressure you'd have is the head pressure from the tank. Given the height of yours that would be a couple PSI. That's the only pressurization in the calcium reactor. A pump circulating the water inside the reactor isn't going to make any difference.

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Thanks IRA.

The thing to remember is that you can't compress a liquid, you can't streach water or force more into a fixed size container, therefore the amount of water pressure on both sides of the pump have to be the same, you cant thin it out on one side and compress it on the other, it has to suck as hard as it blows. So in a closed loop reactor the faster you push the water in the faster it will be sucked out. If you restrict the water flow into the pump inlet you dont create any pressure because all your doing is slowing the water flow into the pump, therefore the flow out of the pump will be slower.

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But, you said you don't have a pump forcefeeding the reactor. Just the overflow, right?

no. the circulation pump ontop of the unit draws water into the reactor. doesnt need to be gravity fed (although certainly helps)

The thing to remember is that you can't compress a liquid, you can't streach water or force more into a fixed size container

who said anything about compressing a liquid? compressing liquid is different than placing it under pressure. just like if i were to put your arm in a vice and twist it, your bones might not break straight away but they will be under pressure :D

If you restrict the water flow into the pump inlet you dont create any pressure because all your doing is slowing the water flow into the pump

as i originally said, water is not being restricted in, its being restricted out. there is a greater force being exerted from water being sucked in by the pump quicker than the water can be pushed out creating pressure within the reactor. as you state, you cant compress a liquid so there will be back pressure on the pump - however it will still be creating pressure (albeit small) within the reactor. it could be that the design of the korallin is different than others?

heres a guide for you to how calcium reactors work:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002- ... /index.php

and just as a side note, you can compress liquid:

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae15.cfm

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water is not being restricted in, its being restricted out

lol, it's a LOOP a restriction just slows the flow down it doesnt make any difference were it is the pressure HAS to be equal on both sides because its a closed loop. ok try looking a it this way, do you agree that to have managed to created a high pressure on one side of the pump you would have ended up with low pressure on the other? So what is that low pressure side going to be doing? Its going to be trying really really hard to get back to normal pressure, there are only two ways it can do this, it will suck back on the pump making the pump work harder and pump less, therefore dropping the pressure on the other side. and it will suck harder on the restriction again lowering the pressure on the other side, this all happens in an instant.

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its not JUST a loop! it circulates water within the pump AND pulls water from an external source. if it were a closed loop it would ONLY circulate the same volume of water around and around within the chamber and therefore yes, it would HAVE to be the same pressure on both sides of the pump, basic physics. in this scenario its not JUST a loop, there is an external source where water flows in and out. go have another look at pies reactor.

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read first paragraph in bold here...

http://www.marinedepot.com/cr_korallin.htm

heres another analogy. blow through a straw, there would be no or little pressure. now squeeze the end - it gets harder to blow, an obvious build up of pressure. if it were a closed loop (the end of the straw was wrapped into the back of my head :D ) then of course, there would be no pressure.

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