Confused about effluent readings

you must know your magnesium levels before trying to fix either you alk or ca.

a " good" magnesium level is between 1350 and 1500 (ppm I think). when you have good mg. levels you wont have a seasaw effect with your alk/ca. If the Mg is low then when your alk increases your ca will decrease, when your ca increases your alk will decrease.

 when first setting up your reactor it is best to start with a low co2 bubble rate to raise alk slowly, and test your tank water daily. to raise your alk/ca increase the bubble and effluent drip proportionally. Mine is 1 co2 bubble to 3 effluent drips.

Now that can be 1 bubble and 3 drips a min, 2 bubble and 6 drips a min, 3 bubble 9 drips a min, and so on. I think that 20bubble /60 drips is a good place to start

the amount depends on your tank and its inhabitants.

there may be times that you will need to add a calcium buffer or a alk buffer. but only if you know your mg level. 

It is not a set it and forget it situation, tests will need to be run daily until the desired levels are reached and maintained. Then weekly and after water changes.

Ps test your tank water, testing your effulent may drive you crazy,

Unless someone here knows a good easy way to dial in useing effulent

aragonite is fine IMO.

how long has the reactor been online?

what is the alk/ca in the tank?

sounds like you are on the right path

just keep testing.

As a side question I was thinking about running my top off water through this first instead of salt water from my sump.
Would this affect how I would run it?
That way I could get rid of a pump.

Thinking about it this might not be a good idea because I couldn't control the flow rate into the tank.

Thoughts?

I have a small pump pumping the sump water into the reactor.
The CO2 excess is pulled from the top and sucked back thru the system.

From the 2 days of running, no differences have been observed.

Kh up off the scale
CA 180

This isn't right.  Your calcium number is bad.  Your calcium value in the effluent has to be higher then in your tank.

The Kh is high because the of CO2, right?
Why is the CA so low? Because of the high Kh?

No, CO2 does not measure as alkalinity.  The alk is high because the media is dissolving and when it dissolves it releases both calcium and alkalinity.  The effluent of my reactor is normally 12 meq/l (34 dKH) and 600 ppm calcium.

I'd recheck your calcium number.

That is what I had thought. The numbers just didn't make sense.
However, I had checked them twice and they came out the same. (for the effluent)

Thinking about it, I think I may have part of the answer, I just realized that my top off pours right next to the pickup pump for the reactor.
So that area is mostly fresh water.
I will move my pump tonight and see what it does.

Thanks for the insight

wait:

what are your tank params again?

and what are the readings from your effulent?

what kind of test kits are you useing?

help me fit my head around this.

For the alk test I only use 1 ml of effluent water.  One drop of indicator.  And titrate to color change.  Read the alk value off the chart and multiply by 4.  This saves on titrate (the kit will last longer).  And I only use 1 ml for the calcium test and multiply the answer by two... I think the instructions for the calcium kit actually explain this.

Oh, and make sure you titrate the calcium kit past the purple color to blue.

Edited by jfinch

on sailfert alk its actually 2ml of water 1 drop oh kh-ind for the low resolution then multiply the value by 2

yup, and 1 ml of water is "ultra low res" .  Just remember to multiply by 4 rather then 2.

so are you suppose to test effulent differently?

Testing the effluent of the reactor gives you an idea of how well it's working.  You test it the same way you'd test your tank water.  I hardly ever test my effluent calcium because I know it will track with my alk... it has to.