Hang On Calcium Reactor

The guy I was making this unit for, Shane has changed his mind and does not want to mount the unit to the back of his tank. So I guess it can no longer be called a hang on the back unit. If one wanted to make one for such a pourpose all it needs is a hanger on the tube and it would be ready to go.

Here is what I have done today

I have glued the tube to a new plate. The plate that I was going to use was too small. Shane went with a small Ocean Runner pump that does not have standard pipe threads, so I have to use barb fittings at the pump. This might work to the positive, the pump sets on suction cups and with a soft mount to the hard plumbing the pump should be isolated. This should reduce vibration noise.

This is what I have so far.

$25 acrylic + $20 pump + $28 in fittings. Still pretty cheep

 

Just finished the unit. Went through a couple of problems, one of them was I broke the tube. The calcium reactor is now 20 inches tall, it should have been 23 inches tall. The leak test went pretty well, as normal a few leaks had to be repaired. The pump has to be one of the quietest ones that I have used, Shane made a good choice. At first I had reservations because of the barbed fittings, I like to work with hard plumbing and the barbs forced me to spend a bit more time at the hardware store finding fittings that converts from barb to NPT. The side effect of the rubber feet and nylon hose was a very quiet unit.

I have finished pics sorry that I did not get much of the build.

The pump sits on a 1/4 inch plate; the reactor is also fixed to the same plate. All hard pluming is 1/2 inch; the barbs are 1/2 also.



The next pic is the business end of the plumbing. The first fitting on the left is Jaco, this will be the tap that CO2 enters. The second tap will attach from the display feed pump. The tap below the 1/2 inch pluming is the effluent line. All of the tube fittings are tapped into the reactor or 1/2 inch pluming are set with 1/4 National Pipe Threads. The 1/2 inch pipe enters the reactor tube via 1/2 National Pipe Threads.



This is a pic of the top of the reactor. The screws are 1/4X20 nylon screws. The flange below the gasket is drilled and tapped to accept the nylon screws. The gasket is made from hobby foam. It is closed cell and sold in sheets, found at Wal-Mart. The pipe and elbow are the return loop. This unit will blow down on the media. The Guest fitting will have a tube attached to it with a valve. Its only purpose is to vent air when filling the unit with water.



This unit will feed a 24 gallon tank.

 

cool want to build one now

 

Cool build, have you figured out how many gals its rated for? Luna

 

As with most calcium reactors, you could put a small one on a large tank, the only downfall is you will have to refill often. It holds about 1/2 of a container of ARM media. I would feel comfortable putting it on a 75G display with a sump under it. If I wanted to put it on a larger display I would simply add another tube and plum it like a MRC reactor.

 

This is the finished installation. It is taken from Shanes post on my local site.

I wanted this thing to remain out of sight, even though it is so pretty!

In order to fit it below the tank, I had to first pull the drawer all the way out. The drawer does NOT go all the way to the back and actually leaves just enough room for everything to fit behind it:


Here it is completely plumbed in and the rest of the junk still fits!


All that's left is to replace the drawer and call it good. Easy install and great work again by David!

 

Nice product, Dave! As usual, your DIY is good stuff. Where's the quote about the real man building it and the wife showing him where he went wrong?



Glad to see you posting here again.

 

Thanks Sparky as always it is good to hear from you.
...I guess I did not put the signature up. Soon to fix.