fine tuning calcium reactor

[FISHGUY4250]

Currently my reactor solenoid turns on about every hour and half and stays on for about a half hour , now my alk/dkh is steady at about 8.7-8.9 and calcium is holding at 450-460 is this ok for the reactor solenoid to be on/off this frequent ?
someone was telling me to try and get a " flatter " line on the graph of my APEX ???? do i need to increase the bubble count and decrease the effluant ? or some other combination ? OR IS THIS NOT A PROBLEM ??

THANKS

[Mark Bianco]

More of rapid cycling to smooth out the curve will result in a quicker failure of the solenoid.

Most electrical equipment is designed with a MTBF (mean time between failure) of 1,000,000 cycles. At the present rate yours is cycling that's 16 times per day divide that by 1,000,000 it equates to 62500 days of operation, or over a 171 years.

My rule is as long as your parameters are stable within 0.1 I consider that very stable. Your tank is doing good, I would leave it alone.

Just in case anybody is wondering, No I do not think any piece of equipment will last that long. I think more like 5 years would be a good estimate.

You can lookup the specs for you solenoid to see just what the MTBF is, but I would not worry about it. My CA reactor solenoid has been running for 2 years and it has about the same cycle time as yours.

[FISHGUY4250]

Originally Posted by Mark Bianco

More of rapid cycling to smooth out the curve will result in a quicker failure of the solenoid.

Most electrical equipment is designed with a MTBF (mean time between failure) of 1,000,000 cycles. At the present rate yours is cycling that's 16 times per day divide that by 1,000,000 it equates to 62500 days of operation, or over a 171 years.

My rule is as long as your parameters are stable within 0.1 I consider that very stable. Your tank is doing good, I would leave it alone.

Just in case anybody is wondering, No I do not think any piece of equipment will last that long. I think more like 5 years would be a good estimate.

You can lookup the specs for you solenoid to see just what the MTBF is, but I would not worry about it. My CA reactor solenoid has been running for 2 years and it has about the same cycle time as yours.

Mark ,
thanks for the response , i appreciate it ... glad to know that someone has about the same thing happening as me and wanted to make sure i wasnt doing something wrong ?
This is the first time for me running a calcium reactor , people were steering me away from it because it was too difficult to tune !

thanks again

[ken6217]

You should be able to leave the CO2 running 24/7 and adjust either the bubble rate, effluent or both to your desired alkalinity. It should remain constant once you have it set.
Ken