Official: Masterflex Calcium Reactor Setup Thread

[tkeracer619]

Originally Posted by slief

I looked at the diagram for the 15 pin connector and noted that pin 1 is the +10v and pin 3 is the ground. That said, my guess is that you would need more than just the 0-10v control in remote mode. It has a start/stop signal, a forward/reverse signal, Prime signal that would all need to be communicated some how. Still would be interesting to be able to control the RPM via a controller based on tank ph, reactor ph or other variables.

The pump is easy to hook up, you would just need a 0-10v dc source.

You bridge the start circuit and put the dc signal to the pump. No other connections are necessary unless you want control over that feature. Simply supplying a 0v signal will stop the drive.

[tkeracer619]

Originally Posted by dadummy

check out this L/S 24 tubing, exp date is 07/09,

I would be concerned about its age.

It was manufactured ~14 years ago.

[tkeracer619]

Originally Posted by slief

Awesome setup!!!! Thanks for sharing the pics.

[dadummy]

I am concerned about the age of the tubing. Cole Palmer said they have no data on expired tubing, it may be viable may not. No help there but I can't blame them, the customer support is excellent
Ebay vendor said tubing is fine as long as you don't use it for medical purpose.

It's a catch 22 both vendors want to sell tubing lol

On that note, I am thinking I would be better off hunting down a head that accepts different tubing LS 17 seems to be the choice?

thanks for the thread, got me hooked and calcium reactor isn't close to being set up or needed

[Psionicdragon]

What's the life expectancy for a stepped motor used for the calcium reactor purpose? How can you extend the life of the wheels? If using a cole or any similar device to pull, would you still need a feed pump?

[rEeFnWrX]

Originally Posted by slief

I just finished setting up my Cole Parmer Masterflex digital pump on my new reactor today. This particular CP was sold under the Manostat Carter label as a cartrdige pump but is compatible with the Easy Load heads. I added a new head and got another spare new head as well as a boat load of original Cole Parmer LS17 tubing. The pump runs from 3.5 RPM to 200 RPM. I can adjust the speed/flow in .1 increments. At 17.6 RPM it's 50ml/min with LS17 tubing. The pump is setup to pull through the reactors. I've got a Geo 818 and I had an old MRC 4"x18 rector that I set up after the Geo. I will be adding an AquariumPlants regulator tomorrow once it arrives and pulling my Reef Fanatic regulator. I shut the Co2 off for the night to purge the reactor and will turn it back on in the morning and then swap the reg when I get home from work.

What bulkheads are you using or how are you getting them to hold a seal on those rounded containers? I have the same exact ones just a bit smaller.

[tkeracer619]

A 1" bulkhead will seal on the round tank.

[slief]

Originally Posted by rEeFnWrX

What bulkheads are you using or how are you getting them to hold a seal on those rounded containers? I have the same exact ones just a bit smaller.

Originally Posted by tkeracer619

A 1" bulkhead will seal on the round tank.

+1..

1" Bulkheads seal fine. That's what I'm using.

[slief]

Originally Posted by Psionicdragon

What's the life expectancy for a stepped motor used for the calcium reactor purpose? How can you extend the life of the wheels? If using a cole or any similar device to pull, would you still need a feed pump?

These pumps are rated continuous duty and have a very long meantime before failure. These don't use a cheap tiny motor found in most tank type dosing pumps. These have a very large industrial type motor. A Cole Parmer eliminates the need for a feed pump. You will still however need the recirculation pump. The rollers on these pumps don't wear out easily. The roller assembly is steel or stainless steel on most of the easy loads heads.

[tkeracer619]

I have had my digital brushless unit running 24/7/365 since November of 2007. It was off for about 8 months after my tank crashed in a move. I picked it up off ebay at a surplus supply store for $300

Wow, didn't realize I have been using this setup for that long! Guess time flies when you're having fun

[rEeFnWrX]

Originally Posted by slief

+1..

1" Bulkheads seal fine. That's what I'm using.

Originally Posted by tkeracer619

A 1" bulkhead will seal on the round tank.

Do SCH 40 or 80 work better?

[Greg 45]

Question do the pump head rollers ever need lubrication between the rollers and the tubing ??

[zachts]

Originally Posted by Greg 45

Question do the pump head rollers ever need lubrication between the rollers and the tubing ??

No

[tkeracer619]

I prefer sch80 in case of an impact. They hold up better.

You don't need to lube the easyloads but you are supposed to lube the standard loads. It doesn't hurt to lube the tubing and may extend its life slightly.

Ime it is more important to keep the rollers clean and lubed than the tube.

[zachts]

Originally Posted by tkeracer619

I prefer sch80 in case of an impact. They hold up better.

You don't need to lube the easyloads but you are supposed to lube the standard loads. It doesn't hurt to lube the tubing and may extend its life slightly.

Ime it is more important to keep the rollers clean and lubed than the tube.

Interesting, when I asked CP about the standard LS heads they told me there is nothing to lubricate and no maintenance needs done other than to keep the roller's surface clean. There is grease at roller bearings but they said it should never need replaced under normal use unless contaminated with a solvent fluid (at which point they would recommend replacing the roller assembly not trying to re-grease it). I asked about it when I had a fitting come loose and got salt water in the head, they said just to rinse it out with RO water and let it dry. The tech told me lubricating the roller surface or tubing would shorten tubing life as it causes the roller to slide over the tube instead of roll along it........

[tkeracer619]

Most of the stuff shouldn't need greasing but a lot of the stuff we are buying is older and may need it. I think they say that because people tend to put all sorts of the wrong stuff in the heads that makes it worse.

Keeping the rollers and the plastic housing clean is clearly important. Interesting that the grease may decrease life.

[guc32]

So Ive just set this up for my 180. Ive never checked Alk as much as I do now since the setup.

So I did a water change with IO salt and it raised my Alk .50 dKH.

Question is when you do a water change, do you guys turn off your calcium reactor a few days so the Alk drops to your desire range?

[EvMiBo]

Originally Posted by guc32

So Ive just set this up for my 180. Ive never checked Alk as much as I do now since the setup.

So I did a water change with IO salt and it raised my Alk .50 dKH.

Question is when you do a water change, do you guys turn off your calcium reactor a few days so the Alk drops to your desire range?

KISS!
[Keep it simple, stupid]

It's not too big of a deal, and as corals grow this will change some. If you're really worried about it consider switching to a salt that mixes lower than IO for alk values.

[guc32]

Originally Posted by EvMiBo

KISS!
[Keep it simple, stupid]

It's not too big of a deal, and as corals grow this will change some. If you're really worried about it consider switching to a salt that mixes lower than IO for alk values.

Ok sounds good. Corals grow faster meow please.

[swk]

Originally Posted by guc32

So I did a water change with IO salt and it raised my Alk .50 dKH.

Question is when you do a water change, do you guys turn off your calcium reactor a few days so the Alk drops to your desire range?

I drop the alk of IO using muriatic acid. It's kind of an ordeal to make water, but the results I've had with IO vs "premium salts" make it worthwhile to me. I have to add calcium and sometimes mag, and then drop alk with muriatic and then let it off-gas for a day or so before I use it.

[hkgar]

I switched from Reef Crystals to Red Sea do to the high Alk. Here is a chart of salt mix levels:

http://www.thatpetplace.com/salt-mix-guide

Never thought about using muriatic acid. Wouldn't vinegar work as well?

[herring_fish]

This thread is fantastic! I have read this entire thread and a lot of it went right over my head but it rings true. Reading things over and over again as I went from page to page has given me a clue but only that.

Actually, I think that I have learned a lot and I thank everyone for their input, especially tkeracer619 for starting it. Your first few posts have stood up under all kinds of scrutiny and you have helped a lot of people.

The down side of this is that you do need to drop a pretty penny if you want to do it right. I think that doing it right is the only way to go.

As I read this thread, I noticed that the motors and controllers were getting harder and harder to find at a good price as more and more people have liked this method. We even had thread watchers bidding against each other without knowing it.

As a newbie, I don’t feel comfortable buying this stuff yet, given all of the combinations of part numbers that I have to choose from and my lack of knowledge of their respective values. I still couldn’t free-style on Ebay. I almost wish that I could hire someone to buy this stuff for me when I get ready.

I noticed that a few pages back …you thought that a stepper motor could work well instead of the package that this thread is named after. I was wondering if I could drop the price of the entire package by using an Arduino mini-controller instead of the ones that were called out.

I know that we want to stay on topic as much as possible so I would take to another thread, the ongoing details of a build as it relates to the non-Cole parts of the pump, if I decided that it would be a good idea to even pursue. Aside from how the head is driven, this method would still be the same.

That being said, I called Castelino and as noted, he was very helpful. He said that I couldn’t use any other controllers than theirs without a whole lot of work and he took the time to explain why.

He said that I could however, get the Masterflex head(s) and hook it to most any motor. He said that I might need to buy one of their gear mechanisms but that it could be done. He sent me several links to part numbers and the like.

The questions to me are, just how much work would it take and how good would the final results be? Would I save much money in the long run? …and would this be a rock solid solution? Before I spend much time even researching this idea, I would like to hear how this sounds to everyone when you really think about it.

While I am not an expert, I am familiar with programming Arduinos and I think that controlling it would be pretty easy to do. They cost about 25 or 30 bucks. I would also have to add a driver. While I could run a regular DC motor with some work on the analog side, I could run either a servo motor with the driver or a stepper motor.

With 200 steps per revolution, a stepper motor is controllable as low as I could ever want and presumably a digital signal would be very stable. Hobby grade steppers start at about 5 dollars and pretty good ones aren’t that much more. I would have to see what a higher grade motor would cost and how good it would be for this application.

I am thinking that I would have to figure out how much torque it would take to run the head(s), how much work it would take to properly affix the motor to the head(s) with a coupling and how dependable a stepper motor would be when used in steady state for long term use.

I know that there are a lot of variables here and I am not asking for help figuring these details out but what do you think the outcome would be.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and opinions.

[zachts]

A non-CP motor would work just fine, stepper or otherwise.

The main two factors to watch out for is that the gear and motor assembly needs to have enough torque to run the head and tubing you want to use, and also it MUST be a motor and gear assembly that has been designed and rated for continuous use.

I use several Pittman-Ametek gear motors on CP heads for various applications as they use much less power for low flow applications like this (or dosing) and are 24volt DC which makes controlling them very simple by any number of methods. They aren't rated to last near as long for continuous duty but the energy savings and much smaller size is worth it for me.

[tlc]

it would be nice if there was a product in America that sold an aquarium peristaltic pump like dastaco in Europe has instead of having to try some pump off ebay.

[skidrow52]

After following this thread I made my mind to use a peristaltic pump for my Ca reactor, but it wasnt easy for me to find the parts and the correct CP motor living out of US. I thought I will try something else, so I bought the "Kamoer Stepper Motor Peristaltic Pump KSP-F01" directly from Kamoer China the price was much cheaper than buying it online from US Stores and shipping it back to Saudi, so far I am satisfied its been 8 months its continuously in use, I only replaced the tubing twice. comes with PharMed tubing. I also bought an extra Stepper Motor, the stepper motor looks exactly like the one Neptune's DOS has.

Originally Posted by zachts

A non-CP motor would work just fine, stepper or otherwise.

The main two factors to watch out for is that the gear and motor assembly needs to have enough torque to run the head and tubing you want to use, and also it MUST be a motor and gear assembly that has been designed and rated for continuous use.

I use several Pittman-Ametek gear motors on CP heads for various applications as they use much less power for low flow applications like this (or dosing) and are 24volt DC which makes controlling them very simple by any number of methods. They aren't rated to last near as long for continuous duty but the energy savings and much smaller size is worth it for me.