Sam and I worked today to build a nitrate reactor based on several designs that we had read about and seen at Ralph Cornelissens in Fort Smith last month. The design is made of 4' PVC pipe with a toilet flange, do not get the black toilet flanges at Lowes - use the white ones. The black did not respond to well to the PVC glue and leaked on both mine and Sams having to be re-glued and siliconed. If you are making one of these be sure to glue the toilet flange before drilling for the recirculating loop because you will never be able to line it back up and be able to rethread the hole upon glueing. We used the clubs tap and dies to thread the recalculating fittings male fittings. The examples that we read about just glued them into place but threading them allows them to be removed if need be. I decided to use union and Sam elected not to - in the end I do not think that they are necessary but we will see. The red cap is a compression plug that has the bolt replaced with a stainless steel one you could use a PVC clean out with a coupling if you would rather but this saved on space and was cheaper. We use maxi jet pumps but upon testing three of the pumps that Sam and I tested leaked at the impeller housing, this can not be a coincidence. We will be looking for an alternative pump to use in the future. I ran a silicone bead around the housing and at the time of this thread have not tested it to see if it works. We used Valspar black plastic spray paint after sanding the reactor - which made it look great. I think that in the future I would like to use 3/4 cpvc instead of 1/2 or maybe 1/2 in pvc but that would have to be moded alot more. The blue valved on either side at the top of the reactor are for effluent out to the tank and the other is for the release of any nitrogen gas that builds up in the system although I suspect that this will not be an issue because should gas build up to the point that it reaches the effluent out valve it would be released through to bubble out in the refugium. I think that this reactor is simple enough to be reliable and we will keep you posted on its operation.
Well done guys, I think you did a great job and it looks very good. I hope it works well and you can do a club workshop on a build. I would be interested in one. Keep us posted on how it works.
I couldn't go to bed until I did some more testing to see if the leaks had been fixed and discovered a few more flaws that will require the reactor to be rebuilt. The leaks were dealt with well by the silicone but I discovered several problems the worst of which is that the water in is on the wrong side of the pump. By putting water into the reactor on the water out side of the pump their is back pressure sent into the water feed line, which will cause any pump used to put water into the reactor have to have enough force to overcome the pressure and put water into the reactor. Water should flow freely into the reactor and to do this the water into the reactor needs to be placed on a fitting on the suction side of the pump which in a protein skimmer is where air is injected due to the venturi effect and in this case water due to the venturi effect. Second, the maxi jet on my Kalkwasser reactor is used as the bottom 90 degree elbow of the loop making the pump hang upside down. I suspect that the orientation of the pump is more stable and less torqued upside down than being placed in the opposite corner of the closed loop at the top where it is required to hold up the structure of the loop. Along with the incorrect toilet flange and several other things that we leaned on todays workshop I plan on rebuilding the unit with pvc which is more structural in nature. We learned that we can tap pvc very well and is the way to go, the compression plugs are also the thing to use, plastic spray paint is a very nice touch up. I will work on the new build tomorrow with the new modifications an update you later. I leaned a great deal on this build and am glad that we could figure out the problems and overcome them. We will have the bestest top notch reactor to be found in these hear woods. You can bet your grannys shoe fly pie on it.
We will do a demonstration on the reactor at the next meeting at your house. Looking forward to teaching people what not to do and to do on a build like this. We spent to much with this because we were learning but in the end with media it should run around $75 witch includes the cost of the media to go in it - about 1 1/2 lbs of LSM from Carb Sea. I will have some more pictures tomorrow.
I would not use the top you have pictured, but rather a threaded clean out. Here is why. The air/gas build up rises to the top and will be easier to bleed out if it is at the very top. The bleed valve should also be higher up than the drain line. Water will only flow into the reactor, as water drips out. So water will not freely pump into the reactor. When you start it is supposed to be like one drip a second until it cycles. Then you slowly increase it. Here is a link to when I made mine and what it looks like (somewhat). http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1288082&page=11
Started on the second design this evening. I will use Uniseal's for this build for several reasons. Thick walled PVC taps for threads very well but allows for much less flexibility. It is also difficult to get the tap to thread completely straight which makes any connections to it off at an angle which can cause torgue at crucial points like at the MaxiJet seal. With the Uniseal if the hole is off the rubber allows the pipe to flex in the joint without leaking. Uniseals are cheap unfortunately no one carries them locally that I know of and I had to get mine from Bulk Reef Supply. I am using 1/2 in Uniseals which require a hole size of 1.25 inches. I use Fostner drill bits whenever possible when putting holes in PVC - Harbor Freight is the best place for these. I marked up my body and drilled the holes, sanded the top to a round over for looks and painted the body on the front end this time. I am using Valspar plastic paint which is very runny so be careful to use very light coats. The first coat looks awful when doing it right but as you add coats it covers well and develops a shine. This is as far as I got tonight - will keep you posted.
Here is the finished product and I must say one of the better DIY projects that I have done as fare as functionality. I think that one of the big points of doing a DIY is the learning of how something works so despite a cost breakdown that might seem to make purchasing a reactor more feasible you can not forgo the experience of building your own. I learned from sdf_beanhead that you MUST have a new Maxi Jet because the degradation on the o-ring over time is just to much and they will leak. Sam and I tested 4 used Maxi Jets and everyone of them leaked - purchased a new one and it seals fine, so save yourself the headache and spend 25.00 on a new pump rather than trying to silicone one water tight. I used a Maxi Jet 1200 but a 900 would have been better but it is all the LFS had. I designed a sort of plunger to hold the media on the inside that will allow me to pull everything out like a dip stick when it is maintenance time. The second be perk of this design is there is no need for a feed pump as the venturi effect draws water in to the system at the same rate that you are putting water out. One less pump, one less plug in and one less thing to go wrong. I have ordered the Carib Sea LSM media and will hook it up as soon as it comes in. Let you know how it goes.
ibassfish - the bleed valve is higher up by almost 2 inches I guess from the pictures you can not tell. As for the lid, I understand what you are saying but disagree as both have their draw backs. With your system you do not have the consideration of head space - I do and I am not convinced that gas build up will be a problem. Should gas build up to the point of the effluent out it will be discharged along with the effluent. This would be incorrect only if the amount of gas produced overcame the amount of effluent out. Another factor that I considered is that the larger the threaded fitting the more difficult it is to water proof, they are hard to turn and a lot of tape or rectoseal goes into sealing a cap each time you get into it. With a compression fitting you can take it off and on as much as you like with ease. Part of my judgment of a DIY stems from how much trouble am I willing to put up with for what savings. I will let you know how the reactor operates.
I used teflon tape. I have not opened mine since the initial install over two years ago (I believe). The way I did it is obviosly not the only way to do it. I just did it based on what was working well at the time (as noted above at two years ago). It will build up gas that needs to be released daily upon start up and through out its cycle. After that point maybe once a week. As you know the air bubbles will travel to the top as air bubbles do. Making more sense to put the air release valve on top as the air is going to be trapped there. An air valve on the side will have to build up enough air/gas to get down low enough to the air valve it self before it comes out. It appears to me and I could be wrong where your bleed valve is approx 2" below the cap, you will have approx 1 1/2" of air or gas before it begins to come out the air valve. Maybe there will be enough pressure to push i tout the lower valve. That would be good if it does. One reason I used two pumps as shown in the original design is if one failed you would still have circulation, and your bacteria would not die. People have tried using less than a maxi-jet 1200 and found it did not work very well with all media in place after time. After time the inside of the chamber will coat with a white slime. or that is what I had read. Let me know how the uni-seals work. I tried to make mine as air tight as possible as they say if air gets into the reactor it kills the beneficial bacteria, and will creat another cycle unknowingly to the aquarist. I recommend adding a little of your live sand (handful) to the reactor also to help seed it with bacteria. Use old tank water in a bucket to help cycle it so you don't get nitrites and ammonia in your main system. I did not cycle mine off line as when I installed it I did not thing that a drop a second would hurt 400+ gallons of water. I gambled and all was ok. There was no negative effect on my system. In your picture where your maxi-jet is positioned, I hope you have a sponge at the bottom and the top to keep pieces of media from jamming your impellar. It does not appear you used the shower drain cover at the bottom due to your plunger style fitting. I went back and looked you do have sponge materail there. That will help. I opted not to use the carib sea material as it did not seem to have as much sulphur in it, and the pieces were smaller. I am sure it will work fine, but you may have to recharge the reactor sooner and more often. Keep us posted.
