Nilsen Reactor

[Osama]

THANKS Jef & Steve

Mine is also 30 inch heigh & 8 inch in diameter from My Reef Creations.
This is a new piece of equipment for me and I appreciate the great help.
I will see how clear it gets in 24hrs.
I am experiencing difficulty getting the stirrer to work and stir the kalk. I am not sure if the stirring bar is getting stuck between the 8 inch tube & the acrylic wear plate. I think the diameter on the wear plate is only 6 inches allowing the stirrer to possibly get lodged between the tube & the plate.... OR it could be the motor is not strong enough to move one cup of kalk through the base and the acrylic wear plate. That's all the kalk I put in on my first test run ... The kalk is not clumpy I opened the tube and it stirred very easily but I cannot see or feel the stirrer itself
What diameter tubes do you have and what size wear plate you have is What do you think?????

 

[danmhippo]

hehehe.......

Osama, Try this if you don't mind re do the kalk again. Fill the reactor with RODI to 3/5 full. Drop the magnetic stirrer and turn on the machine. You need to move the reactor unit a bit to let the stirrer spin. Don't add kalk until you see the stirrer spin dead in the center.

After you adjusted the reactor so the stirrer spins in the center, add kalk in scoop by scoop until the desired quantity you need is all in the reactor. Fill the reactor up and seal the reactor. Don't overtighten the plastic screws, Finger tight is enough to give a good seal.

Hope that helps you.

 

[Jeff Hood]

Osama

I have the exact same reactor as you have from Andy.

I also have had the same trouble with the stirrer.

Andy and I are working on a fix. The problem is the thickness of the bottom plate and the wear plate. The total thickness together is too much for the little stir bar. You will loose contact with the magnetic field and the stir bar gets rattled and scoots off to the side between the plate and the tubing wall and stopps spinning.

Here is what I want you to do to get it running until we get it all worked out.

Empty your reactor, and put about 8 inches of Water in the bottom. Leave the wear plate out for now until you order the new one.

Now, with the water in the bottom and the wear plate out put the stir bar in the bottom until it contacts the stir plate magnet. Turn on your stir bar slowly until it starts to spin. If you go up too fast it will spin off to the side and stop spinning. Start again until you get a good steady spin. Now while it is spinning fill the reactor almost to the top.
Once filled add about a half measure of your kalk. I added only a half a can of Balls the second time. Let it spin for about 5 min and then turn it off. Don't touch the setting on the front just turn off your timer or what ever you are using to controll it. Set you timer to run the spinner when you want. Put the lid back on and let it sit over night. By morning the top should be only slightly cloudy but you should be able to start your top off controller at that time. You could start it the night before but watch your pH.

Now to the fix of the reactor spinner. I and Andy think the problem with this large kalk reactor is the thickness of the bottom plate and the wear plate together. By placing the stir bar farther away from the stir plate it weakens the magnetic field on the stir bar and thus it looses contact and gets pushed away rather than stirs.

Like I said, I can get it to stir by removing the wear plate temporarly but that is a quick fix. It is still weak but not near as weak.

I ordered some UHMW ( Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene) to use as the wear plate. It is said to be able to outwear all other materials including metals, nylons, urethanes, and fluoroplastics. It has a low coefficient of friction and it is so smooth it actually feels oily but is not. Just a very durrable and smooth plastic. A lot of people use it in industrial applications where you have a lot of friction. You see it a lot on table saws where the wood slides across the table. This produce should last a very long time and probably will never need replacing.

It comes in 1/8 inch thickness so will cut down on the thickness of the plate and will be slicker for the thing to spin on.
The second fix will be a larger stir bar with more magnetic material in it to get a stronger hold.
Andy is going to ship me a new stir bar as soon as he gets back from vacation to see if it fixes the problem.

I would give him an E-mail telling him of your problem so he can get you the fix also. You might want to wait though until I see if it fixes mine first so we don't waist money.

I have mine working and it will start up and stirr right now but I need the wear plate in there so it will last and I would love to be able to run the stir bar full blast if I want to.

Jeff

 

[SPC]

Well it looks like we are all comparing apples to apples here . I have the same reactor. I have the larger stir bar and it works well (without the wear plate). The UHMW material sounds promising Jeff, I thought of using window pane glass but could not figure out how to cut it in a circle.
Osama, I can only add one thing to what Dan and Jeff have said. I find that if you add the kalk powder very slowly to the reactor when you are filling it this will help a great deal. I add my water to about 3/4 full, get the stirring going until I see a vortex all the way up, and then add the kalk powder slowly. At first I was just dumping it in and found that this allowed the kalk powder to clump. I also have used two different kalk's, Seachem and Kent. I found that the Seachem product mixes better than the Kent and in fact have been in contact with Kent about this. I think that the filler material that Kent uses is different than Seachem.
Steve

 

[Jeff Hood]

SPC,

What size is your stir bar? Mine came with the 50mm bar but we are going up to a 3 inch one that is even larger in diameter to hopefull get better magnetic contact.

If you give me your address I will send you some UHMW if I have any left after I make it for Osama and myself.

Jeff

 

[SPC]

Jeff, I didn't measure it but I am guessing about 1.5". What I meant by larger was in comparison to the original small bar. Thanks for the offer on the material.
Steve

 

[Osama]

Thanks Jeff & Steve
I drove myself nutty over Memorial day weekend trying to guess at what is wrong. I agree that a larger stirrer is needed especially with an 8 inch diameter tube. I think a thinner wear plate is a must and even in the future maybe Andycan think of making the base of the reactor out of UHMW It may be better all aroung if he can seal it to the acrylic tube...
I am using Kalk from ESV ( almost gone) and have bought 4kg from Two Little fishes.......
THANKS again

 

[john f]

Hey Osama,
How is that big tank plan coming along?

Here are a couple picks of my 1000:

And links in case you want to see them better:

http://images.fotki.com/v5/free/85ad/1/ ... 1022636455
http://images.fotki.com/v3/free/85ad/1/ ... 1022636869




John

 

[Osama]

Hi John
Your tank looks great I like how you fit it by the staircase.
Mine is still in the planning stages. Wife is OK with it which is very important for the size tank I would like. I am buying the equipment to use for now on my 200 that will be bifg enough for the 600-800G. Getting from Andy now a large Nielsen and a large calcium reactor good for 1500g. THEN I HAVE TO HAVE A TANK FOR THE NEW LARGE CAPACITY EQUIPMENT... what logic!!!

Osama

 

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

Can anyone give me some MO places to research buying one of these?
_________________
Mercedes Benz 250

 

[SPC]

Paul, this is where we bought the ones we are talking about here:
http://www.myreefcreations.com/skimmers.html
Steve

 

[mgk65]

Another place is www.ecotechmarine.com

mgk

 

[Anonymous]

Does anybody know which of those companies is a kid who was at the last MACNA? He was a good guy- I would want to do business with him if possible...

 

[mgk65]

Dan:

The kid is Tim and he is from www.ecotechmarine.com

I had the chance to meet him again in a couple of weeks ago. Nice guy.

mgk

 

[Osama]

For the latest.. I tested the small stirrer bar with two thicknesses of acrylic and the motor was able to spin the small 1.5 inches bar fine. If you move the controller higher the small bar will spin out of control. SO for our size tubes the small bar will eventually and probably frequently get dislodged which is a pain in the neck to readjust it.....
I received a thicker and longer stirring bar about 3 inches long from Andy. This bar will NOT move at all with no acrylic at all between it and the motor....
Jeff: How is your system doing. Ia m going to try to run mine with the small bar till get a more permanent solution.

 

[Brad]

How about using an external electric motor on top, with a shaft going thru the reactor top, and a propellor on the end to mix up the kalk?

 

[SPC]

Posted by osama:
For the latest.. I tested the small stirrer bar with two thicknesses of acrylic and the motor was able to spin the small 1.5 inches bar fine. If you move the controller higher the small bar will spin out of control. SO for our size tubes the small bar will eventually and probably frequently get dislodged which is a pain in the neck to readjust it.....

-Mine is spinning just fine with this bar, why the difference do you suppose?
Steve

 

[Osama]

Steve; your bar will not spin out of control if you move the controller on highest level. That is veryinteresting!!!! Could it be the size motors we have. My motor is the HI 300N by Hanna Stirrers. The smaller motor is HI 190M which Andy uses with the 6 inch diameter Nielsen. Which motor do you have on your 8 inch diameter Nielsen

 

[Baalz]

Those Myreef reactors aint cheap. I'd expect mine to work correctly for that kinda money. How are the Ecotechmarine reactors holding up for those who bought them?

 

[SPC]

Posted by Osama:
Steve; your bar will not spin out of control if you move the controller on highest level. That is veryinteresting!!!! Could it be the size motors we have. My motor is the HI 300N by Hanna Stirrers. The smaller motor is HI 190M which Andy uses with the 6 inch diameter Nielsen. Which motor do you have on your 8 inch diameter Nielsen

- Mine is the HI 190M. I still don't understand why yours spins out of control, does it do this when you don't have any kalk powder in (just water)?
Steve