CO2 Guages

[DaveC]

I have just received and installed my first calcium reactor on Wednesday...I am so happy...I am tired of the bionic's every single day..I was up to approx 6 of those little cups per day of each solution..the reactor is a GEO from premimunaquatics.com....it was so simple to setup and get running but I think my guages are not working properly..I purchased the aqua medic guages with the reactor (stupid)..when I first set them up the bottle pressure was approx 600psi, the the co2 going to the reactor was approx 40psi...I setup the BPM to 30 and effluent drip to 35ml as recommended..12 hours later the KH effluent was 29, and the calc was around 500 so I guess that is good...probably is the following morning the BPM count had changed to around 50 or 60 BPM all by itself..and the PSI when from 40 up to 70 all by itself and now I hear a little hiss comimg fromthe CO2 guage body, I believe the tiny hole is some sort of relief vavle and it is leaking...so I assume I am losing co2, I can not adjust in down becuase that will increase the BPM way to high...do you think the guages are defective?? I am going to call premimumaquatics this morning when they open to ask them, but I was curious about the way guages work in general, I am guess 70psi it to much,but how do you lower it without affecting the BPM count...or are these guages like I said defective or just cheap guages?? I was hoping for a set it and forget it type setup, but I guess not...the reactor in general is working great...I had a small drip from the o-ring on the top could this be from the additional pressure and will this damage my reactor...I am hoping GEO will read this since this is his creation (nicely done by the way)...any advise would be great..

Thanks
Dave C

[tendar]

Sounds like the gauge is bad since it should not be leaking.
This is probably why every thing else is off.
You should be able to pretty much let it go once you get it dialed in for your calcium needs.