Calcium Reactor and FOWLR

[abe77901]

I recently switched from a coral reef tank to a fowlr and still have my calcium reactor hooked up. Now i did get pretty much "new" live rock and was wondering if the calcium reactor was still beneficial to the tank and the calcium growth on rock, or would it be best to remove the reactor and go with additives for the stronium and such minerals....

[CD]

I wouldn't think keeping the reactor going would hurt up until you got some growth on your rock, but I doubt seriously you would need to keep running it after you have obtained said growth. Water changes should supply the coraline with plenty of calcium for upkeep once the growth is there. IMO ;)

W. :)

[matt]

My opinion is that calcium reactor or no, you should avoid adding strontium or any other "minerals" to your tank other than calcium and carbonate. Believe me, your salt mix has plenty of these substances, and that's been the view of most reputable reefkeeping marine biologists for years, other than the ones involved in producing or selling the additives.

How much calcium and carbonate your tank goes through at this point will in part be a function of the light you have, which will spur calcification by your coralline algae and whatever other photsynthetic stuff is on your rocks. But most people with fish only tanks don;t need a calcium reactor by any means. You'd probably do a little better ph wise with kalkwasser, especially if you don't have a refugium growing macroalgae.

[Thunderkat]

I have also read that if you have a plenum in a deep sand bed you also don't need to add chemicals as the baceteria breaks down the aragonite and all the nutrients needed by coral are released in that manner. The only thing I could see wrong there is you might have to add new sand periodically.

[jaded]

I agree with everything said here... Without the coral load you probably wont need the calcium reactor but I doubt it would hurt anything to have it running. I would add no additive you can't test for. There have been many tests done on natural sea water and none of the minerals that are widely sold as "must adds" are heavily depleted in nature. Keep your calcium and dkH right (I keep mine at 420/8.4 because thats close to natural seawater) and do the occasional water change and you should be just fine.

[Bigreefer]

You might try to trade it for a kalk reactor... A kalk reactor would benifit a fisk tank more.

Jason