Calcium Reactor

[sergiotami]

Thinking about setting one up... I'm told its the best way to keep my coral growth constant and prevents fluctuations in calcium levels... Just wanted opinions from members who have them???

[kkiel02]

I don't have one yet but plan on adding one to my system as it fills in more. I don't think many people run them around here though.

[LuckySingh]

I wanted one in the beginning but went went ahead and invested in kalk reactor and will be dosing with my LM111 as per the need of cal mag and alk

[alton]

The tanks I have seen them on look great, but it is another thing that has to be adjusted. I got close to adding one on my 300 but decided to stay with two part. Darbys in New Braunfels is very knowledgeable on them. I believe they sell the PM brand

[Troy Valentine]

I ran a large calcium reactor for over 4 years on my 240, and it did a fantastic job at maintaining stable levels. However, as your system matures and grows. The volume of effluent increases from a steady drip to a constant stream. This is flurting with disaster..... With an effluent ph of 6.7 being constantly added to your system the potential for a full system meltdown is a very real possiblity, even with the most state of the art controllers the risk is still there. At that time my PH would run a constant 7.8 in the morning and 8.0 in the evening. This is the reason I took mine off line. I went to medical dosing pumps. I figure if its good enough for a hospital, its good enough for me. I am thinking of using it again on a very limited bases. No more than a steady drip to supplement the 2 part I am using.

[CoryDude]

They work great, but as Alton said, it's just something else that can go wrong. I came home a few times to that the reactor had run dry becaue of a plumbing leak and co2 was being directly injected into the water supply. I can only imagine what the ph was in the tank, but I was too scared to check.

Troy has a good point, my ph went from 8.0 to a constant 8.2-8.3 when I switched mine off and went to dripping kalkwasser.

[sergiotami]

Thanks Troy... Will stick w my two part dosing system.....

[kkiel02]

With the larger fully stocked tanks like yall have you don't have a problem with not being able to keep up with the demands? Thats the reason I was going to try the reactor- most people on r2r and rc said they just could no longer keep the levels up with 2 part. I guess if nothing else you could just run two dosing pumps if it ever got to that point. My plan was to dose until I could no longer do so but if yall can pull it off with just dosing pumps, hopefully I could as well. I guess time will tell.

[Troy Valentine]

3 cups calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate every 5 day keeps my CA-450 and DKH 10.4. When I had my calcium reactor I had similar 400+ca and 10+dkh. Then I added a Gigas Clam and within a week my CA dropped to 280. I then added an equally large second media chamber to help. This worked for a while, but I was still adding well over a gallon an hr of 6.7 effluent. Imho a calcium reactor is healthier for a system when working properly. But the ability of the dosing pump to put raw Calcium and carbonate ions into the tank cannot be matched as easily with a CA reactor without GREAT risk of meltdown.

[Big_Pun]

I'm goin to start using the tunze kalk reactor see how that goes. dosing via ATO.