So it's 2010 now. Who still uses a calcium reactor and who's all on 2-part dosing?

[lastlight]

Good thinking Lance. My wife damn near made me eat the BRS jugs when she found out I had paid that much for them and shipped them to boot.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I don't know about that.. I would fiddle with mine a few times a day when I first started it after refilling ect. after two days I wouldn't touch it untill it was time to refill again. a Ca reactor is truly a set and forget.

Steve

I have to disagree with you. Ime, I have always had to turn up the reactor, turn up the reactor, turn up the reactor as the demand for calcium and alkalinty rose in a growing tank. Many people do "set and forget", but they often don't realize their numbers are falling. I suppose using a controller with multiple probes would probably help to eliminate these issues, but there goes more money. Likewise, dosing pumps would be much more "set and forget" on a controller too.

Originally Posted by gobytron

The thing that really gets me about this hobby is how people just jump on new technology because its new...lol

Solaris anyone?

lol

I hear you on that! I am not one to jump on the newest products on the market to be the guinea pig. No thanks, someone else can risk their money and their reef! I still won't touch an LED system; I haven't seen enough proof yet - actually I have seen zero firsthand proof so far. Zeovit was prominent for 3-4 years before I tried it. Fauna Marin balling salts have been out for quite some time now too, and I just started using them about 8 months ago. I are cautious!

However, dosing pumps have been widely used for at least 15-20 years, and who knows when the first idea came upon the hobby...? Back then we jimmy rigged pricey hospital style dosing pumps that ate up huge real estate. Dosing pumps are far from new technology, and are hardly technology at all which is one of the things I like about them. Calcium reactors are much more "technical".

[Delphinus]

Oh I don't know, I guess there was one benefit to the jugs being empty, I did finish painting my tank room this weekend. (And for the record I don't really like painting either!) Paint the tank room, fill the jugs. Tonight's dilemma will be fill the jugs or get the tile up.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by PoonTang

So then I guess I am really old school. Kalkwasser in the ATO bucket with a little bit of 2 part dosed manually every week if need be to keep everything within my targets.

Simplicity at its best. Thats all I do also and same for Mike on his 150g. I just drip it with my kalk jug but Mike uses a kalk reactor.

[Delphinus]

I am using a kalk reactor on one tank with a metering pump to drive a nice slow driprate.

To be honest I'm not that super hot on the reactor either. (When did I become so high maintenance? WTH??) Three reasons: 1) Back in 2003, give or take, a bunch of us Canreefers bought a ridiculous amount of Mrs Wages pickling lime. I've been using the stuff like crazy trying to use it up but I swear it reproduces when I'm not looking because I have yet to finish the stuff!!!!! Anyhow, it's nice and good for 2 weeks or so then, 2) it turns brown and coats the inside of the reactor with its browny grossness. Vinegar cleans it up nice but .. well, it's just another chore to ignore.

And 3) the thing eats Maxijet impellers like crazy. Must be a design flaw, I'm not sure, all I know is I use a MJ600 or MJ900 on it and have to replace the impellers on them every few months.

I'm hoping I can finish those pickling lime jars soon and switch to a nicer kalk mix at some point. Sort of like how I'm waiting to use up my 5g bucket of CaCl from Chemmaster before I do a BRS order of soda ash (figure might as well buy both at the same time). I'm good and logical that way.

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I am using a kalk reactor on one tank with a metering pump to drive a nice slow driprate.

To be honest I'm not that super hot on the reactor either. (When did I become so high maintenance? WTH??) Three reasons: 1) Back in 2003, give or take, a bunch of us Canreefers bought a ridiculous amount of Mrs Wages pickling lime. I've been using the stuff like crazy trying to use it up but I swear it reproduces when I'm not looking because I have yet to finish the stuff!!!!! Anyhow, it's nice and good for 2 weeks or so then, 2) it turns brown and coats the inside of the reactor with its browny grossness. Vinegar cleans it up nice but .. well, it's just another chore to ignore.

And 3) the thing eats Maxijet impellers like crazy. Must be a design flaw, I'm not sure, all I know is I use a MJ600 or MJ900 on it and have to replace the impellers on them every few months.

I'm hoping I can finish those pickling lime jars soon and switch to a nicer kalk mix at some point. Sort of like how I'm waiting to use up my 5g bucket of CaCl from Chemmaster before I do a BRS order of soda ash (figure might as well buy both at the same time). I'm good and logical that way.

Judging by the popularity of our dosing packages I would say this is becoming the "in" way of maintaining the levels in the tank. I will never go back to a reactor again.....

Ps, We just received a nice tasty order of Soda Ash.....

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Myka

I have to disagree with you.

hmm... I don't know how you can disagree with what I had to do because I designed and built my reactor to be stable, but Ok

for the record, I never used a solinoid, probes or any of that new fangles stuff. just did my weekly water tests. you know once and a while I may have to add a bubble per min or take one away, but it was maybe every couple months I have to tweek it so 5 min for two months ..

Ca reactors like anything else flooded the market as the newest and greatest thing, so there were many people making a simple compact design to get it to the marktet and hence we had copys of unstable setups for sale everywhere. Titus had a nice design, but didn't carry one with it, not sure what happened there, but it looked like it would b very stable. I made my own adding a few tweaks of my own and created the monster. I put it at 20 bubbles per min (about 1 min of fiddling) and 5 months later it would still be at 20 bubbles per min. well unless my tank ran out but using a 20lb tank gave me over a years worth of use. since I used to be obsessed with my water tests the longest anything would go with out being checked was 3 days and once a week I recorded my tests in my tank journal to track trends and enable me to know what worked and what didn't when playing with my tank.

Steve

[Myka]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

hmm... I don't know how you can disagree with what I had to do because I designed and built my reactor to be stable, but Ok

Steve

I was disagreeing with:

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

a Ca reactor is truly set and forget.

Kind of self explanitory, no? I think telling everyone that a calcium reactor is set and forget is misleading as most are not set and forget, although lots of people treat them that way, and don't check their parameters until a crash is visually imminent. Is it ok to disagree with you?

In your case, why didn't you have to throttle it up every couple weeks? Why would your demand stay the same?

[gobytron]

assuming you have a controller, a ca reactor SHOULD be set and forget aside from the odd testing.

I can see how without a controller, it might get tedious to keep things in line but I would take a controller before just about any other piece of equipment I have so to me having one is a no brainer.

I wasn't implying anything about dosing pumps other than the only reason they are so widely in use RIGHT now is that they are currently in vogue and not neccesarily a better system than a ca reactor...just different and considered progressive at this point in time.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Myka

Is it ok to disagree with you?

I'll think about it and let you know

Originally Posted by Myka

In your case, why didn't you have to throttle it up every couple weeks? Why would your demand stay the same?

well I account the consistancy of the bubbles to a few things, the first being a large CO2 tank. smaller ones run out faster and you pressure starts to drop a while befor you run out so you end up getting more variation. a larger tank that stays at pretty much its full volume and will give you 1.5 to 2 years worth will be a lot more constant.

the second thing which may have more of an impact than the bottle is the regulator you are using. most of the ones being used in this hobby are true garbage. the cheepest offshore thing they could find as a good regulator would cost more than the reactor. for example a new version of my regulator would be about 350 to 450.00 retail.

as for keeping up with demand in the tank, pure size matters, most places were touting reactors that held 1 jug of media for tanks up to 200 or even 300 gal tanks, with a add on stage up to 4 or 500 gal. they had small pumps, most had no recirc for trapped gas, ect.. the one I designed was big, 4 jugs of media when full, 500 gph recirc with in the unit, gas bubble evacuation, plus a built in water reserve. I used a combanation of high flow and acidic water to desolve minerals. it was big, had a 12 X 20 foot print for the box with two 6" wide towers on the top that were about 12" tall so overall high was about 18".

Steve