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

[lastlight]

My doser is nearly maintenance free and deadly accurate. I trim the fingernails and wash it in the shower.

[PFoster]

Delphinus, yeah i did actually choose both when i voted on the poll but it doesnt show it in the results thats all.

Also have you tried adding the different trace elements?
I have seen a difference in both growth rates and color from my tank to a friends tank that uses everything the same, save the trace elements. Yeah, yeah I know its a different system so that on its own will cause growth and color differences but still.

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by gobytron

How can you improve on something that already works perfectly...

Denial is a nice place to visit.

I go there frequently too....

Mitch

[lastlight]

Oooohhh...we're gonna have some A.R.M.-wrestlin' going on here soon.

Saweeet.

[gobytron]

Originally Posted by MitchM

Denial is a nice place to visit.

I go there frequently too....

Mitch

Obviously.

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by gobytron

...

The other thing I like about my CA reactor that I forgot about until now is the fact that you can add a little extra media like zeo mag or carbon and reduce your maintenance even more...

How do you add carbon to a ca reactor?
Carbon should be changed out after 3 weeks or so. That just means more frequent maintenance to the reactor.

Mitch

[christyf5]

I switched from a reactor a few years ago and have never looked back. My reactor had some issues and I was blowing through 10lbs of CO2 in 6 weeks and that was with a solenoid and new needle valve. I tried everything to fix it and finally just chucked the whole thing in favor of a dosing pump. 3 clean plastic 4L milk jugs and I just dump a couple cups (or whatever the dosage is) in the container, fill half with water, shake the living crap out of it to dissolve and fill it to the top with water and I'm done. I'm not quite sure what you're doing Tony that is so labour intensive/exhausing/less fun than chipping cat turds off the floor. I don't even bake the baking soda and it keeps my alk at the "good enough" level unless I feel like buggering around with it. I think the 4L containers last about 3 weeks or so and keep my parameters much more stable than the reactor ever did.

Um, silly question but wtf is soda ash?

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by MitchM

How do you add carbon to a ca reactor?
Carbon should be changed out after 3 weeks or so. That just means more frequent maintenance to the reactor.

Mitch

I agree Carbon should never be put in the reactor as you would have to dump your reactor media to change the carbon which is a huge waist.

Steve

[Myka]

In the end I think it all comes down to money when the "set and forget" feature is added.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

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

Hmmm, very interesting. Thanks for elaborating. The cost of this thing would be rather substantial though I would be thinking (much more than a basic reactor or dosing system), and take up a lot of real estate. The "set and forget" feature is pretty sweet though. How often were you testing parameters? What variance did you find in that time?

Originally Posted by marie

Unless you are using some 2 part I know nothing about then I assume you have the same fiddling.

Oh you bet! I fiddle with my dosers at least as much as I fiddled with my reactors in the past. I think this dilemma in both methods would be significantly reduced provided a controller is used. I have never run a controller. I prefer fiddling with the dosers than the Ca reactor simply because each parameter can be fiddled with separately. I always found alkalinity to drop quicker than calcium when using a reactor - I was always dosing alkalinity separately.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Myka

Hmmm, very interesting. Thanks for elaborating. The cost of this thing would be rather substantial though I would be thinking (much more than a basic reactor or dosing system), and take up a lot of real estate. The "set and forget" feature is pretty sweet though. How often were you testing parameters? What variance did you find in that time?

well cost wide, it cost me 100 bucks in pumps and plastic to build the reactor. I already had the regulator, paid 65 bucks for a used co2 extinguisher with a new valve and hydrostat, and say 50 bucks for misc and things I forgot about.. so way cheeper than buying a cheep reactor setup.

I did a full test once a week and never found much of a variance at all I had a tone of SPS which grew like stink, so I was pounding the co2 reactor already so that might be why there was no variation.

Steve