Building my first calcium reactor need help..

[Ling_Thing]

Hey guys I’m finally ready to build and incorporate a calcium reactor to my reef but it’s a little overwhelming looking over all the equipment and trying to piece it all together and make it work in unison. I see BRS has pre packaged calcium reactors for sale but all out of stock so I’m trying to piece together my own. I’m a big fan of reef octopus so I’m partial to them but I’m open to all advice and opinions you have for me. Reason for wanting to finally build one is that my reef is eating the 5L Red Sea foundation a, b, and c every 9 weeks or so and at $90 each x 3 it’s getting a little expensive. The system is roughly 150 gallons total water volume mixed reef with a lot of acros.

 

[ca1ore]

Unclear on what you are asking. Are you looking for advice on how to build your own CaRx, or just on how to assemble the components for one? If the former, there are some builds in the DiY section. Assembling one from bought components is pretty simple, though good setup for a decent sized system will not return a lot of change from $1,500. You need the reactor, a CO2 cylinder (preferably two), a tank regulator, some media, and a way to feed water to the reactor. pH probe/controller is not really necessary.

 

[jda]

I would recommend a GEO setup or a Korallin. I like the Korallin better, and you can buy them with everything but the feed pump, but you can get many this way. There is a Google Doc linked in my signature that has a lot of my opinions about CaRx - reverse flow (might be really important now if people start to have to use aquarium substrate for media again) and Ehiem pumps are some go-to items for me. I do not like the Octo CaRx - just seems cheap to me, but others do like them, so to each their own. The reactors are simple beasts. The regulator and a good check valve are pretty important. Feed pump can be too depending on how precise of a person that you are - I just use a small pump to feed and don't care for the precision of an expensive metering pump, but some people really love them. Lots of ways to get this done. Used setups can be had for cheaper if you have time to wait and look.

I do not use any controller and I do have a backup co2 cylinder like Simon suggests above - you can usually find these local from a failed home beer brewer. I would get a medium sized reactor, or a larger one. The small ones can usually keep up OK, you just have to change out the media A LOT.