Hey R2R,
I figure I would start writing up reviews on some of the products/equipment that I have used or currently using. I’m a gadget guy so I have gone through a TON… I MEAN A TON of different reefing equipment just for the heck of it. I am not sponsored or affiliated with the company. Just a hobbyist sharing my experiences.
There wasn’t a lot of information and there is still not a lot of information regarding these automated calcium reactor. I have gone through a few different brands of Calx reactors in the past.. Korallin, Lifereef, MRC, GEO, etc… I moved away from Calx reactor since dosing was so easier and cheaper, but once I upgraded to my 350 gal system it just wasn’t viable. I did some research and the automated Calx peaked my interested so I purchased one just to give it a try….
SETUP
DaStaCo Xtream A2 rated for 300 gal – I picked a slightly smaller unit than my system, but there was a few reasons for that.
The unit will come with everything you need; except for the a CO2 tank and media (DaStaCo have their own recommended coarse media, it’s a tad pricier but is more pure and they last longer)
Putting this thing together was fairly easy and straight forward. The hardest part for me and most guys in the hobby is to read the manual that came in the box. Here’s my biggest tip if you are setting this unit up. READ THE WHOLE MANUAL AND FOLLOW every single detail! And I mean EVERY little detail. Trust me on this… you will save a lot of time and headache by doing so. This unit was design to work in a very specific way, so setting it up correctly is very important or if you will have deal with random alarms once you have it running.
OPERATION
Once you finish setting it up Calx correctly you are pretty much set. If you need to increase or decrease your alk, it’s as simple as just turning a knob on the controller unit. You won’t have to deal with bubble count, or effluent output or ph probes. The controller will do all of that for you, but how?
Well the traditional Calx you have a co2 regulator that push co2 into the reactor at a certain speed (bubble count) until the ph probe either open/close the co2 solenoid. Also the amount of water that gets pushed into the reactor will affect the ph inside the reactor’s chamber. So with a traditional Calx, unless you have it setup correctly you will always have some sort of fluctuation of ph inside the reactor, therefore the effluent won’t be consistent. All this might be fine for your reef tank, but if you find yourself wondering why you alk/calc keeps fluctuating every few days… causing you to adjust that needle valve… then you don’t have it setup 100% correctly.
The DaStaCo has no ph probe, No more ph probe calibration!! The way it works is through the idea of Co2 saturation. Co2 will get pumped into the Co2 chamber where a float switch will control when the Co2 solenoid will open/close. So the ph inside the reactor will stay consistent and steady. The knobs on the controller only controls how often the peristaltic pump comes on to push effluent out. Now I won’t get into more detail as this is the basics of the operations.
Maintenance/Parts/Support
One of my biggest worries prior to purchasing this unit was having support and parts readily available since the company was overseas. Surprisingly, AMS DaStaCO is by far the best support company I have dealt with. They have a Facebook support page setup, I believe the moderator is the owner of the company, providing support. I had the opportunity to contact support a few times for some minor things, it was so simple… facebook post, facebook messenger, whatsapp, I even got a one on one facetime to get issues resolve. The main distributor here in the state is Uniquecorals, they can offer you support too but after joining the facebook support I never found they need to get in touch with uniquecorals, I just went into the support page. There was an incident where I needed to replace the float switch… AMS sent that part out to me in a rush from overseas, I received the replacement part in 1 week time! This was just as fast as any company in the state. AWESOME support!! For the yearly maintenance parts like the peristaltic tubing and pump rotors you can simply purchase those through uniquecorals. I usually do so whenever they have a sale on black Friday and you are set for the year.
PROS
Final Thoughts
I think they unit was well worth the money. It’s a solid unit and it’s easy to tune I would recommend this to anybody that’s looking to get into a Calx setup. If you are an experience hobbyist and if you have a good grasp on how Calx should be setup then you probably won’t need an automated Calx. I’ve used this unit for over year move on to try the Deltec Twintech 1500, another automated Calx just to give it a try. I’ve been running the Deltec for a few months now.. I will be posting my experience with the Deltec setup down the road.
Please feel free to post any questions, or comments on how I can improve my next reviews. I know it’s a lot of reading but hope this will get you a good idea of what this unit can do for you.
I figure I would start writing up reviews on some of the products/equipment that I have used or currently using. I’m a gadget guy so I have gone through a TON… I MEAN A TON of different reefing equipment just for the heck of it. I am not sponsored or affiliated with the company. Just a hobbyist sharing my experiences.
There wasn’t a lot of information and there is still not a lot of information regarding these automated calcium reactor. I have gone through a few different brands of Calx reactors in the past.. Korallin, Lifereef, MRC, GEO, etc… I moved away from Calx reactor since dosing was so easier and cheaper, but once I upgraded to my 350 gal system it just wasn’t viable. I did some research and the automated Calx peaked my interested so I purchased one just to give it a try….
SETUP
DaStaCo Xtream A2 rated for 300 gal – I picked a slightly smaller unit than my system, but there was a few reasons for that.
- My 350gal system is fairly new, recently upgraded from a 80 gal,, so I didn’t have wall to wall SPS. I figure it’ll be years before my little colonies will push over this Calx limit.
- From experience I know that with a Calx setup, ph will drop drastically. So my plan was to dose kalkwasser to increase my ph (ATO was refilling about 2 gals a day on average).
- Also I had tons of soda ash I could use if Kalk wasn’t enough.
The unit will come with everything you need; except for the a CO2 tank and media (DaStaCo have their own recommended coarse media, it’s a tad pricier but is more pure and they last longer)
Putting this thing together was fairly easy and straight forward. The hardest part for me and most guys in the hobby is to read the manual that came in the box. Here’s my biggest tip if you are setting this unit up. READ THE WHOLE MANUAL AND FOLLOW every single detail! And I mean EVERY little detail. Trust me on this… you will save a lot of time and headache by doing so. This unit was design to work in a very specific way, so setting it up correctly is very important or if you will have deal with random alarms once you have it running.
OPERATION
Once you finish setting it up Calx correctly you are pretty much set. If you need to increase or decrease your alk, it’s as simple as just turning a knob on the controller unit. You won’t have to deal with bubble count, or effluent output or ph probes. The controller will do all of that for you, but how?
Well the traditional Calx you have a co2 regulator that push co2 into the reactor at a certain speed (bubble count) until the ph probe either open/close the co2 solenoid. Also the amount of water that gets pushed into the reactor will affect the ph inside the reactor’s chamber. So with a traditional Calx, unless you have it setup correctly you will always have some sort of fluctuation of ph inside the reactor, therefore the effluent won’t be consistent. All this might be fine for your reef tank, but if you find yourself wondering why you alk/calc keeps fluctuating every few days… causing you to adjust that needle valve… then you don’t have it setup 100% correctly.
The DaStaCo has no ph probe, No more ph probe calibration!! The way it works is through the idea of Co2 saturation. Co2 will get pumped into the Co2 chamber where a float switch will control when the Co2 solenoid will open/close. So the ph inside the reactor will stay consistent and steady. The knobs on the controller only controls how often the peristaltic pump comes on to push effluent out. Now I won’t get into more detail as this is the basics of the operations.
Maintenance/Parts/Support
One of my biggest worries prior to purchasing this unit was having support and parts readily available since the company was overseas. Surprisingly, AMS DaStaCO is by far the best support company I have dealt with. They have a Facebook support page setup, I believe the moderator is the owner of the company, providing support. I had the opportunity to contact support a few times for some minor things, it was so simple… facebook post, facebook messenger, whatsapp, I even got a one on one facetime to get issues resolve. The main distributor here in the state is Uniquecorals, they can offer you support too but after joining the facebook support I never found they need to get in touch with uniquecorals, I just went into the support page. There was an incident where I needed to replace the float switch… AMS sent that part out to me in a rush from overseas, I received the replacement part in 1 week time! This was just as fast as any company in the state. AWESOME support!! For the yearly maintenance parts like the peristaltic tubing and pump rotors you can simply purchase those through uniquecorals. I usually do so whenever they have a sale on black Friday and you are set for the year.
PROS
- Awesome support, best I’ve seen
- Super reliable once setup correctly
- Set and forget system
- Easy to tune
- Easy to maintain as the reactor was design to come apart easily
- It’s a bit on the pricey side but considering everything that comes with the unit it’s ok
- Must be setup correctly! (can’t stop emphasizing this)
- Unit is pretty sensitive alarms can trigger pretty easily
- Unless you are very familiar with the unit, it’s hard to determine what’s wrong with the unit when alarm goes off
- Yearly maintenance parts must be purchase through their distributor
Final Thoughts
I think they unit was well worth the money. It’s a solid unit and it’s easy to tune I would recommend this to anybody that’s looking to get into a Calx setup. If you are an experience hobbyist and if you have a good grasp on how Calx should be setup then you probably won’t need an automated Calx. I’ve used this unit for over year move on to try the Deltec Twintech 1500, another automated Calx just to give it a try. I’ve been running the Deltec for a few months now.. I will be posting my experience with the Deltec setup down the road.
Please feel free to post any questions, or comments on how I can improve my next reviews. I know it’s a lot of reading but hope this will get you a good idea of what this unit can do for you.
