Poll: Do you use Calcium Reactor or Dosing Pumps?

[Budman's Corals]

I was using 220ml a day of 2 part. this is also another reason I changed to a cal reactor. All my saftey features are thru apex warning me if reactors ph is to low/high etc.

 

[Budman's Corals]

Funny that you say this because when I got home last night I noticed my regulator was turned on but it wasn't producing any bubbles so it wasn't dosing the tank as it should have. It must have been like that for a couple of days. The saving grace with having a reactor if anything does fail, is that it is a controlled drip so lets say your PH probe fails and your media turns to mush, you have a controlled drip and and you will have time to fix it. I have heard the horror stories about dosers going bad and dumping a full container of 2 part into the system and crashing the tank. If the ph probe or your regulator fails on a calcium reactor the chances are that you will not crash your tank because of the controlled drip going into your system. A doser does not have that type of fail safe.

Do you not have a alert on apex letting ya know something not right? Do you have it hooked thru apex?

 

[duke4130]

Do you not have a alert on apex letting ya know something not right? Do you have it hooked thru apex?

No I am using an RKL with SL2 as my ph monitor. It's fine nothing went bad in my system. I just tested and dosed according to get everything back up to spec. My point was, that if something does go wrong then you have your fail safe with the controlled tip.

Beautiful tank by the way!!!

 

[Bigmatt]

Mrc c6 calcium reactor, was going through over 200ml of 2 part a day

 

[-Logzor]

What is the impact on pH of Dosing vs. Calcium Reactor?

 

[SaltyTan]

Excuse my ignorance, in reference to 2 part, what is it exactly? Can a dosing pump and Calk reactor be used same system?

 

[-Logzor]

Excuse my ignorance, in reference to 2 part, what is it exactly? Can a dosing pump and Calk reactor be used same system?

two-part is what you'll be dosing with your new pump, it's the solution for dosing alkalinity and calcium and magnesium (3 part). Some people also run kalk reactors but not calcium reactors.

 

[SaltyTan]

Thanks Logzor, appreciate the education. I have been using the RED SEA program and figured dosing each element as my uptake MG, AlK, CA per day. After reading the benefits of the Kalk reactor this will be an experiment. Using the 3 stage pump each element should be dosed accordingly. Just dial in the amount spread out through the day, I can assume. If not this is very educatng thread to learn from.

 

[duke4130]

What is the impact on pH of Dosing vs. Calcium Reactor?

My PH stays between 8-8.2 like it is supposed to do. I found a nice trick, basically PH drops because of the introduction of C02 into water depleting oxygen and turning the water acidic enough to melt the media as everyone knows. Most of the time this is transferred into your system if it is introduced incorrectly in your drip location and drops the PH in your system. You need to find a way to have the c02 gas off before it affects your system. I have it dripping in right before my refugium in reasonably higher flow area. Plants feed off of C02 so they consume all the excess c02 produced by the reactor and that helps keep my ph steady in the system. It makes the macros in my fuge grow like crazy which also has its other benefits.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What is the impact on pH of Dosing vs. Calcium Reactor?

CaCO3/CO2 reactors always tend to lower tank pH, but how efficiently they use the CO2 that is added will determine how much it is dropped. A second CaCO3 chamber, for example can reduce the pH drop, as will slower flow.

Two part systems can be made to raise pH, be neutral, or have a tiny pH lowering effect. Almost all commercial two parts use the pH raising recipes because it can be more concentrated and most people can benefit from that effect. The few that do not, such as B-ionic Bicarbonate and my DIY Recipe with unbaked baking soda can be used to have little or no pH boost, if desired.

 

[SteelerMike]

In hindsight, if I had used an electronic regulator for the ca rx, I probably would have been able to keep parameters more steady and might not ever have made the switch to dosing.

I use a calcium reactor and had many of the same issues you described. I switched to an electronic regulator (the aquarium plants carbon doser) and it has made a world of difference. They are expensive but it was well worth the money

 

[Budman's Corals]

No I am using an RKL with SL2 as my ph monitor. It's fine nothing went bad in my system. I just tested and dosed according to get everything back up to spec. My point was, that if something does go wrong then you have your fail safe with the controlled tip.

Beautiful tank by the way!!!

THANKS
You are correct.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Excuse my ignorance, in reference to 2 part, what is it exactly? Can a dosing pump and Calk reactor be used same system?

Yes, they can be used together.

A two/three part system is a balanced additive method that uses one bottle with calcium in it, one with alkalinity, and then either a third with magnesium, or it is in the calcium bottle. They can be commercial (like B-ionic from ESV) or DIY.

The beauty of such a system is that if you dose both parts equally to maintain alkalinity, it will generally keep calcium and alkalinity in balance (like a CaCO3/CO2 reactor does), and, if properly designed, won't impact the ratios of other ions such as chloride and sulfate the way adding calcium chloride alone could.

 

[Budman's Corals]

My PH stays between 8-8.2 like it is supposed to do. I found a nice trick, basically PH drops because of the introduction of C02 into water depleting oxygen and turning the water acidic enough to melt the media as everyone knows. Most of the time this is transferred into your system if it is introduced incorrectly in your drip location and drops the PH in your system. You need to find a way to have the c02 gas off before it affects your system. I have it dripping in right before my refugium in reasonably higher flow area. Plants feed off of C02 so they consume all the excess c02 produced by the reactor and that helps keep my ph steady in the system. It makes the macros in my fuge grow like crazy which also has its other benefits.

So cheato would like this extra co2 correct?

 

[duke4130]

So cheato would like this extra co2 correct?

Yes that is correct!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So cheato would like this extra co2 correct?

I don't know if chaeto specifically likes lower pH, but some macroalgae do get CO2 as dissolved CO2 and hence may prefer lower pH where there is more dissolved CO2 present.

But some macroalgae get their CO2 from bicarbonate in the water, and so the pH doesn't matter much for them.

But, they all do use CO2 when they photosynthesize, as do corals.

 

[Greenstreet.1]

Dosing pumps for I. Brs 1.1ml cal and alk

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So cheato would like this extra co2 correct?

So I looked up some data I had in this article:

Photosynthesis and the Reef Aquarium, Part I: Carbon Sources by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

In it, I show that chaeto photosynthesiozes 75% as well at pH 8.7 (where there is much less free CO2) than at pH 8.1 (where there is relatively more).

So it may help a bit in chaeto growth, but it is not a huge factor.

from it:

Table 1. Relative rates of photosynthesis19 in seawater (measured by oxygen evolution) at pH 8.7 relative to pH 8.0. A value of 100 means that the rates were the same, and values below 100 indicate less photosynthesis at pH 8.7.

 

[Budman's Corals]

Wow Thanks Randy.... Great stuff!!!

 

[EW_Fish]

I am dosing 2 part. cal is dripped from a bag and alk from doser