Hal3134
Active Member
Geo was having a Black Friday sale 10% off. He only has sales then and sometimes for the 4th of July, and I just received some birthday money, so I bought a CR624. It holds 16 lbs of media and is rated for tanks 200-400 gallons. My tank is 250g. For at least the last 10 years I had been planning/hoping to get a Ca reactor eventually, and our finances are finally at a place where we can afford one.
I had been using Randy’s 3 part Ca, alk, Mg, solutions that I manually dosed. While this worked great, I had to remember to test regularly and dose accordingly. This meant my dosing was anywhere from once a week to once a month depending on other factors in my life. Side note: my tank had been a death sentence for corals until I realized that I needed to weekly test Ca, alk. Mg, nitrate, and phosphate. Once I started doing that, and then treating my high nitrates and phosphates and low Ca, alk, and Mg, amazingly my corals started to survive, then grow. Doh! One of my sps colonies is the size of a football now.
After doing a little research I also commissioned Alanle to build me a custom dual stage CO2 regulator with industrial grade parts. By getting a dual stage it will prevent the end-of-tank CO2 dump. It is a little pricey but worth it knowing that the bubble count won’t drift over time and the regulator will last for years and years. In contrast, Geo said it‘s common for typical CO2 hobbyist regulators to die in 1-4 years.
On Geo’s recommendation I will buy an Ecotech Versa peristalic pump to feed the Ca reactor. It will be nice to have Wi-Fi control over it and I already have 3 vortech, so it’ll all be accessible on the Mobius app. As I’ve aged I’ve come to dislike having multiple apps for multiple things. I pay a little more sometimes to keep everything in the same ecosystem, but there are some things that are worth the extra money to me, and this is one of them.
I’m looking forward to stabilizing my alk. When I approached my wife to get budget approval for all this she said if it means my corals will stop dieing then go ahead. I fantasize that now I will be able to grow and frag my corals and eventually cover the cost of the reactor with frag sales. It’s likely wishful thinking, or at least the payback period will be unreasonably long.
I’m still reeling from the sticker shock, as we are pretty conservative with our expenses and this is a huge outlay, but I’m so much looking forward to automating this part of my tank.
I had been using Randy’s 3 part Ca, alk, Mg, solutions that I manually dosed. While this worked great, I had to remember to test regularly and dose accordingly. This meant my dosing was anywhere from once a week to once a month depending on other factors in my life. Side note: my tank had been a death sentence for corals until I realized that I needed to weekly test Ca, alk. Mg, nitrate, and phosphate. Once I started doing that, and then treating my high nitrates and phosphates and low Ca, alk, and Mg, amazingly my corals started to survive, then grow. Doh! One of my sps colonies is the size of a football now.
After doing a little research I also commissioned Alanle to build me a custom dual stage CO2 regulator with industrial grade parts. By getting a dual stage it will prevent the end-of-tank CO2 dump. It is a little pricey but worth it knowing that the bubble count won’t drift over time and the regulator will last for years and years. In contrast, Geo said it‘s common for typical CO2 hobbyist regulators to die in 1-4 years.
On Geo’s recommendation I will buy an Ecotech Versa peristalic pump to feed the Ca reactor. It will be nice to have Wi-Fi control over it and I already have 3 vortech, so it’ll all be accessible on the Mobius app. As I’ve aged I’ve come to dislike having multiple apps for multiple things. I pay a little more sometimes to keep everything in the same ecosystem, but there are some things that are worth the extra money to me, and this is one of them.
I’m looking forward to stabilizing my alk. When I approached my wife to get budget approval for all this she said if it means my corals will stop dieing then go ahead. I fantasize that now I will be able to grow and frag my corals and eventually cover the cost of the reactor with frag sales. It’s likely wishful thinking, or at least the payback period will be unreasonably long.
I’m still reeling from the sticker shock, as we are pretty conservative with our expenses and this is a huge outlay, but I’m so much looking forward to automating this part of my tank.
