What Cal RX media do you use?

[coral reeftank]

Just watched the recent brs episode regarding calcium reactor media and saw that Reborn (what I use) has the highest p04.

I saw my phosphate creep up to .06 from .03 in about 6 weeks time while I was away for school. The tank was maintained as usual with normal feedings and waterchanges except I did not use any gfo during this period. So I’m thinking about switching reactor media on my next refill.

So, what does everyone use? And have you ever had any issues with TLF Reborn?

 

[mdb_talon]

I use Reborn also. Never noticed any increase in phosphate because of it. Having said that I am sure I add a lot more phosphate to the tank than that daily with food (and it gets consumed). Maybe Reborn is adding phosphate and I just dont notice because it goes away anyway. It seems an increase from 0.03 to .06 over a 6 week period would be hard to point at any specific cause cause though.

 

[coral reeftank]

Yea I agree, I can’t exactly blame it on the reborn but the tank had regular maintenance and if anything decreased feedings. Leading me to believe the source of the increase came from my reactor effluent. I’ll test the phosphate directly from the effluent and document my findings.

On another note I believe one of my prior tank crashes was due to my high phosphate. Which I feel can be attributed to my calcium reactor as the system reached .20 which essentially browned out and killed a handful of acros.

 

[X-37B]

Coral bones. I recently switch from manmade. The po4 is running .03 higher than my tank comming from my carx. Its really not an issue, imo.

 

[mfollen]

I recently took my calcium reactor offline as I was having PO4 & ph issues. I tested high enough po4 levels in the effluent from reborn media, enough to raise my systems phosphate.

Whenever I turn it back on, I’m likely not going to use reborn because of the po4 input to the system. Setup may impact that tho.

 

[jda]

It would depend a lot on where it was collected and how much terrestrial organics are on it. It could vary from batch to batch too. I use reborn or ARM (old and the calcite) and I never found it to mess with P any although I am sure that it has a trace in it. I used some ARM natural as a baseline for an experiment and it was very low, but it had some P.

 

[vetteguy53081]

TLF Reborn

 

[TX_Punisher]

Since adding adding my reactor I did notice an increase in p04 especially with ARM media. I recently ran the effluent through GFO and observed a sharp decrease in p04 levels but be careful, p04 dropping too rapidly can bring on rtn. My next experiment will be a small tank filled with arm, rodi, and a small gfo reactor for a few weeks to see if any p04 leaching occurs And to minimize any that could occur once it’s put into use.

 

[Saltyanimals]

Saw the same BRS video and also using Reborn. My phos will creep up above 0.20 unless I do something ie GFO. I do primarily feed pellets (TDO, NLS) which may be the contributor in my otherwise fish stocked 180ed mixed reef. I've lost several SPS and maybe it is due to the phos levels or other reasons, but if we're in the spirit of keeping phos on the lower side...why not nip it everywhere you can. So if you can't stop feeding pellets like I cannot stop, then at least save on the other potential PO4 source with Reborn media.

I'm freshly loaded up with CaRX media so will be at least a year before I have to replace and way too much effort to do it before it's consumed. So will let it play out to see if I can continue to manage PO4 with GFO instead of throwing out all reborn. Hopefully by 2023 we'll have a better CaRX media alternative and/or just better batches available.

ARM looks like a good alternative.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

When I put my ACR CaRx online along with a powered secondary chamber (Geo 618), both filled with the original TLF Reborn media, I found my phosphates increased to > 0.60 ppm. At the time I attributed it to my choice of feeding and used LaCl to pull the phosphates back down to 0.15 ppm. I now suspect that the fresh media may have played a large part of the increase in phosphates. When I get to point of having to add fresh media again, I will know for sure if I see a bump in phosphates.

For the moment, I am dosing daily ammonium additions to the tank, and those are keeping phosphates on the low side. so a bit more phosphates would not be unwelcome at this point.

 

[jda]

You can soak media in a cup full of saltwater with a bit of flow. If there is phosphates bound to the media, they will unbind into the water which you can then test.

Like use a 32 ounce container with some fresh saltwater and swirl it around a few times a day for a few days and see what happens with the test.

I did this test a long time ago and there was some phosphate from ARM in some water that ended up being like .00001 in a 180 tank if you did the math of the dilution and amount of ARM needed. ...so literally just a trace and within the limit of the error for the Hannah, as well.

 

[Saltyanimals]

Revisiting this thread to check for an update on some of the more recent media and elevated Phos. My CaRX media consumption seems to be increase so I expecting to have to refill in the next couple months.

I continue to have high Phos and that's largely because of 25+ fish in a 180 and feeding pellets. Starting GFO again to help, but rather minimize Phos contributors as much as possible. I tuned my CaRX to drip slower yet more potent effluent. This has helped my tank pH, but doesn't solve the potentially high pH contributor from the CaRX media. Basically saving anywhere I can so I'm revisiting to see more recent experiences with media.

What is perfect media? lol Low Phos output. Higher pH melting point to reduce Co2 usage and overall media consumption.

 

[Smite]

I've mostly struggled with too low of phosphate levels in my tank. I prefer reborn media. I finally ran out of my hoard of the older larger style reborn and had to refill with the smaller stuff. I do recall reading that people were complaining about small shells in the new stuff, could be part of it? I feel it melts at a higher ph value than ARM xtra corse did for me and that helps maintain a higher ph in my display. So I'll be sticking with it for now.

Saltyanimals I think jda pointed out how little ARM media will actually affect a 180g tank. I'm not sure how much worse reborn is but seems like it would have to be pretty potent to throw off a large tank volume.