A great dilemma to have!!! How do you satisfy your CA requirements? I need to know

Serioussnaps

Serioussnaps

New member
How is everyone? I am in a dilemma.(life could be a whole lot worse, but actually it is a great dilemma to have)

Nautilus II by innovative aquatics or a CA reactor


My Sps tank will be up and running in exactly 3 weeks and 2 days. I need to know if any of you SPS keepers that have had there tanks thrive and become beautiful run a Nautilus II. here is the link to the equipment---

http://www.innovativeaquatics.com/

and a thread related to it

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=294913&perpage=25&pagenumber=3

Who uses it? Do you wish you had a CA reactor? Do you have both? if you do what would you recommend?

Can you keep your CA and alk in line and perfectly constant at all times with this unit?(im a stickler for stability)

Should i get a CA reactor instead?

Just trying to spark brainstorming and have many more questions, just want to see where you lead me.


Lead my Im blind...
 
Got pics of your CA reactor or Nautilus II set ups and/or/with tank pics.....

by the way if you have the nautilus II do you use the two channel part for a 2 part solution or do you run Kalk? Can you keep up with your tanks requirments?
 
I currently dose 2 part by hand. I have been going back and forth in my head about wether I should go with a pump to dose my DIY 2 part, or a CA reactor.

It seems that even with a dosing pump there would be some fluxuation between just before dosing, and just after.

But I don't like the idea of the C02 on the reactor either, I have enough PH problems as it is.

Whiskey
 
You don't say [or I missed] how large your tank is. I have a 52 crammed with corals and a clam, and my daily demand is 2 heaping tsp calcium, and about that of buffer. So I lace my topoff water with enough buffer to deliver that per day in the topoff, and hand-add calcium. I use Kent Buffer and Kent Turbo Calcium, both dry, mixed in a measuring cup.
This has become dead-on steady, so I have no trepidation about leaving my tank-sitter with instructions to add 2 heaping a day totally blind and load my ro/di bucket with 10 heaping of buffer when refilling. So far, life is good.
 
The tank that one of these units will be implemented on is a 55g. want to do a small SPS tank(not trying to do a huge one yet)
 
I dont really want to do the hand dosing. I am striving for perfect stability and i think the only way to do this is some kind of steady dripping/dosing. The thing is i Know that once the tank is crammed full of acros, montis, clams... that no matter how much Kalk i dose it may not be enough, even in a 55g(u can only dose so much Kalk, without swinging your ph) I have gallons of C-balance, which i could use to help make up for the shortcomings of a kalk dosing system like the nautilus, albeit it will take some time for a tank to become so crowded that this method wont be able to keep up. I mean you need lots of calcium requirements. Do you think switching from IO salt to IO Reef Crystals will significantly help with this demand as i think the CA content in IO is somewhere between 350ppm-370ppm and RC is like 400-450 ppm of CA. Also, would a CA reactor make all this a moot point?
 
I've been dosing limewater for a few year's now with an aqualifter pump. No problem's or failures yet. Then I have a calcium reactor to make up the difference.
 
Or the best of both worlds huh. I like the idea of Kalk because all of the other benefits. Why not dose it with your automatic top off for RO/DI anyways...the question really is i guess----------------------------How much livestock could i support? A chocked full 55g tank???
 
Start with Oceanic salt. Your Ca will stay up just because of that alone. Then you can dose more when necessary. My Ca in a heavily laden sps tank is a tad over 500, without dosing anything.
 
snaps ...you keep mentioning kalk used with the doser and I think if you want a complete solution with dosing pumps you need to dose a 2 or better yet 3 (magnesium) part solution. Kalk has limitations.....these do not.
 
I use the same dosing pump you linked to, although I just bought one off ebay modded it myself. It's probably the best thing I ever did for my tank. I run a 24/7 drip through a DIY kalk "reactor" that I can adjust to keep up with my topoff needs (~1g/day).

If I had the cash I would probably get a Ca reactor too for convenience, but I think I would still run the dosing pump with kalk. Ca rx are better at maintaining alk than kalk, but kalk is better at maintaining Ca.

Most tanks use Alk at a slightly higher rate than Ca so I do have to bump up the alk every once in a while, but Ca remains solid at 400 with this setup. When everything grows in I will probably have to find a solution to keep up with demand, but for now it works well.


SWfan,
How are you maintaining alkalinity?
 
Ok....

-The oceanic suggestion---i hate that product..no offense to what your doing, but just a personal preference. Also, would never want my CA to be 500 ppm in an Sps tank(ALk is prolly very low by the way, i want a balance)

-DVan, hows it going(whats up with the coloring after SLR drop) The nautilus is a 2 channel unit meaning if you get the proper tubing you can run the 2 part solutions like cbalance(my favorite).. this is full of Mg..i think right at NSW and keeps alk in line too....I didnt mind using it in an LPS tank i had a year back(sold all of em)But i want to use the nautilus as my top off unit as well because it can keep salinity constant and never have to worry about overflowing the tank with rO and killing coral or overflowing into living room and ruining the furniture.Can dose kalk through the top off water as long as the reservoir is sealed and thus efficacy of kalk maintained.

shelburn....i figured this would be one of my best purchases as well if i choose to make it...like how i can dose CA and maintain constant salinity with the reliability of a medical/peristalic pump that is used for dosing sick people. You can as i said above use likea 5g bucket of kalk mix and RO to do this so long as you keep it sealed..
Also, shelburn, cant you just use like a Seachem buffer to keep up with your ALK while dosing kalk for the CA...have you done this ... is it working...is your ALK out of whack...
right now i dont have the dough for it(just bought a TEK fix, tunze stream, new ro/di unit...Asm G3...just cant afford both at the moment)with i could and this would be moot
--guess i could take your route and worry about it when my tank becomes chocked full and still have the nautilus for reliable top off to a tee, with some kalk back up for ph benefits and what not...yeah you can just dose MG and weekly water changes with a good salt(not oceanic...lol)like TM or RC or IO) really helps magnesium


-Also, i am shocked all of these Reefers dont know about the nautilus or choose not to use it(its so fricking brilliant)matter a fact my mind is made up to get one, and worry about my demand for CA/AlK when i have Acros coming out of my ears
 
Alk isn't really a problem. It just slowly drifts downward over the course of a few weeks. A little baking soda every once in a while and you're set.

If you can solder and you want to save even more cash, search for the Kangaroo 324 or 224 dosing pump on ebay ( I got mine for $30). Same pump as the nautilus, but unmodified. There is a simple mod you can do so it works for our purposes. If you take that route, I can dig up the mod link.
 
Nah, I am a horrible DIY..cant even begin to fathom sodering....i appreciate it though.......i think im gonna roll with the Nautilus II or Nautilus 3A....i think ill always have a use for em and it seems so simple....even if i dont end up using KALK or fullfilling my CA and ALK needs it will always be a great top off unit and still cheaper and more reliable than all the other units.....

ill let everyone know with pics in a few months how the topoffwasser is going
 
another Calcium Reactor user here. I also use Oceanic and IO 70/30 no problems here with Ca or Alk, no need to add anything. CA is 460 and alk is 9.6 I have a large load of sps.
 
550 gallon?....that would be 10 times the size of the SPS reef I am starting...but sounds good...you use the oceanic to save money because you have such a large system?? since i am only running a 55g with a 20g sump and 30 g fuge i dont really see the need to skimp the salt...but whatever works...i believe the CA reactor will give me room to move in a bigger tank
 
Yes my total system is 675. I use the Oceanic for the ca and mag levels, and the IO for the alk level only. I have been using Oceanic for close to 2 yrs. But decided to lower the high ca and up the alk by using IO along with it. I have had great results using this method, all my acros love it! I have great color and growth! I also have to use a ca reactor to help hold all the levels since the demand is so high.

I wouldn't say any salt is cheap, by the time you pay shipping Oceanic runs $39 before shipping. But when you change 100 gals a month it all gets expensive. But having a large tank is well worth the expense. 10L x 36W x 29T.

I recently upgraded from a 225 to the 550 3 mos ago.
 
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