Calcium reactor or Balling ?

Denadai

Denadai

New member
Hi Guys,

I used to have calcium reactor in my tanks, but I changed to balling a couple of years ago.

I don´t know but looks like the corals grow faster and strong with calcium reactor and I lost just one piece in 4 years with CR.

What do you guys think ? Who changed CR to Balling or Balling to CR and what your thougts about it ?


Best Regards
 
Trying dosing pumps for the big three, its been about a year. I want a calcium reactor again. I am using b ionic. I just believe you get more of what the corals need by using corals to feed corals. :) since switching nothing has been the same. Although I have a different tank so it's not really a perfect comparison. BUT, I do have the same corals.
 
Nothing better than a good calcium reactor when it hits that sweet spot IMO. Set it and forget it for months. Well, keep an eye on it just in case, but once it's dialed in there's nothing to do but watch your corals grow.
 
Yea I loved it, once I upgraded the small pump on my geo 618 it burned through media. I ran run gfo so I never noticed any phosphates. Once we find a new house and get a big tank again there is no other option in my mind. The dosing pumps was just so I could learn something new honestly. Another plus for me was running zeomag!
 
10 years ago I just use CR and I never used Mg....just WC sometimes

When people started to talk about mg, I did a mg test in my friend tank, one of the best SPS sytem around here....mg was 850

I think if you keep mg above 800 is enough.

I just order a GEO 618....back to the CR :uzi:
 
Are you going to use a different pump on it? I had much better results with a pump around 500gph recirculating it.
 
IME I have had better luck with a CA Reactor and Kalk dosing together. I have seen many beautiful and successful tanks using balling and that is what I am currently using.

Seeing someone with so much success keeping SPS asking about this and going back to a CA reactor makes me want to do the same :) Like someone mentioned, once you find the sweet spot there is little adjusting to do.
 
Last edited:
Piper27 said:
Are you going to use a different pump on it? I had much better results with a pump around 500gph recirculating it.
Click to expand...

I never used a GEO, will be my first time

I thought the eheim would be enough......I don´t like the idea to change the pump.....if we need to change the pump, so the GEO is not so good ? If GEO is selling a reactor with a pump that is not enough, so there is a mistake in the project

I bought the GEO because I heard good things about this reactor and because eheim is a reliable pump

Best Regards
 
I would use the Eheim that comes with the GEO.
I don't think you'll be unhappy with the Eheim 1048!!
Wonderful and reliable pump!

Grandis.
 
Great pump, but I just experienced c02 buildup once the reactor was running hard. I had better luck with a 300 gph pump. I also ran the rector at 6.3 to 6.5 so the zeo mag would melt. I probly could have used the 624. Just figured I would say something since I have seen your ability to grow sps well. The really chunky type media worked well for a while but once it got down to just under 3/4 full I was seeing co2 buildup. It was a 210 gallon tank fairly stocked with decent colonies. I am still going to try and afford a geo next time around. The extra 6" of media in the geo 624 is compensated with an extra 100 gph in recirculation.
 
I am using an upgraded 618 with a Eheim 1250 pump bought from e bay. Result are good but having a lot of co2 bubble build up inspite of so many tweaks but no luck. Running arm coarse Media with BPM at 60 and DPM at 50ml/min on a peri pump with reactor oh at 6.30 and 6.50 on controller.
 
Haksar said:
I am using an upgraded 618 with a Eheim 1250 pump bought from e bay. Result are good but having a lot of co2 bubble build up inspite of so many tweaks but no luck. Running arm coarse Media with BPM at 60 and DPM at 50ml/min on a peri pump with reactor oh at 6.30 and 6.50 on controller.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I had but I used a syncra 1.5 which runs at 357gph and it ran great with that pump!
 
I have the gel 624 with the carbon doser regulator I run ph 6.5 to 6.7 with the coarse media .... Should I run it lower like you guys are doing? 6.3 to6.5? I have to use dosing pump also because the rc not enough ?
 
Im a fan of both.I have a90 gallon aga running bionic and a 60 sps coral flat that has a schuran cal reactor and I know for sure the flat is much happier all the time.
 
Brent I only ran it low to get the zeo Mag to work properly. I think coral media melts well at 6.5 -6.7
 
I run mine at 6.5-6.7 melts the media just fine. I'm also running zeo mag and it sit at 1300 and hardly ever do a w/c only 1- 1 1/2 months..
 
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