Maintaining corals without any reactors?

[Sgt Jonny Cat]

Hi all, I am in the beginning stages of learning how to start growing corals in my 55 gal. tank. I do not have the room or $ for reactors to maintain calcium/Alk etc. Are there any success stories of people dosing their corals by hand? If so are there opinions on t his issue??

 

[nlgill13]

yes, many people dose alk and calcium to maintain balanced levels. Many people dose 2-part solutions, however, it can be a pain to do this every day to keep your levels in check. One way to help with this is to set your alk, calc, and mag levels with 2-part and then run a kalk drip or kalk in you top off water. With this setup you don't need to dose 2-part everyday because the kalk will help hold the levels stable (well hopefully, you might have to dose 2part once a week).

 

[leveldrummer]

It is absolutely possible and not hard at all to maintain a tank with no fancy equipment, you can have a box with water, light and a few power heads if thats really all you can get together. You can dose by hand, or you can just do water changes if your corals dont use up much trace elements, the only way to figure out what they use is to test.

 

[Crooked Reef]

Mine is 65 gallons and I don't have any reactors. The consensus I read when I was considering reactors was anything under a 75 to 90 gallon it was unnecessary unless you have an sps dominated tank. Let's face it though, by the time your tank is so dominated with sps that you have a need for a reactor, you will already know you need one. Plus you will have spent so much on lights that the reactors will seem like an afterthought. Kind of like putting snails in your tank when your hermits eat them. If you want to save money look up using soda ash and mrs. Wages pickling lime for supplementation.

 

[leveldrummer]

I was adding pickling lime (kalk) to my top off water, I recentely setup a kalk dripper that I set it and it lasts a day or two before needing to be refilled. its a very simple drip system I made for less then 15 bucks if your interested in it, it drips kalk which replaces calcium and alk slowly and steadily, you adjust how much by how fast it drips. its really simple.

 

[Crooked Reef]

I would be but I don't have any sps and only a couple of lps. My levels stay pretty good at the moment. I may have to dose a small dose once a week max.

 

[banjowalker]

I was adding pickling lime (kalk) to my top off water, I recentely setup a kalk dripper that I set it and it lasts a day or two before needing to be refilled. its a very simple drip system I made for less then 15 bucks if your interested in it, it drips kalk which replaces calcium and alk slowly and steadily, you adjust how much by how fast it drips. its really simple.

I would like to see that as I am a diy type myself. Make a thread with pics and point me in the right direction

 

[explorer07]

Yes since getting my mag, ph and calcium im check I have used kalk in my ato and have seen amazing results as well as good coraline algea. But now with stable mag I have a bit of cyano growth but im about to but that crap back in the stone age.

 

[Sk8r]

You really don't need a reactor until your size tops 100 g...with a lot of stony coral.
Just dropping kalk powder into your topoff reservoir and stirring it once is sufficient. The larger the reservoir, the more time it will hold out, but you can go on adding water and kalk to it for months without having to completely readjust your tank chemistry.

The recipe is, for a very light coral load (I'd figure less than 20 heads), 1 teaspoon for a gallon of ro/di; for a larger load, 2 teaspoons. And you need evaporation to be a healthy rate to keep the kalkwater flowing in at a good rate.

 

[Paul B]

My 100 gallon uses no reactors and some of the corals are 10 years old. I make my own two part out of ice melter and baking soda which I add about once a week (if I remember.)
No problems yet and the corals are growing fine.
Especially my Hammer

 

[Spar]

my 450g mixed reef (mostly SPS) is solely 2-part and, at least for me, has been much simpler to keep parameters in check than when I ran a calcium reactor. if you get a good quality peristaltic pump (one for each of calcium and alk), then all you need to do is run it hourly and fine-tune the amount of time until it is set. i haven't had to readjust the dosing time for over a year now. due to my tank volume I do have to mix new 2g batches of 2-part every 3 weeks or so, which is annoying, but smaller tanks should be good to go for a long time.

reactors have a ton of components that all have to behave in order for things to stay at the right dosing levels.

KISS is my motto.

 

[AntiSatan]

Looks like one of those metalic hammer corals.

 

[Crooked Reef]

That's a nice hammer. Wish I had one just like it.

 

[3dees]

I have a 120 gal. with softies and a few lps. I don't dose anything. my tank is always stable and 15 months in and everything is great.

 

[cloak]

FWIW, I had a mixed reef tank for about 9 years without ever dosing. Well, that's not true. I did dose a little Seachem Reef Builder to my top off water, but that was about it. Water changes were performed each week and things looked good. (~15%) I might not have been getting the kind of growth that other people were, but the corals did seem to stick around for awhile. GL.

 

[Teenreefer15]

stay on top of your water changes

 

[Spar]

stay on top of your water changes

+1 as well. i never (well, hardly anyway) even have to dose Magnesium because i keep up water changes, which replenished well. Helps keep Ca/Alk balanced as well, with a little dosing. I do 1% daily water changes.