Since I have only been in the saltwater hobby for about a year I hear alot about them but not real sure what they do and what the benefits are. So to help me understand, here are a few questions. What are the advantages of calcium and kalkwasser reactor's? If they are used and function correctly there must be an advantage to them or they wouldn't be used, what is it? and if they malfunction or are used incorrectly reef catastrophe's are possible if not deffinate? So is the advantage worth the risk?
reactor's
- Thread starter rnhrtfan
- Start date
firefish2020
New member
Yes, the advantage is well worth the risk. I have had more than several meltdowns in the past 2 years and have learned a great deal as to what goes wrong, how to fix it, and how to prevent it in the future. However there is no better way to get enough calcium in a reef system especially SPS than to run 1 or both reactors IMO. You can dose a 2 part additive but in time your animals will require far more Calcium than 2 part will be able to keep up with.
Do you need a reactor? If so what kind?
Good question, only you know the answer to that question though. Do you have or plan to have a lot of stony coral like SPS, or LPS? If so then yes you will likely have to invest in a reactor one day. You can begin your system with a few LPS or SPS and you can add calcium manually for a while. If all is going well and your coral are growing, usually about 6 month to a year in you will begin to notice something happening. It takes more and more calcium additive to keep your Ca to the "normal level." That's how balance works, your coral are used to a set amount of pH, Alk, Ca etc and they require more and more.
You can start off with a Kalk reactor, they are a bit less expensive and they maintain the Ca pretty well in a lightly stocked system. They work by stiring Kalkwaser or lime mixing with fresh top off water and injecting into the system. This has serious dangers. If however you decide to keep more variety of stonies you will have no choice but to add a suplimental reactor in this case a Co2 Ca reactor. A calcium reactor works buy lowering the pH in the reactors chamber to dissolve a media and releasing, you guessed it calcium.
If you have a seriously stocked system like Rogers tank, you need both reactors working in conjunction to maintain the uptake. Use every concievabel saftey precaution when dealing with both reactors. Solenoids to shut off the Co2 tank on power outages, pH controllers on both Kalk and C02 Ca Reactors.
More on this later....
Phil feel free to fill in some blanks.
Do you need a reactor? If so what kind?
Good question, only you know the answer to that question though. Do you have or plan to have a lot of stony coral like SPS, or LPS? If so then yes you will likely have to invest in a reactor one day. You can begin your system with a few LPS or SPS and you can add calcium manually for a while. If all is going well and your coral are growing, usually about 6 month to a year in you will begin to notice something happening. It takes more and more calcium additive to keep your Ca to the "normal level." That's how balance works, your coral are used to a set amount of pH, Alk, Ca etc and they require more and more.
You can start off with a Kalk reactor, they are a bit less expensive and they maintain the Ca pretty well in a lightly stocked system. They work by stiring Kalkwaser or lime mixing with fresh top off water and injecting into the system. This has serious dangers. If however you decide to keep more variety of stonies you will have no choice but to add a suplimental reactor in this case a Co2 Ca reactor. A calcium reactor works buy lowering the pH in the reactors chamber to dissolve a media and releasing, you guessed it calcium.
If you have a seriously stocked system like Rogers tank, you need both reactors working in conjunction to maintain the uptake. Use every concievabel saftey precaution when dealing with both reactors. Solenoids to shut off the Co2 tank on power outages, pH controllers on both Kalk and C02 Ca Reactors.
More on this later....
Phil feel free to fill in some blanks.
Last edited:
firefish2020
New member
When reactors go bad
When reactors go bad
What happens if something goes wrong? That depends. In my personal experience I have had kalk reactors to breach and spill massive amounts of Kalk into the system. This raises your pH a lot in my case(s) 9-10 and that is deadly to coral and fish. If this happens you need to drop the pH as fast as possible. from what I have experienced I would say you have a window of about 1 - 1.5 hours before permanent damage is done. Act fast enough and you can save your live stock.
What we did in the first case was add vinegar , although it works the fastest, I decided against this method. As Amy reminded me vinegar will feed bacteria (doh). So I instead began to add pure seltzer water. This is Co2 and it took about 8 bottles to lower the pH to 8.5 this is the safe zone. Later I would learn that opening the bottles under water slowly released even more Co2 into the system and lowered the pH faster.
I had an opportunity recently at the shop to test that theory but the shop tank had been to high for to long and damage was mostly unrecoverable. All but the hardiest of softies and one LPS managed to get out alive. It worked but took 3 hours to lower.
Several days later a similar incident would take place again at my home! This time I acted within the one hour period and survival rate was 100%! Within a week another breach this time on the new coral prop and holding system would result in the worst loss yet due to a breach and take over 10 bottles of seltzer to stabilize the pH.
The rules so far is this: Breaches happen at night LOL
They also result from ATOs (auto top off units) that dump to much water in to fast. This was in my cases because of a skimmer pulling out to much water (overflowing).
The solution-Use a pH controller in conjunction with your ATO unit. This way if the pH begins to rise the ATO will be switched off and save your system from disaster. This is the only way I will run a kalk reactor from this point on. They are a great tool but safety precautions should never be overlooked on them.
When reactors go bad
What happens if something goes wrong? That depends. In my personal experience I have had kalk reactors to breach and spill massive amounts of Kalk into the system. This raises your pH a lot in my case(s) 9-10 and that is deadly to coral and fish. If this happens you need to drop the pH as fast as possible. from what I have experienced I would say you have a window of about 1 - 1.5 hours before permanent damage is done. Act fast enough and you can save your live stock.
What we did in the first case was add vinegar , although it works the fastest, I decided against this method. As Amy reminded me vinegar will feed bacteria (doh). So I instead began to add pure seltzer water. This is Co2 and it took about 8 bottles to lower the pH to 8.5 this is the safe zone. Later I would learn that opening the bottles under water slowly released even more Co2 into the system and lowered the pH faster.
I had an opportunity recently at the shop to test that theory but the shop tank had been to high for to long and damage was mostly unrecoverable. All but the hardiest of softies and one LPS managed to get out alive. It worked but took 3 hours to lower.
Several days later a similar incident would take place again at my home! This time I acted within the one hour period and survival rate was 100%! Within a week another breach this time on the new coral prop and holding system would result in the worst loss yet due to a breach and take over 10 bottles of seltzer to stabilize the pH.
The rules so far is this: Breaches happen at night LOL
They also result from ATOs (auto top off units) that dump to much water in to fast. This was in my cases because of a skimmer pulling out to much water (overflowing).
The solution-Use a pH controller in conjunction with your ATO unit. This way if the pH begins to rise the ATO will be switched off and save your system from disaster. This is the only way I will run a kalk reactor from this point on. They are a great tool but safety precautions should never be overlooked on them.
coralreefer
No Pistons
OUCH Ron I didn't know your tank got nuked again 
A few drawbacks to a calcium reactor.
Can cause low ph. That's another reason a lot of people use both reactors together. Mine's a dual chamber which supposedly minimizes the pH drop.
Some reactor medias release phosphates as they dissolve.
If you lower the pH in the reactor chamber too low you can melt the media.
Once dialed in they work extremely well but don't get lazy and forget to test. I didn't realize the CO2 bottle was low and dropped my alk to 6 :rolleye1: Also your demand can change over time so it will occasionally have to be adjusted.
Expensive.
Biggest benefit
Once dialed in they work extremely well
Adds alk too
A few drawbacks to a calcium reactor.
Can cause low ph. That's another reason a lot of people use both reactors together. Mine's a dual chamber which supposedly minimizes the pH drop.
Some reactor medias release phosphates as they dissolve.
If you lower the pH in the reactor chamber too low you can melt the media.
Once dialed in they work extremely well but don't get lazy and forget to test. I didn't realize the CO2 bottle was low and dropped my alk to 6 :rolleye1: Also your demand can change over time so it will occasionally have to be adjusted.
Expensive.
Biggest benefit
Once dialed in they work extremely well
firefish2020
New member
Yep I got hit again by the Kalk fairy LOL. This time I caught it in time and minimized damage. Everything looks good. It was so cloudy I had to remember where coral was to pull stuff out though. That was fun.
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