Switching to calcium reactor from two part

[ReefKeeper64]

This is the only regulator to even look at:
http://www.aquariumplants.com/CarbonDoser_Electronic_Co2_Regulator_p/co2.htm

The rest will just be a waste of money, IMO.

+1 on the aquariumplants.com (AQ) electronic regulator. A TOTM winner local turned me on to these regulators a few months ago and he was right. AQ has the patent on their electronic regulator so you can't buy one like it elsewhere at any price. Pricewise, it isn't all that expensive either. One thing I especially like about my AQ electronic regulator is I can hear the electronic valve open each time it releases a bubble of CO2. It's only a faint sound but it is there. There is a also red status light that goes off telling you it is releasing a bubble as it works. Finally, my reactor has a traditional bubble chamber so that I can see the actual CO2 bubble escape and flow up through a chamber of water as it leaves the regulator and makes its way into my reactor. Once I put it all together I realized it is very easy to use. All in all, I know this regulator is absolutely reliable. It's like a digital Swiss made watch!

 

[kyle1284]

the tipping point

the tipping point

At what point did you find your dosers couldn't keep up? I'm dosing around 200ml a day and still have a fair bit of room with the 1.1's. I've seen a lot of people on this forum talk about those adjustable dosers as well.

once I was hitting 270ml it was getting to the point where i was visiting BRS every other month. To continue to do that would have sent my wife over the edge ($$$) so I purchased the CaRx. One of the dosers failed (ALK) and the ALK dropped significantly when i was out of town causing a loss of a majority of my SPS.
When my family and I go out of town now I have my father look after the tank and let me know if things do not look right.
In the future i would like to get a SL1 for my reef keeper with the NET capabilities so that not only can i control the PH in the CaRx with the Milwaukee controller but if the Milwaukee controller fails and the PH starts to drop the RK will turn off the aquarium plants reg and notify me by e mail and text.

 

[psykobowler]

For me, the purpose of a kalk wasser reactor and ca Rx is to reduce or eliminate the amount of "two part" that I have to spend. Both reactors are enough to maintain calcium but I still add arm and hammer baking soda on occassion just to tweak my alk to around 10.

 

[MammothReefer]

once I was hitting 270ml it was getting to the point where i was visiting BRS every other month. To continue to do that would have sent my wife over the edge ($$$) so I purchased the CaRx. One of the dosers failed (ALK) and the ALK dropped significantly when i was out of town causing a loss of a majority of my SPS.
When my family and I go out of town now I have my father look after the tank and let me know if things do not look right.
In the future i would like to get a SL1 for my reef keeper with the NET capabilities so that not only can i control the PH in the CaRx with the Milwaukee controller but if the Milwaukee controller fails and the PH starts to drop the RK will turn off the aquarium plants reg and notify me by e mail and text.

That sucks your doser failed. I've had some of the drews dosers go bad on me, but I can say the same about carx parts failing as well. Crashed my 500g w/a CaRx failure.

I'm a little confused though as to why you needed to go to BRS every other month? I single 5 gallon bucket of 2 part media will produce 40 gallons of liquid. Which is enough for 560 days at 270m a day or in my case 757 days (over 2 years worth). So it works out to around 100-150 a year depending on if you get it on sale or not from BRS or around 60$ a year if you go with dowflake, and Sodium ash from pool stores which a lot of people on rc do.

 

[kyle1284]

Well if you REALLY must know…my wife sets my reefing budget at 50.00 a month on supplies lol so I could not get the 5 gallon buckets . Dowflake is not available here in Houston,TX... something about it never snowing. They never think about us reefers!!! I take that back it is available but after calling around I would have had to order it in MASSIVE quantities from chemical companies. So that was the reason why I was buying things from them every other month. I tried using the soda ash from the pool warehouses but I would get small algae outbreaks so went back with BRS soda ash. combine that with the 2 different bottles of mag you need and there is where a majority of my monthly budget was going for supplies
I too have heard about CaRx failing but I personally check my drip rate every day when i get home (can never be to careful) and after these conversations I think I am going to try to find a nice needle valve in place of the stock valve for the effluent just as a precaution until I get the SL1. I just think that the SL1 will add that much more peace of mind...

 

[MammothReefer]

Well if you REALLY must know…my wife sets my reefing budget at 50.00 a month on supplies lol so I could not get the 5 gallon buckets . Dowflake is not available here in Houston,TX... something about it never snowing. They never think about us reefers!!! I take that back it is available but after calling around I would have had to order it in MASSIVE quantities from chemical companies. So that was the reason why I was buying things from them every other month. I tried using the soda ash from the pool warehouses but I would get small algae outbreaks so went back with BRS soda ash. combine that with the 2 different bottles of mag you need and there is where a majority of my monthly budget was going for supplies
I too have heard about CaRx failing but I personally check my drip rate every day when i get home (can never be to careful) and after these conversations I think I am going to try to find a nice needle valve in place of the stock valve for the effluent just as a precaution until I get the SL1. I just think that the SL1 will add that much more peace of mind...

Ah thanks, that is good to know. I've been contemplating making the switch from BRS to generic pool supply stuff. I found the soda ash on Amazon for really cheap but like the extra peace of mind I get from buying it from BRS even though a lot of people use generic stuff with out much issue. I wonder if the brand you bought had phosphates in it or something.

>_< $50 a month that is brutal. I would need to figure out some sort of loop hole hehehe.

One day I may give CaRx another go, but there are so many other things I can improve first. I think my #1 priority is increasing volume. At this point I'm dosing 200ml in around 60-70g of total water volume. I ran out of alk by just one day and dropped 5dkh. Since I can't get C02 locally in the past I had issues of running out of c02 over the weekend my tank would crash big time w/out 2+ days of supplementation. If I can increase my volume w/out increasing my bioload I can cut down the daily swings

 

[Der ABT]

a way to add a little safety to a CA RX is to use a dosing pump to control the amount of effluent you add.
if your having ph problems add a second chamber to help use up some of the co2

had mine going strong for a while, only issue i have had has been from a bad PH probe and me being away from the tank while this happened (aka didnt test alk and had it drop for a few weeks)

just like anything, if yuo keep up with maintenance etc the chance of it failing goes down considerably,
if you forget to turn off your 2 part doser...issues just like a ca rx
most of the time its human error every so often its mechanical