Too Dose or to Reactor??? What to do!

[adamhill]

A little background first"¦ I have an 80 gallon heavily stocked SPS reef tank. I have been in the reef hobby many years and even work part time at a LFS in Memphis TN. You could say I am a really extreme hobbyist, at least that is what I tell people when they ask why I work 7 days a week for a fraction of what I make at "œthe real job".

For the most part everything is doing very well and it is growing quite nicely, some more than others, but overall I am happy with it. The only real issue I have with the current situation I am is dosing. When I have to leave to go out of town it gets hard to keep the schedule going and I always end up with some sort of issue when it is left unattended by me. My wife and other family try to help and they do great but there is too much room for error and I have had some horrible losses in that past. My system rapidly consumes Alk and one day or even 12 hours and we have issues. Additionally, it would be nice not to have to do this daily and not depend on me totally.

At this time I am dosing 35-50 ML of Reef Fusion 2 and 20-30 ML of Calcification daily. I do this once daily in the morning (I know that I should split it up). I also add Ions when the Mg falls below 1300. All chemicals used are Seachem. I check every few days for chemical accuracy at different times of the day and of course the Alk varies throughout the day depending on when tested. I know that I need to (and want to) level it out as best I can"¦

This leads me to my present internal debate"¦ Do I buy a Calc reactor or a dosing pump? I am looking at a GHL ProfiLux doser or a Reef Octopus CR 140. I have debated this many times with as many people as I can at the LFS and just wanted to reach out here and get some opinions"¦ I have heard many reasons for each different method including Kalk reactors etc. I am looking for the safest most accurate method possible.

I would love to hear your ideas and opinions and some reasons for your choice if anyone could find the time to respond. Thanks!

 

[t4zalews]

I'd say for your size tank, I'd just stick with dosing pumps. Calc Reactors have a a learning curve and some people have killed their whole tanks. Dosing pumps are pretty safe as they add the liquid slowly. Unfortunately, if you tank has a very large ca/alk demand, its hard for the doser to keep up, the reactor would be a better choice.

 

[danil]

I think for 50ml Calc reactor is overkill. I'm dosing close to 200ml and no issues just need to have bigger containers for two parts. Here on the forum I've seen many people switched to 2parts from Calc reactors with statement '..never again!'. I would invest in few dosing pumps with timers or/and controller if you dont have one.

 

[MammothReefer]

Dosing pumps, is the way to go imop. I ran them them on my 500g system which was about 160ml a day, and I'm running them now on my 65+15 system which is 95% sps. I'm dosing 36.6ml a day. Packed from edge to edge with mostly frags but about a dozen medium sized pieces. BRS is cheap enough, 1 gallon jug is 3785ml, so it lasts me over 3 months per gallon, and I've been using the same order of 2 part now since September of last year. So cost wise for a tank our size. It's cheaper to run 2 part then just electricity for the pumps to run a calcium reactor.

In terms of keeping up with a large demand with dosing pumps, bubble magus can dose up to 1999ml. If you need more then that you can get a BRS 50ml per minute doser, and dose up to 72,000ml a day ha.

 

[adamhill]

Thanks... That helps a lot! I get a lot of pressure for Calc Reactors from all of the guys at the store... It seems that the owner has done nothing but push everyone into reactors but I see people come in all the time where one, either Ca, Alk, or Mg is out of line and they can't get it right with the reactor. 2 out of 3 will be thru the roof but the other will be too low and no matter how much they play with the bubble counts it won't get right. My advice is always kill the reactor and dose the low, then restart reactor and see what happens.

I would still love to hear some other opinions...

 

[miwoodar]

Dosing pumps, is the way to go imop.

I'm with you. I've used kalk, CaX, and 2 part...dosing pumps with DIY 2 part is a piece of cake. My current setup can run for ~60+ days w/o touching it. Refills take maybe 10 minutes.

 

[reefinder]

man I wish my 100g would use a gallon every three months. I burn through drew's alkalinity in less than three weeks per gallon. but I love dosing pumps, I will never look back.

 

[MammothReefer]

man I wish my 100g would use a gallon every three months. I burn through drew's alkalinity in less than three weeks per gallon. but I love dosing pumps, I will never look back.

How much are you dosing, what are you keeping your alk at? How packed is your tank?! When I trying to get everything dialed in I was up to 90ml a day at one point. I took a while for things to settle to where they are at.

 

[power boat jim]

I will vote for the reactor. Once its set up and running there really isnt anything else to do. It cost 12.00 bucks every 18 months for Co2 and maybe $10.00 a year in media. It runs for months with no attention at all. Just a quick pH check on the outflow once in awhile to make sure all is well.

 

[miwoodar]

I too liked my reactor and had a lot of success with it. My experience was more like ~$30/year for media and 2x/year for bottle refills for a heavily stocked SPS 65. My biggest frustration was a perpetually clogging needle valve. I got into the habit of tapping the valve most days when I got home from work. The solution would have been to pair it with a dosing pump instead of feeding it off of the return pump.

 

[miwoodar]

man I wish my 100g would use a gallon every three months. I burn through drew's alkalinity in less than three weeks per gallon. but I love dosing pumps, I will never look back.

I'm assuming you're using recipe B as ~2ml/gal/day would get you to 19 days per gallon. Switching to recipe A would get you to 38 days. Using recipe A with 2.5 gallon containers would yield 95 days/batch.

 

[power boat jim]

I too liked my reactor and had a lot of success with it. My experience was more like ~$30/year for media and 2x/year for bottle refills for a heavily stocked SPS 65. My biggest frustration was a perpetually clogging needle valve. I got into the habit of tapping the valve most days when I got home from work. The solution would have been to pair it with a dosing pump instead of feeding it off of the return pump.

I use a 15 lb cylinder that runs a looong time before it needs to be replaced. I have not the the valve assembly apart in the 8 years I had this thing. It is easily the most bullit proof piece of equipment I have owned yet. I did the dosing thing before the reactor but with a 180 it got to be too much. Either way works I just prefer the set and forget mentality of the reactor.

 

[MammothReefer]

I will vote for the reactor. Once its set up and running there really isnt anything else to do. It cost 12.00 bucks every 18 months for Co2 and maybe $10.00 a year in media. It runs for months with no attention at all. Just a quick pH check on the outflow once in awhile to make sure all is well.

Plus the additional electrical cost of 2 more pumps running 24 hours a day, my old reactor was a fair size it was at least a 100w 24 hours a day, and with the way electric bills work on a sliding scale once you get into that top tier.. man all those little things add up and start to hurt.

 

[MammothReefer]

I use a 15 lb cylinder that runs a looong time before it needs to be replaced. I have not the the valve assembly apart in the 8 years I had this thing. It is easily the most bullit proof piece of equipment I have owned yet. I did the dosing thing before the reactor but with a 180 it got to be too much. Either way works I just prefer the set and forget mentality of the reactor.

I keep thinking it would be nice to have a set and forget deal but I just couldn't get it to work over the years I've tried a couple different reactors on a few different system. Friends of mine have had them where they never touched them although my 2 part is the same way, the initial setup on any automated system is always going to be a bit of a hassle but once things are stabilized and more predictable it's just a matter of personal preference.. I just spent the lat 3 months FIGHTING to get my params to level out, I was at the point where I was testing every day.. I really was thinking about giving a reactor another ago but in the end it really had nothing to do with how I was delivering my alk and calc but more so general stability within the tank. I could turn all supplements off and every day the draw was different.

 

[Mock]

Dosing pumps.... nuff said.

 

[lighthouze08]

dosing pump, i mix 5 gallon bucket at a time for cal and alk. set it and forget it!!

 

[miwoodar]

I use a 15 lb cylinder that runs a looong time before it needs to be replaced.

Makes sense. Mine was a 5 lb IIRC.

I have not the the valve assembly apart in the 8 years I had this thing.

For the sake of clarity, I was referring to the effluent valve from the reactor (not the solonoid valve). In spite of trying many different valves on both the influent and effluent sides, ppt/floc/detritus/whatever would slowly plug it as time passed. A few quick taps would bring the flow back. If I were shooting for 30 drops/minute...I would set it at 45 and it would drop to, say, 15 over the course of a couple of days. It might average 30 but it rarely, if ever, ran at 30. This sounds more dramatic than it was. The reactor was very easy to run once I determined where I needed to run it in terms of pH and relative effluent flow. A dosing pump would have made it even easier because it would have been able to overcome minor blockages to the effluent valve.

 

[this is me]

I took off my CA reactor which I ran for over 6 years for a dosing set up and never look back.
It was a nightmare to keep the effluent constant. CA reactor has too many parts that can fail and kill your whole tank.

 

[power boat jim]

Makes sense. Mine was a 5 lb IIRC.



For the sake of clarity, I was referring to the effluent valve from the reactor (not the solonoid valve). In spite of trying many different valves on both the influent and effluent sides, ppt/floc/detritus/whatever would slowly plug it as time passed. A few quick taps would bring the flow back. If I were shooting for 30 drops/minute...I would set it at 45 and it would drop to, say, 15 over the course of a couple of days. It might average 30 but it rarely, if ever, ran at 30. This sounds more dramatic than it was. The reactor was very easy to run once I determined where I needed to run it in terms of pH and relative effluent flow. A dosing pump would have made it even easier because it would have been able to overcome minor blockages to the effluent valve.

Makes more sense now, mine does not have that feature. I just use an airline valve on the end of the discharge to regulate outflow. Influent comes from the tank upstairs via gravity. I dont use a bubble counter anymore it was a PIA. The effluent is also a steady stream, nearly wide open, so clogging isnt a problem.

 

[nonstopfishies]

I have been going back and forth for a while to decide which one I wanted to use. I am currently just manually dosing. I finally chose to go with dosing on my 210 gallon mixed tank. I choose dosing because I feel it is safer and has less of a learning curve to implement. It also takes up less space, which is always a consideration for me.