trueblackpercula
New member
How do you like it? I have been thinking about making the switch.
what are your methods of cal and alk dosing?
- Thread starter eyesinthedrk
- Start date
How do you like it? I have been thinking about making the switch.
Same here. manual dose, only takes a couple minutes a day. I have been looking into dosers but only for when im out of town.
How did this happen? I am curious for what to watch out for.
I use Kalk + 2 part. The alkalinity portion is arm and hammer baking soda (Randy's recipe 1) and the calcium is from BRS. I started up a 55 gallon SPS frag tank with 55 gallon sump a couple of months ago and placed around 20 SPS frags in it. I thought kalk alone would maintain it as kalk alone worked well for my DT for about a year; but I was wrong... I am using right at 60ml alk and ca + fully saturated kalk at the moment in the frag tank daily already, lol. It contains around 80 gallons water with the frag tank + sump. I hope I will be able to cut back a bit on the amount I am adding by increasing my Mg as it is currently around 1250.
My dosing pump should be hear early next week, thank goodness. I find it a lot of hastle to manually dose as I try to split it up over the course of the day.
My dosing pump should be hear early next week, thank goodness. I find it a lot of hastle to manually dose as I try to split it up over the course of the day.
Tennsquire
New member
BRS Drew's Dosers on an electronic timer (haven't hooked them into the Apex yet).
Bpb
New member
Kalkwasser in the ATO. I know it's likely not a "forever" dosing regiment, but now i'm only at 1/3 strength (considering super saturation with vinegar as full strength, 3 tsp per gallon) and it's maintaining my levels in my 55 gallon. Once all my acros are full size and my monti caps reach adulthood who knows. probably calcium reactor. That's a year or two down the road though. Who knows what in life will change by then.
symbiodinium
New member
I just watched all three episodes on "Calcium, Alkalinity & Trace Elements" from BRS last night trying to figure out what direction is best for me.
I am favoring the 2 part because I have a small 45 gallon cube and it seems the most cost effective compared to the CR yet less management verses the Kalkwasser. I do have a question, what do you use to automate this or do you run the dosing pumps on timers?
I am favoring the 2 part because I have a small 45 gallon cube and it seems the most cost effective compared to the CR yet less management verses the Kalkwasser. I do have a question, what do you use to automate this or do you run the dosing pumps on timers?
I use BRS dosing pumps with my APEX on my DT and a marine color dosing pump on my frag tank (behaves similar to a bubble magus dosing pump).
I will also add that I used Kalk in my SPS display tank for a year (via ATO only) and then started adding 2 part when kalk alone couldn't keep up.
FWIW, my DT is 90 gallons + 30 gallon sump (probably 90 gallons water total with rock displacement), and FT is a 55 with a 55 sump (about 75 gallons water total). Both are SPS dominant; however, I would say that most of the SPS are on the small - medium colony size still.
If I had to do it over again, I would forgo the kalk all together and just use dosing pumps. The main reason being I have done a couple of "kalk" overdoses where the tank got cloudy for a couple of hours.
I will also add that I used Kalk in my SPS display tank for a year (via ATO only) and then started adding 2 part when kalk alone couldn't keep up.
FWIW, my DT is 90 gallons + 30 gallon sump (probably 90 gallons water total with rock displacement), and FT is a 55 with a 55 sump (about 75 gallons water total). Both are SPS dominant; however, I would say that most of the SPS are on the small - medium colony size still.
If I had to do it over again, I would forgo the kalk all together and just use dosing pumps. The main reason being I have done a couple of "kalk" overdoses where the tank got cloudy for a couple of hours.
blakers82
Member
I'm currently using BRS three part on various dosers. I've heard multiple stories of CR tank crashes. Could easily happen without a few extra failsafe programming codes on your controller. For instance, I've had issues with regulator flow. If your bubble count all of a sudden opens up big time, your controller might catch and then kill your regulator, but you still have excess media melting and dripping into the tank. The most popular issue I've seen is regulator malfunction. I've seen it on the pricey regulators too. If a regulator gets stuck open, you need to have a failsafe code to be able to shut off your pump which drips effluent to the system. These are just a few things to look out for.
Has anybody personally had a tank crash with a calcium reactor? I have heard all of the stories and cannot vet any of them. I have them on every tank have no idea how they every could crash a tank, but I would really like to know real-life stories so that I can avoid them. Even when a regulator stick open, the pressure generally builds in the reactor and a seal or line blows with 800lbs of pressure (or even 100 if it fails past the first regulator chamber). If the seals don't blow, then the back pressure into the feed line is too much to overcome virtually shutting the incoming water down... and then CO2 just goes out the effluent line into air above the tank/sump Short of that, even an effluent PH in the 6s cannot crash any good sized tank with a small stream if the regulator did stick on, but not stick on enough to blow out some seals.
I did know a guy who had a tank fail and filled his basement with CO2, which is a real concern and why I don't do 50s anymore, just 10s.
I did know a guy who had a tank fail and filled his basement with CO2, which is a real concern and why I don't do 50s anymore, just 10s.
blackthunda77
New member
Ive been dosing 2 part manually for years. Finally got around to getting 2 dosers from BRS. One of the best purchases ive made. Not only does it take something manually i have to do. Now i don thave to worry about the tank when i go away for the weekend. Also, another benefit of dosers over manual dosing is the fact that you can dose small amounts throughout the night when your PH usually drops. I have it hooked up to my APEX so it runs about 10 mins at a time throughout the night and morning till it ads my 60ml. Also i have the PH probe telling the apex to shut off the outlets the dosers are connected to if the PH goes higher than 8.45.
kikireef
Active member
I am using a kalk reactor set up to flow fully saturated kalk for 1 minute every 2 hours on one tom's aqua lifter controlled by my apex. I also have another tom's aqualifter pump for my regular topoff to pick up the extra evaporation so I am never adding too much kalk to my tank. One problem is that if you run kalk in your top off water you have the ability to add too much sometimes such as higher evaporation (summer time) or a float valve getting stuck. With the apex you can build in programming for extra failsafe. The kalk doesn't meet my current demand though so I also have BRS drews dosing pumps for KH/Cal. These dose an extra 25ml per day each. As my demand rises I just add more time to my dosing pumps.
Been running a calcium reactor for a couple of years on my 210g mixed reef, never had a problem and i dont even test my water. I use my corals and clam to tell me how the water is. Please remember though u need to check and make sure all the equipment is running correctly at least every other day if not daily if nothing more than a glance at the drip rate, bubble flow, and ph reading. I love mine so much i am about to put one on my 120 sps/ clam tank
blakers82
Member
In short, I feel like I do know of personal tank crash due to cal rx, but I can't recall at this time. Derrrrr
. I wholey believe that I have lost corals due to regulator malfunction and had I not been aware of this situation would have had more losses as my effluent continued to flow while bubble count went silly high, dragging pH down the hatch. There are others on RC that have claimed bad occurrences if not "crashes".Caught a problem here...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1974256&highlight=calcium+reactor+problems
And another quote from someone (RichConley) in another thread...
"I dont know where this fallacy came about, but people frying tanks trying to adjust Ca Rx is pretty common. People frying tanks as their CO2 tanks run out and vent more CO2 is pretty common.
I've seen CaRx improperly set up move someone's dkH from 6, to 20 in 24 hours."
