Why switch from a Ca reactor to dosing?

[greengeco82]

I got tired of dosing and decided to get a ca reactor to have steady ca, alk, and mag with little effort. Now that I have my reactor I see a lot of people switching form reactors to dosing/pumps. Dosing is more expensive, so why switch? What am I missing here?

 

[bertoni]

Calcium reactors tend to require their own tuning and adjustment on an on-going basis. I don't know how much, since I've never run one. It might depend on the equipment used, too.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What has your experience with it been so far?

I'm not sure a DIY two part is more expensive than a CaCO3/CO2 reactor, and if you use dosing pumps, it isn't any more effort.

Some reactor media won't maintain magnesium and you may need other means for that, or may have to add some special media to the reactor (like some dolomite).

FWIW, I use only limewater in my ATO.

 

[Waterobert]

Reefers like dosing more because you can get really surgical with it. You need more alk just reprogram your doser. With todays digital dosers it is done in few seconds. Calcium reactors require more attention and you are dosing calcium and alk at the same time. That makes it more chalenging to use them. On the positive side calcium reactors are adding calcium and alk continuosly making your system a bit more stable. Also, reactors dose "trace elements".

 

[DanEnglish]

So do good 2 part solutions, no?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, two parts can be dosed continuously and all of them add trace elements (whether that is good or not is open to debate, however).

 

[Plato]

Thanks to cheap priced bulk supplies it is difficult to justify the cost of a calcium reactor and the required attention it takes. It is far more cost effective to dose the chemicals and you can add what you need. Most people use the baling method which adds Alk, Ca, and Mg with dosing pumps. The automation is up to you for simplicity and there are many dosers available with multiple channels. However I have switched my tank to add kalk (Thanks to Randy) from the ATO so every once in a while I might have to make a correction or add some Mg. Very affordable and simple.

 

[marke]

Since you already have a reactor try to make it work for you, and dont worry about what others are doing. The question is can you make it work for you. I know a few reeffers who love their reactor but had to modify the effluent drip rate by using a dosing pump. I tried a geo reactor for a while and could not make it work for me. The efflunet drip rate never stayed constant. The co2 bubble rate would not stay constant. After 5-6 months of adjusting I finally got it right and it was time to get the co2 tank filled and new media. Had to start all over with the tweeking. Now I use 2 brs dosers for ca and alk along with kalk in the top off. Its controlled with my apex controller. After ever test I can fine tune the drip rates as needed or if needed. Very simple! I buy chemicals from BRS in bulk and its cost effective. Mg only needs to get adjusted from time to time and I can usually do it manually without dosing. I dont think there is a best method. Its what works for you. But with either dosing or reactor I would suggest kalk with your ro top off also.

 

[LouH]

I ran a Ca reactor for years with pretty good results, but there were three issues with it:

1. It caused the tank pH to be lower than what I was comfortable with (down to 7.9 at night).

2. I constantly had to adjust the effluent drip rate. I'm sure this had to do with the fact that I fed the reactor by siphoning from the overflow. If the reactor were fed with a pump, this would probably would not have been an issue.

3. I controlled the CO2 selenoid with a Pinpoint pH controller, and while the Pinpoint worked perfectly, the selenoids would fail unpredictably. My first selenoid ran for 3 years before failing. Its replacement made it a whole 3 weeks before failing, and that selenoid's replacement lasted only 2 weeks! It was at that time that I decided to switch over to 2-part, and while dialing in my targets has been harder than I expected, it seems to be more foolproof than the reactor. One option for controlling CO2 effluent is using one of those electronic regulators from carbondoser.com. They are pricey, but not so if you consider that you will go through multiple plunger type of selenoids every couple of years. I'd say that you will likely break even at some point and avoid the annoyance of the reactor suddenly stopping delivering Ca and Alk to your tank or turning your media to mush.

Lou

 

[Garage1217]

I have had nothing but good, stable luck with a CA reactor in the past. Good enough luck that I have another coming this week for my new system I see a ton of setup issues with them that cause grief and headache which makes people irritated with them. Some common things I see...
- No check valve on the co2 input line. Saltwater can get to the solenoid this way and cause it to stick or can damage the whole regulator setup
- They do not use a PH controller, what a nightmare trying to dial it in
- They never calibrated the used PH probe or controller they purchased! Yes they DO need calibrating with a proper solution. Once calibrated, check every 6 months or so. This can cause all sorts of problems. Such as a much lower chamber PH than you think which causes the media the melt faster than it needs to, which can cause your output valve to clog easily. Or a higher chamber PH than you think, which makes you crank open the effluent line. Just an endless cycle of annoyance trying to dial it in.
- They feed the reactor via a siphon or gravity feed which is inconsistent. Simply tap off your return line from your main pump. Do not tap off an accessory pump that feeds reactors only for example. As the reactors clog or sponges clog, the pressure changes and causes the drip rate to increase. You can get away with tapping off the return line even if it feeds reactors as well since the pressure increase is minute since you still have a pathway to the tank for water to flow.
- They use a reactor that is to small for their load. They then counteract the drop in levels by cranking the effluent to an almost solid stream. If that is not working out then they lower the PH in the reactor to help melt the media faster. This causes low tank PH, you go through a lot of Co2, clog the effluent output faster and so on. In short, buy a properly sized reactor that holds more media. You can then have a lower chamber PH and produce a more consistent, quality effluent. The ratings on some of these small CA reactors is sort of funny. Do they have any idea how much coral many of us pack into our tanks? I like the reactor, but take a korallin 1502 for an example. Rated for up to 400G. Really? Well yeah if it was very lightly stocked for a 400. It could barely handled my heavily stocked 90G. So take the ratings with a grain of salt "no pun intended". Always better for many reasons IMO to buy a larger reactor than what you think you need at the moment.

All this sounds all difficult in tedious but it is not at all. Get the right sized unit and set it up properly and it works out great! Keeps the system very stable. Another seller for me is that nothing can accidentally stick ON like I have read on several occasions with dosing setups. Worst case with a ca reactor, your line clogs and your levels start to drop. If you simply glance at it once a day or every other day, you can catch it before any major issues.

Hope that makes sense, I am 3/4 asleep on cold meds.

 

[greengeco82]

Wow, great responses, and greatly appreciated. I never had dosing pumps and was dosing by hand, which gets tedious. I bought a reactor used about 3 weeks ago. Its been very easy compared to hand dosing. I have made slight adjustments about once a week. I have had to turn the system off once for 2 days as my alk was getting a little high.

 

[greengeco82]

I've just read a lot about people switching to pumps from reactors. I know the initial cost of a reactor is a lot, but switching after you payed the initial cost? I believe many of you are right, that the effluent rate can be hard to keep constant (with clogging problems). I wouldn't know as I was lucky to buy a used system with a paristolic pump/dosing pump. I just wanted to know if I made a mistake plunging into the world of ca reactors. Thanks to all, this definitely helped.