Question for Calcium reactor users...

Does it stabilize your alkalinity too? Or do will I have to continue adding alk?
thanks.

 

It will help stabilize your ALK as long as you keep your Mg stable too.

 

The first thing you have to do is adjust your cal,alk, and mag to where you want it at and from there your calcium reactor will maintain it from there. Calcium reactors don't stabilize your cal,alk, and mag it just maintain it. For example if your alk is at lets say 8 dkh it will maintain it at 8 dkh. Hope this helps.

 

One think a Ca reactor requires to keep the water chemistry perfect is top off with kalkwasser. I do believe the alkalinity can get a little low if you simply use a CA reactor and trust that will do everything. You still need to add kalkwasser to the tank to correct that. You can run a kalk reactor, with an ATO for ease of use, but simple pickling lime added to the top off container will work well. I for now use the pickling lime in the top off connected to my reef fanatic ATO, fed by a tom Aqualifter pump.

At some point I will DIY a kalkwasser reactor to keep that simple for me.

 

CA Reactors as incorrectly named as they affect your Alk as much as they do your CA. I ran a CA reactor on it's own for 6 years without having to dose Alk or CA supplements. when dialed in correctly it will take care of both quite well.

In my experience a CA reactor should actually be called an Alk reactor. When setting up the Reactor you should start by getting your levels where you want them, by dosing buffers from there you would increase your CO2 and your effluent drip rate to achieve your desired ALK. From there your CA will be correct.

J

 

Thanks for all the comments/help.

 

I forget what the Kalkwasser reactor adds to a system with a Calcium reactor, but the Alkalinity is kept at the right level by the Calcium reactor. Magnesium is usually kept at the proper levels provided your media in the reactor is one that is known to keep Mg levels stable as well. I know caribsea coarse ARM keeps the Mg levels constant, but not all Ca RX's like caribsea coarse ARM. Geo Ca RX's do, and I run the coarse ARM in mine.

 

Hey AV8, like people have mentioned getting the levels of MG, CA, and KH dialed first is a must.
Depending on the target for the MG, you may look at a thread I started about HOW to get to the 1350 range, short answer SG at 1.024-1.025, mine is at 1.025
My cA is 450, I test every other day-I now Im anal, I am doing this due to a recent catastrophe I created-another thread there-LOL

Anyway, I am almost wher I will be firing my CA Reactor back up.
Whenthings were fine BEFORE I messed with it, my reactor was only running 4 hours a day to keep a steady maintained level of CA at 450, and KH at 11.

I spent at least a month "tinkering" with getting my reactor to "maintain" the levels, not spike "this", or deplete "that" for lack of enough "reacting time" or to much reacting time
I have a Marine Pinpoint Controller I HAD tried to use to run my reactor-
Again thats another thread of experiance, or lack of-LOL. Now its a 200.00 dollar PH Monitor-NICE

I am a advocate of the reactors, its funny mine only runs 4 hours to keep up with what gets depleated.

I know it has to due with the level of effluent-another thread there too.

Good luck and let me know if I can help with questions-been there, and still there-LOL

Brad