different kinds of reactors

[sven]

Simon,

I'm so confused but your article helped a lot.

I am building a large coral propagation tank (well large for me, about 300 gallons with a very large sump, 200 - 500 gallons)

I would like to put a calcium reactor on the system and hopefully use a controller to try and maintain levels as smoothly as possible.

In my reading and conversations with other hobbyists I have found there are not only different brands of reactors but completely different styles or methods. Each one has its camp of rabid aficionados and so it is hard for me to tell which kind of reactor will be right for me. First and foremost, I would like something that works. Something that is dependable and easy to operate would be nice too. Is a controller helpful or just a gimmick? Can you either briefly describe the different types of reactors or point me in the direction of a good article on them?

[simonh]

I'm not sure I am going to be much help with this question. I only have experience of a couple of European reactors (Korallin and Deltec).

Most European designs seem to operate with the flow of water up through the media, whereas many US designs seem to operate the opposite way with flow down through the media. I am not sure what difference this makes as I haven't been able to test each design. My own opinion on performance is that finding a media which dissolves well is probably the most important factor, second having a good recirculation rate through the media. In the US CaribSea ARM seems to be the preffered for been easy to dissolve. Apart from that I would just look out for a good solidly constructed reactor and buying a large reactor will cut down on the amount of refilling you need to perform.

A controller is really just a saftey device. Mine is never in use unless we have a power outage (when to be honest I have bigger things than CO2 to worry about), or if I fiddle with the reactor setting and set it going with too much CO2, the solenoid then cuts-off the CO2 supply and I can re-adjust the CO2 bubble rate.

HTH,