To dose or to react that is the question....?

[MVGEMERT]

I am looking to start my reef up with some coral, has just been fish and LR for the past 12 months. I have been stumped on which way to go with the calcium maintenace in the tank. Which is the way to go dosers or calcium reactor, and what are the pro's and cons to each....... Hope that you all can help me with this.

[Mr_Quality]

I use both, a Ca reactor and I have an auto top-off that replaces evaporated water with kalk solution. Sometimes a single-chamber Ca reactor can drop your pH slightly. Using Kalk in my make-up water helps mitigate against that.

[PsychoKnight]

If you are adding corals slowly over time, it may make sense to start by dripping kalk until you get to the point that coral density requires a calc reactor - then you can double up and use both as many reefers do. Of course, you can start with a reactor now, but you don't need that kind of capacity yet, so why not wait until you do need it?
Until you have a dozen or two corals, you can even get by with just dosing DIY balanced additives for really cheap; calcium chloride (calc) & sodium bicarbonate (alk) from pool supply stores, and epsom salt from supermarkets/pharmacies (magnesium). Just bought a $8 bucket which will increase 3,000 gal by 100ppm of calcium. Search Randy's article on DIY two-part additive in reefkeepingonline.

[TippyToeX]

MVGEMERT
[welcome]

I say get the reactor if you can afford it and need a better way to keep up with your tanks demand. I think you will still want to drop kalk too though. pH can drop with a reactor and it's nice to have the kalk keep that in check.