Thinking about adding a calcium reactor--recommendations??

[Brooke]

Yeah Pik I forgot about the CO2...I can come up with something.

Larry- how are you liking your DIY reactor?? I'm thinking this might be a good way to go.

[Brooke]

Dosing is a real pain in the butt. It's time to shell out some more dough on the reef tank and add a calcium reactor. I'm looking for something thats reliable, compact, and easy to set-up and operate. Any suggestions??
It's for a 100g reef with a 40g sump. The stand is only about 26" high and we only have a space that is 8" wide for it.

Thanks-
Brooke

[This message has been edited by 1Brooke (edited 05-22-2000).]

[enutees]

I got the one from www.fishjunction.com (http://www.fishjunction.com)

It is only 18" high. I still haven't set it up due to the incompetence of www.harborfreight.com (http://www.harborfreight.com)

They have a good price on a regulator and tank though.

[Pikaboo]

Well.. .I have K2R.. and it works wonders. I've heard Koralith works great too.. a bit expensive.. but I guess they all are.

I think a K2R would fit that 8 inch space.... EXCEPT... you'll need space for the CO2 bottle as well. Do you have space for that? That's the ugliest part of it all... so I don't think you want that outside of the stand.

[geo]

I say DIY, mine cot around 35.00 without the pump or co2, which I already had anyway. I did see that both champion and debron aquatics are selling a reactor with media for 199.00, that sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

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george w.

[hivision]

I loved my 3-month old Korallin C-1501 calcium reactor. I had used the Knop C; no good. In terms of value, IMO C-1501 is better than Knop C which feels and looks pretty cheapy. By the way 3M carries an excellent CO2 regular. Both of these units are made in Germany. (The CO2 regulator kit that I had was a piece of junk labled by Coralfarms. The company simplily ignored my phone calls and emails when I needed help.)
http://www.marine-monsters.com/front/products/kalkreaktor.html

[reefgal]

1Brooke,

I bought the one from Fish Junction and set it up a week ago. It took several days of testing effluent, adjusting, testing calcium, adjusting... but in all, not bad. It is maintaining CA like a charm. However, my alk is lower than I expected. (I am going to contact Fish Junction today and get some help. The owner seems more than willing to answer questions.)

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Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty...start a reef.

Reefgal in the desert

http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/DeckDr/desertreefer/reefcover.html

[Frisco]

I also have a K2R and can't really complain. It's compact, easy to disassemble and clean, and has a really simple design. I like the fact that it uses an internal riser tube for the recirculation loop instead of something external. I've never had any problems with it.

[MiNdErAsR]

I have a K2R and I can and will complain. This reactor is supposed to handle what...up to 400 gallon tanks? Not with my calcium demand it won't! I'm currently running the reactor at 125ml/min with an effluent pH of 6.40, and it barely maintains 3-3.5meq/L. Due to the enormous amount of co2 being fed into the tank, the tanks pH range is 7.85-8.05.

Do yourself a favor. Get a dual chamber reactor. Make room for it! You won't be dissapointed. With two chambers, it will yield a much higher alkalinity level, with a much higher effluent pH, meaning proper tank pH levels are more easily achieved.

FWIW, I've tried all different reactor medias, and have had the BEST luck with CaribSea GeoMarine.

Good luck.

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Jim Fox
<A HREF="http://www.geekopolis.com/reef/nos4a2/
" TARGET=_blank>http://www.geekopolis.com/reef/nos4a2/
</A>

[RWD]

Another vote for the K2-R. I've had it running on my 125 reef for 1-1/2 years with no problems.I also use Caribe-sea aragonite, whatever I have laying around.Bob

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Visit my new web page: http://bobsreefermadness.homestead.com/index.html

[FishWish]

Hi Brooke, If you'd rather spend your $$ once then I'd suggest the MTC pro-Cal.
Then again you could go with a less expensive one and join the crowd of reefer complaing about poor quality of construction and poor performance...Regards to Jon..David

[Outerbank]

Brooke,
I went on a limb and bought the "plasma reactor" by Justin at www.sipedon.com (http://www.sipedon.com)

I thought this Ca reactor looked quite innovative and I guess I will be a guinni pig. I think it will work very well.

Scott (no affiliation)

[Rinaldi]

Who sells the MTC Pro-Cal?

[Larry M]

Hi Brooke--I love the DIY reactor I made. I sold it in my moment of despair with the tank breakage, but made another one in about an hour last week. From what I can see the one Fish Junction sells is based on the Sanjay Joshi design too. Simple, easy to adjust, and kicks butt. I am sure the MTC and many others are great reactors, but after using this one.....I can't imagine why I would want to pay big money for one.
Congrats on the upcoming wedding, hope to see you at a reef club meeting one of these days.

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Larry M

Visit Reef Stores.com (http://63.75.34.139/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi?) The liaison between hobbyists and on-line retailers.

See my tanks at Northern Reef (http://www.reefcentral.com/northernreef/index.htm)

[Brooke]

well it looks like alot of you like the k2r. It would probably be enough for our needs as we really don't have SPS ambitions. The MTC is probably out of our price range! I'm going to start dosing kalk for now. (Also in hopes of getting rid of some hair algae) I think we'll probably go DIY. Jon has fun making stuff. Larry, I'm sure you can help with the names of suppliers around here, huh.

Thanks for the wedding congrats and Jon and I will definately try to make a meeting soon!! We should host again....we've come a long way since our little 20g.

Thanks everyone-
Brooke

Brooke

[candaya]

I bought a used MTC Pro-cal with CO2 for $350 from LFS. It retails for $800. It has a big foot print due to the dual chamber and the little giant pump is a little noisy. I have a 100 gal. reef with a 20 gal. sump and coraline algae is covering the rock and back of the tank very nicely. I was going to sell it but based on posts on this subject, Ill put up with the pump noise. I have it hooked up to an Octopus controller and it shuts off in the evening when Ph is up. I recently sent the reactor to MTC had the reactor modified to an improved design. The folks at MTC are very helpful.

[Frisco]

I've actually been trying to think of ways to improve my K2R's efficiency. Besides adding a single pass DIY chamber to help reduce the dissolved CO2, I also thought of something else. Why not add another threaded outlet to the top that feeds back undissolved CO2 into the recirculation pump inlet? Sound unreasonable?

[therman]

Larry,

It sounds like you made the Sanjay Joshi design. I've have the plans, do you know what the approximate cost on it is? Also, any modifications or reccommendations when building it?

Thanks,
Tim

[therman]

duh....

just found the DIY description...
any new mods? :)