How are you maintaining, Ca, Alk,Mg Levels???

[Nicks]

I am putting an article together on how we maintain our Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium Levels.

I use a,

Calcium Reactor This is a Aquamedic 400 and a DIY second Chamber (Degassing Chamber). It is filled with Reactor Media and 10% magnesium Plus. I run this 24/7.

I also run,

Kalk Bucket Reactor I dose 6Ltr per night of Kalkwasser.

This reactor is a 20Ltr bucket fitted with a tank connector as an overflow. I put in an 802 power head that switches on for 1/2 hour per day to stir things up. 2-3 cups of kalk are added every few weeks.

A IKS Peri-Pump pushes water through a de-ioniser and into the reactor and thus into the sump over a 5hr period each night.

I have steady water parameters of

Ca 380 -400

DKH 7-8

Mg 1300

I have not changed the above in over two years and I test water every month or so.

I have in the past used a range of off the shelf stuff from Seachem reef advantage and reef builder(I liked this)

Also Salifert but not long enough to form an opinion.

DIY...I wish I had read more on Reef Central Chemistry Forums before I tried this. See Randy Holmes Farley's DIY stuff.

So who uses what?????

Good Reefing

Nicks

[reef]

i use a aquacare calcium reactor. it runs two hours a day. this is the only reactor that can keep up with my tank, i have tried them all. the ph comes out the reactor at 7.3. all other reactors you will be lookig at 6.8

There are other options like dosing with kh buffer and calcium supplements. these are fine if you have leathers and a few stoney corals.

Calcium reactors are only required if you have many hard corals as they can be more of a problem in not a well established reef tanks due to the excess of co2 which will cause algae problems.

cal 420ppm

dkh 10

magnesium 1300

The advantages of the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor:

78 to 82% less free CO2 in the outlet: AquaCare has developed a neutralization chamber that raises the pH of the outlet to 7,0 (unit 1) or 7,3 (units 2-5). This neutralization stage lowers the growth of algae extremely.

no over dosing of CO2 in the reactor: the new control unit without measuring the pH of the water allows a very safe working with the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor. Every time there is the right volume of CO2 in the reactor. No calibration! The control unit works with 12 Volts.

lightly phosphate removal with chemo sorption.

extrem water velocity: every AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor is filled with special granules. The water is flowing this very high speed along this material. So, CO2 bubbles cannot be caught in the granules. The flow through the granules system is constant. No flow channels can be build.

new chalk granules consisting of calcium carbonate: the new granules are dissolving 2 to 5 times better than other materials e.g. lime stone or coral stones. So the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor is more effective than others.

easy de-aeration of wrong gases: if the CO2 is not pure, the efficiency of every chalk reactor decreases with the time. To de-aerate the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor you only have to shut off the circulation pump. The inlet drives pushes out all gases. If you start the reactor again all incoming CO2 is pure. Normally the Turbo Chalk Reactor is driven with a timer - only 2 to 4 hours working per day is enough to raise calcium and hydrogen carbonate in a reef tank.

in every Turbo Chalk Reactor is a CO2 bubble counter, water inlet inspection glass and a ball valve: with these parts the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor works well. If you want an automatically driven reactor you need the control unit consisting of a solenoid valve, check valve, CO2 sensor, transformer and the control box. For the proper working you need a water inlet (bypass of the main pump or another small pump), an small air pump and a simple timer.

[chimera]

wow, all this hype but what are they worth? do you have any calcium reactors for sale? am in the market for one if you got any at a good price.

[Nicks]

Reefs,

thanks for the sales pitch for your reactor

I thought that the ph of the effluent was indicative of what was happening inside the reactor and should be related to the Ph value required to dissolve various media. ie some of the softer media will dissolve at Ph7.3 where as harder stuff like Aragonite needs Ph6.8 or lower to dissolve.

What is the KH of the effluent from the reactor, mine runs at 28DKH thanks to the Rowa Calcium Reactor media I am using.

Any info on the Bi-Ionic stuff that "pommie Dave" from Albany used on his tank. He said it was a bit fiddly but the results where impressive

Good Reefing

Nicks

[reef]

nicks,

my dkh is 40 plus from my reactor so that is why it only runs 2-4hrs a day.

No sales pitch, only the best reactor around.

THE bi ionic stuff is too expensive in the long run.

[Pies]

As you know I am planing a new tank, water volume for the tank approx 1400 and sump and plumbing tanking it to over 2000 litres.

I plan to use my Korallin 4001 reactor to drive my tank, it will be a 100% stone coral tank. I know people (GT on UR) who uses this reactor on his 4000 litre tank, SPS only with no problems, and for those who have seen pics of GTs tank, you will know how good it looks.

I currently dose 6L of kalkwasser a nigh using an IKS Peri pump, this tanks 10hrs to dose the 6L. My setup is similar to Nicks. When I get my 200L barrel from Steve, this is what I will use for my new resivour. I use a power head to stir it every day (1 hr prior to dosing). My freshwater is provided through RO&DI.

My tank paramaters can be found on my site buy are typically:

ALK 8.3

CA 430-460

PH 8-low 8.3-high

MG 1350

For MG I use Magnesium Chloride crystals from APS in Auckland, approx 1 cup of crystals every month. I am also using the mg chips (10% volume) in my CA reactor brought from Zeovit NZ. This seems to work well.

I do 10% water changes every 2-3 weeks, which also helps stablise my paramaters.

I am curious on how easy it will be to maintain a large tanks paramaters now that I am about to join the 'big boys' with Reef I suspect it will be easier not harder.

I also have a 2nd reactor chamer containing CA media and PHOSPHATE resin (Salifert Phosphate killer).

Pieman

[lduncan]

I agree Pies, should be much easier with a larger tank.

Layton

[chimera]

Pies - I assume you do all this by using individual timers? ie: to turn on the powerhead to stir your kalk, then another to turn on the dosing pump to add the water etc? Perhaps you would be better off with a single computer to do all this?!

[Pies]

Chimera - Yes I use individual timers for all of this. Would it be easier? I don't see how, programming a computer it 10x more difficult and time consuming than using a timer. Also a timer costs about $20.00. An X10 module cheap costs about $65.00 and a 4 plug bar for an IKS computer costs about $200.00 (thats $50 per device) and they are only in german plugs too, so you will need some adapters.

Then with the non X10 you will need to wire everything back to the computer (MEGA LEADS EVERYWHERE). Or with the X10 you have other issues (x10s require some skill and time to configure correctly).

Can the IKS or Neptune drive the TUNZE Streams? Nope, only turn them on or off (I was at Alois house and he couldn't get the streams running on the IKS, so is using a TUNZE wavemaker not his computer to drive and pulse them).

An IKS PH probe is more than a Pinpoint PH monitor, and for argements sake lets say they are the same or close enough to the same. Sure I could use the computer to controll the PH of the tank using the computer and a solinoid (more money). I thought this would be cool, but I run my reactor 24/7 with no ill effects so why would I want to turn it off, Korallin reactors and designed to run 24/7, see my paramaters, no advange to controlling PH for my system.

Temp - Temp is a good one, and a computer is excellent for this. I use 3 heaters at the moment. However the costs of the x10 (which can't run more than 1 heater because of the draw of power) or the IKS power bar this adds to the cost. What I would like it to do things like if the temp rises over a preset amount, I could then turn off the lights (halides). This is something I can't do with my temprature controller. But the controller worked out about the same costs as running the heaters on the bar or x10 without factoring in the costs of the computer itself.

REDOX - Whats yours? I havn't a clue. Other the Reef I doubt anyone else does either. What can you do when its low? Water change. But I do regular water changes anyway so what would I can, the computer would tell me that because the redox is low a water change makes sense. A water change ALWAYS makes sense! Never bad to to water change.

If you want to control just timers there are dozens of devices out there you can program with the PC and plug your devices into, x10 and wired. They range in price from about $180NZ to about $300NZ. But don't provide any provision for reading problems, just turning things on and off (and dimming).

But hey you can get into a complete setup for about 2.5k NZD (computer, plug bar, probes), add another 1.5-2k for the extras your would like.

Ohhhh and you know that EVERYTHING is now centralised right? Do computer dies, tanks dies. Do they ever break down?...

Pies

[chimera]

always a man of lengthy detail was just a thought

[lduncan]

In case you guys haven't heard, i'm designing my own controller to take care of some of these issues. Most importantly price. Should be around $800 for most semi-advanced reefers.

Then with the non X10 you will need to wire everything back to the computer (MEGA LEADS EVERYWHERE). Or with the X10 you have other issues (x10s require some skill and time to configure correctly). [\QUOTE]

What if I told you I could replace the mess of wires with a single shielded wire? X10 is bung.

[reef]

Can the IKS or Neptune drive the TUNZE Streams? Nope, only turn them on or off (I was at Alois house and he couldn't get the streams running on the IKS, so is using a TUNZE wavemaker not his computer to drive and pulse them

not true, my iks pulse my streams from 40% to 100% every 5 seconds.