Can you elaborate on why calcium reactors are better than dosing vincent?
It's the stability.
The tank water is constantly supplied fresh Alk and Ca ions as well as other trace elements that are incorporated by the corals themselves into their skeletons. And with a little patience, that level can be adjusted fairly easily to match the uptake.
I think a lot of the anxiety over running a CaRx is the lack of actual numbers to go by. There isn't a set of numbers that if you follow, you are guaranteed success. There are general guidelines but each tank is different and there are a myriad of ways to feed n control a CaRx as well as actual Rx designs that affect how effective the media is dissolved to have any real solid levels to follow.
I've only setup the CaRx recently and my corals have responded like I have not seen in the past year where I've been dosing. Either by hand or by a doser. The doser I used could be setup to dose Alk every 10 mins and Ca every 30.
The main key is to ramp up slowly and you must be willing to test, test, test and test some more until the tank is stable. Took me 3 weeks to get any semblance of stability.
There are a few ways to setup a CaRx. 1 way (and I think it's the way most do it and is the way most recommend) is to set a specific ph and let your Ph controller (be it a standalone or Apex) shut off the CO2 flow when it hits that level.
You then control the amount of effluent that drips into the tank. Most use a needle valve to control the flow and those are prone to clogging which results in fluctuating levels.
And because the Ph level is usually recommended to be set pretty low, in the 6s I think, the effluent is very concentrated and because it is so concentrated you have to really slow down the flow and by closing down the needle valve, makes it even more prone to clogging.
The way I run it is to not use a needle valve at all. I use the peristaltic pump to push tank water in at a fixed rate. Currently at about 27ml/min, iirc. It's the slowest my pump will go. I then set my Apex to turn off CO2 if it ever reaches 6.9. This is only a fail safe. My solenoid stays open practically the whole time. I use the CO2 reg and the very precise vernier metering valve to regulate the amount of CO2 entering the CaRx. I can easily dial it up or down thus controlling the concentration of effluent.
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