Calcium reactor question

OceanAir · 05/18/2013, 08:11 PM

I'm thinking of buying a calcium reactor from a local instead of having a dosing pump for my new setup. What I want to know is do you still have to dose magnesium or do reactors keep everything stabile? New to the whole calcium reactor thing, but the new system is going to be mostly sps so I think it will be cheaper for me in long run (in college). Also have any of you had experience with it destroying the sand bed?

reefs4lifee · 05/19/2013, 12:16 AM

I have a DSB in my 210, about 4-5" and I run a MTC Procal reactor with no issues. Calcium reactors commonly use aragonite which is calcium carbonate so to answer your question, your calcium reactor won't help keep magnesium stable since there is nothing to break down that consists of magnesium. However, what you can do is add dolomite. Dolomite is calcium magnesium carbonate which is pretty much another type of mineral similar to aragonite but with the added magnesium. A safe dolomite to use would be ZeoMag which is about $25 for I think a pound. When using it you only need to add enough to make 10% of your total media in your reactor. An important thing to note is that it won't raise your magnesium, it will just help keep it stable so you would have to use some sort of additive to get your magnesium where you want it and then run the dolomite to keep it in place. And lastly, dolomite requires a slightly lower pH to dissolve properly so I would suggest getting a dual chamber reactor where you can keep your pH slightly lower in your primary chamber where you would have the dolomite and also giving the water enough time to rise in pH while going through the secondary chamber. Hope that helps and if there are any another questions, I'll be glad to help. Good luck!

05/18/2013, 08:11 PM	#1
OceanAir Moved On Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Southern California Posts: 25	Calcium reactor question I'm thinking of buying a calcium reactor from a local instead of having a dosing pump for my new setup. What I want to know is do you still have to dose magnesium or do reactors keep everything stabile? New to the whole calcium reactor thing, but the new system is going to be mostly sps so I think it will be cheaper for me in long run (in college). Also have any of you had experience with it destroying the sand bed?

05/19/2013, 12:16 AM	#2
reefs4lifee Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Mahopac, NY 10541 Posts: 153	I have a DSB in my 210, about 4-5" and I run a MTC Procal reactor with no issues. Calcium reactors commonly use aragonite which is calcium carbonate so to answer your question, your calcium reactor won't help keep magnesium stable since there is nothing to break down that consists of magnesium. However, what you can do is add dolomite. Dolomite is calcium magnesium carbonate which is pretty much another type of mineral similar to aragonite but with the added magnesium. A safe dolomite to use would be ZeoMag which is about $25 for I think a pound. When using it you only need to add enough to make 10% of your total media in your reactor. An important thing to note is that it won't raise your magnesium, it will just help keep it stable so you would have to use some sort of additive to get your magnesium where you want it and then run the dolomite to keep it in place. And lastly, dolomite requires a slightly lower pH to dissolve properly so I would suggest getting a dual chamber reactor where you can keep your pH slightly lower in your primary chamber where you would have the dolomite and also giving the water enough time to rise in pH while going through the secondary chamber. Hope that helps and if there are any another questions, I'll be glad to help. Good luck!