Calcium Reactor or Neptune DOS?

[NYfishies]

Hello all,

I have an Nuvo 40 gallon all-in-one setup. I need to start adding Calcium and Strontium to my tank to support the life of corals like our green Flower Pot.

At the moment I dose twice per week Seachem AquaVitro Fuel. This product has no Calcium nor does it have Strontium.

I use Tropic Marin PRO REEF Salt and do weekly 12.5% water changes. Below is the chemistry of the salt. From what I read I should not need to dose Strontium, but just do the weekly water changes - is this true? Should I be testing for Strontium?

Temperature - 26c
Salinity - 35ppt
pH (Salifert) - 8.40
pH (Pinpoint) - 8.20
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 0ppm
Phosphate - 0ppm
Potassium - 320ppm
Strontium - 0 - 3ppm
Calcium - 400ppm
Magnesium - 1050ppm
Alkalinity - 7.7Dkh

Since I have an Innovative Marine tank I like to buy their gadgets. They sell a media reactor, but from what I can tell that is different from a Calcium Reactor. http://www.innovative-marine.com/auqa-gadget/mini-max.html

Does anybody have a suggestion of a small, but very good Calcium Reactor?

Does 2 part dosing accomplish the same thing as the Calcium Reactor? If so, are there advantages of doing it one way or the other? I am trying to save space (I do not have a sump) and the DOS looks like it will not take up much space besides in my stand.

Thanks for the help and feedback!

 

[vio]

u got low Potassium (320) u need 390-410 ppm
Mag. is low (1050) also , u need 1250-1300.

 

[vio]

Not sure if Calcium Reactor will be a good choice for You (40 Gal. tank) what you try to keep (grow) LPS,SPS, mix ? I dont think u need to dose Strontium (did u test b4?) that link u post is just Media Reactor, run BioPellets ( Carbon) i don't think , u need, post how many fish, corals (what kind) u have, i am sure somebody will help u.

 

[Pimentinha]

As vio mention your Mag is low.

In regards to your question, i think a calcium reactor is not the best option for you.
Normally, calcium reactors are use for rather large systems, where the cost of dosing a liquid form would be astronomical, or just because you love tinkering with your "toys".

To be honest, i have never tested nor dosed for strontium, and my corals grow very very well.

The dosing system you mention is really really cool, but $350 for two pumps only is a bit expensive IMO.
I may get it tho, just so i can use it for some other things i plan on doing to my tank that require more precise dosing.

Anyways, Hope it helps.

 

[NYfishies]

Thanks everybody for the helpful info. Sorry for not providing more information up front to make things more clear.

The tank is about 3 months post cycle. We added 33.6 lbs of cured live rock from Absolutely Fish and about 30-35 lbs of CaribSea Arag-Alive Special Grade Reef Sand for the cycle. We have IM's ghost protein skimmer and IM's dual strip dimmable light. We run the gold package apex. We do weekly 12.5% water changes using ro/di water after mixing the salt 4-7 days prior.

We have never tested Strontium. In all my research up until the Flower Pot coral I had not come across it.

When I posted the chemistry stats that is from the salt not from our tank - sorry for the confusion. We are currently at 1.023 on salinity, tank is varying from 76.7 to 78.4 degrees daily, PH 7.86 to 8.06 the past 24 hours.

Details on our tank (all small frags purchased from Manhattan Aquariums and Absolutely Fish):

Green Fluorescent Mushroom (Actinodiscidae/Discosomatidae)
Green Star Polyp (Briareidae)
White Pom Pom Xenia / Pulsing Xenia (Xeniidae)
Orange Ricordea Mushroom (Ricordea Florida)
Metallic Green Flowerpot Coral (Goniopora)
Acan Brain Coral (Acanthastrea Echinata)
Gold Ultra Hammer Coral (Euphyllia Ancora)
Orange/Green Colony Polyp (Zoanthus)

Emerald Crab
Clean Up Crew (Snails & Hermit Crabs)
Blood Red Fire Shrimp
Tiger Snapping Shrimp

:fish:

Juvenile Percula Clownfish (2) - not entirely sure these are true percula's
Juvenile Yellow Watchman Goby

We have a very small refugium (about a week old) that is built into the back of the tank using IM's custom caddy and their magna light with the following algae:

Chaetomorpha Algae
Ulva
Red Gracilaria Algae

(thanks coralcruze for the algae!)

We started adding Kent Marine Superbuffer-dKH during water changes to deal with the PH problem. I noticed my PH dip last night after feeding - is that normal?

We just filled our ATO jug with 1.027 salinity salt water an hour ago to get the levels up to 1.026.

Plan is to pick up a helfrichi firefish, a bangaii cardinal and maybe a blue sapphire damsel over the next 2-3 months.

We will then hopefully continue to add various corals over time. We eventually want to work toward stone corals.

In 1 year we would love to be able to have a mandarin. That will depend on our ability to maintain pods or if we can find a frozen food trained juvenile.

From what I can tell it looks like I should consider dosing. Agree that the price tag is high for the DOS, but dang it seems awesome. Seems like that is the case in a lot of things in this hobby. You get what you pay for - we love it.

Thank you very much for the help!

 

[vio]

Few thinks

#1 Stop dose Aqua Vitro Fuel ( you don't need that)
#2 Stop chasing the PH, your PH is just fine w/out Super buffer dKH, you may do more harm.
#3 DO NOT got greedy ( to many corals)
# 4 Xenia , NOT the best choice , will go like weeds , go every where.
# Do NOT add , what you can remove.

 

[Pimentinha]

Water in the ATO must be RO/DI water. Not salt water. To deal with a lower salinity just bump it up during the water change.

Don't worry about ph.
Worry about Mag/DkH/calcium.
Grab a test kit for those and go from there

Xenia suck!!! Lol


Yes, the DoS does look freaking cool!

 

[NYfishies]

Is there a reason using the ATO to increase salinity is not a good idea? Should I empty right away?

I like the Xenia, but have also heard about them spreading like wildfire. ANy suggestions?

Aqua Vitro Fuel - waste of money for what it does or literally wont help?

"# Do NOT add , what you can remove." - what do you mean?

 

[Pimentinha]

ATO is used to replace the water that leaves the tank due to evaporation.
Water evaporates but salts are left behind. (I'm sure you know all of this)

You can do the way you are doing, I would just rather do it manually...

What I think VIO means by that statement is, the more is not the better.

We sometimes add stuff to the tank to chase numbers, and to get that number right, sometimes we end up messing everything else..

That's just my take tho!

Best of luck

 

[NYfishies]

Yes - I am just using the ATO to slowly bring up the salinity. I will do a water change on Sunday using a higher salinity base to also help bring up the level. Once at 1.026 SG I will switch back to RO/DI.

I have the RED SEA REEF COLORS PRO MULTI TEST KIT (I2,K,FE) and the RED SEA MARINE CARE TEST KIT (NH3/NH4, NO3, NO2, pH, KH).

I suppose I will pick up the RED SEA REEF FOUNDATION PRO MULTI TEST KIT (CA,ALK,MG) to test for Calcium and Mag.

Have you ever used any of the Hanna Checkers?

 

[vio]

Is there a reason using the ATO to increase salinity is not a good idea? Should I empty right away?

I like the Xenia, but have also heard about them spreading like wildfire. ANy suggestions?

Aqua Vitro Fuel - waste of money for what it does or literally wont help?

"# Do NOT add , what you can remove." - what do you mean?

I don't see why you need to add dead Algae like "Chlorella" http://www.aquavitro.com/products/fuel.html...in your case ,work against you, more nutrition,left over nutrition will increase your Nitrate PO4 you don't have sump, will be hard to remove the extra Nutrition, also keep the water make for 4-7 days , why ? some bad minerals may build up (TDS) not sure is good idea.

 

[Pimentinha]

I somehow read past those 4-7 days water mixed up... That is not good. Most people will tell you 24 hours, what I have found in my case is that anything over approximately 4 hours only of having water mixed up the calcium levels start dropping.

You got more test kits than myself... Lol

I have not used a Hanna tester before but they sure look nice.

 

[NYfishies]

Read in a book that you should mix water 1 week in advance. We just started doing this last week. Prior to that we mixed the night before.

 

[Pimentinha]

How long ago was that book written if you don't mind me asking?

 

[NYfishies]

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&ke...vptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_75j26ax7a3_b

2008