Media for calcium reactors

[Osama]

Has any one ran a survey on the best media to use with a clacium reactor?
Is there a chemical comparison somewhere on the qualitity of the output in terms of calcium, magnisium etc.
and a very basic question do you rinse the media first before using it or not?

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
This is like which brand of cigarrette do you smoke?? :wink:

That is, they are all the same, and it just matter of preference.

Most aragonite are fine. Some prefers mined aragonite, but I use CaribSea Seaflor, which is cheapest non-SD sand around here. The cost don't really matter, since even if you use the most expensive media, it is just pennies a day for a medium-sized tank.

Rise or not is another preference. Even if you don't rise the medium, it will clear up in a few hours.

 

[Adam1]

Osama,

The archives of Aquarium Frontiers is available through the main page of reefs.org. There are articles in there comparing a few media.

IME, high dollar media are not worth the price, however I do suggest avoiding prducts with alot of mollusc shells since they supposedly contain more silica than coral skeletons, but since some folks intentionally add silica, even that is a questionable conclusion.

Personally, I have been very satisfied with Caribsea special grade reef sand. It appears to be low in mollusc shells, since it is fine alot will fit in the chamber, and it is relatively cheap.

Special reactor media products may dissolve a little faster, so may be worth the money if you have very high Ca demand and don't want a bigger reactor.

HTH

Adam

 

[Osama]

Thanks Seven E. And Adam... i will try what is available locally and see if I notice a difference...

 

[JerseyReef]

I use ARM myself. Why? Well it's was available locally and I've heard about good results from people who've used it. Since this is the first Ca Reactor I've setup, I don't have anything to compare it to.

A friend of mine has about 1200 lbs of CC sitting in those large green tubs. I may start using that, on the next refill. However, with only 24lbs of media at a time, it will take forever (well, not really forever) to go through all of that CC. :lol:

 

[suckair]

ha ha, I use what ever. I had some left over sand I got from a guy's fish tank "coral sand" and I have been using that. I remember in Knop's book saying that he used dead clam shells when he could get them for his clam tanks. It don't really matter.

I have been experimenting with using very find sand in the 2nd stage and so far that is working quite well.