Now more than ever reef aquarists all over the world are successfully growing a wide range of stony corals, and experiencing the increased mineral demands that comes with having larger corals. Multi part dosing can go a long way to keeping up with Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium but there’s definitely a tipping point where it starts to make more practical and financial sense to use a calcium reactor for this purpose.
许多主要用于计量maintai冷藏ning their calcium and alkalinity levels have surely heard about calcium reactors somewhere along their reefing experience, but may not be fully versed in when they should use one, and the various tips and tricks that makes using a calcium reactor a much smoother experience. We’ve worked with some really advanced calcium reactors in the past but with the launch of the newAquavitro元件CA钙反应器we wanted to put together a list of ten pointers that should ease the transition from dosing to using a calcium reactor.
不要不知所措。我们希望不理理解的第一件事是，首次查看钙反应堆比实际使用它更令人困惑。有很多软管，管子和涂鸦，但是一旦您了解了它们的工作，您就会感到更加自在。多年来我们使用的所有不同模型，即使我们第一次看到新设计时也会感到困惑，但是从根本上讲，它们都是相同的。
为什么是钙反应器？As we alluded to above, it’s easier than ever to manage the demand for minerals in reef aquarium water but once your population of corals reaches a certain level, either from lots of corals in a small tank or simply a large tank, it makes more sense to use a calcium reactor. Surely you’ve seen the cost of dosing liquid additives, and mixing dry additives can also add up over time, not to mention the time it takes to resupply and mix your own, it’s just not great if you have lots of fast growing corals. This is where calcium reactors offer a much better long term value over just dosing buffer, and it’s more stable too because it’s constantly working. No doubt a calcium reactor is more expensive up front but when set up right it can coast for up to a year depending on your setup
Calcium reactors have a greater effect on Alkalinity.A calcium reactor is more a pump for alkalinity than for calcium. With a name like calcium reactor you’d think this device would create a lot of calcium for your tank but it actually replenishes the carbonates that boost alkalinity substantially more, which is a good thing for reef aquarium chemistry. Reef tanks consume carbonates much faster than calcium or magnesium so in a different universe a calcium reactor might as well be called a limestone, aragonite or carbonate reactor.
A pH controller is optional.You don’t need a pH controller to run a calcium reactor – it’s by far the best way to control the function of a calcium reactor, but we used them in an analog fashion long before we ever used pH controllers. Testing the effluent is how the hobby started using calcium reactors and you can use a basic pH pen to achieve the same result, aiming for a pH of 6.5 to 6.7, I tend to prefer the higher end 6.7 so as not to add to much acidic CO2 to the tank water.
What is a good starting rate?尤其是如果您不使用pH控制器，您可能会想知道二氧化碳中应该冒出什么速率，以及整个设备中可以运行多少水。一个良好的起点是每秒二氧化碳和每分钟的气泡每秒一个气泡 - 调节流量以增加碱度，并根据需要增加气泡速率，以使pH值保持在6.7或以下。这些是使用平均小钙反应堆的准则，但是如果您有商业规模的矿物补充需求，则无论如何您可能会使用pH控制器。
What size reactor media?钙反应器中最新的发展之一是一系列反应堆培养基等级的可用性。在钙反应堆的早期，用户倾向于使用粗砂，在反应堆中提供尽可能多的表面积以溶解的介质。精细介质的麻烦在于，它因溶解而分解，而产生的细粒子往往会堵塞其余的介质，从而导致性能差。因此，钙反应堆培养基的大小增长，可以使用粗大和中等等级，以减少堵塞问题，并且使用更高的水流用于弥补减少的表面积。
When to replace the media?钙反应器介质需要替换方式，然后反应堆为空。当钙反应器开始溶解其内部的介质时，首先，水平将从顶部下降，但最终，介质内部会发生很多溶解，而不会下降。您几乎不会崩溃，这些崩溃会明显降低水平，但是内部的空隙很难发现，因此您需要在反应室明显较低的情况下清洗，冲洗和顶部媒体。For this reason you’ll want to pick a reactor that has easy enough access to the media – sometimes you can simply top off the media, other times you also want to wash off the media to remove the fine particles, but this is much less of an issue with coarse aragonite options.
You need to manage the low pH effluent.A calcium reactor will drop your aquarium pH. The very nature of dissolving limestone and aragonite using carbon dioxide means that the effluent water going into your tank has a very low pH. Therefore you really want a dedicated way to treat the low pH and CO2 of the effluent, so one best practice is to have a secondary chamber of finer media to absorb some of the CO2. Another thing you can do is to direct the effluent into the skimmer intake, or better yet a combination of a secondary media chamber than then flows into the protein skimmer for degassing of the acidifying gas.
Use a dosing pump to feed the calcium reactor. It’s not mandatory, but a dosing pump is a huge improvement in managing the flow rate of the calcium reactor. Plenty of calcium reactor designs don’t要求a feed pump, but over time even the best gang valve or fine control valve will get clogged – it’s simply a natural process of what happens when you dissolve rock, lime and grit will interfere with the precision of any valve you place at the outflow of the reactor. Likewise, make sure to use some kind of prefilter before a dosing pump used to supply the feed water in order to avoid any problems at the beginning of the chain.
别忘了！检查您的钙反应器以确保其正常运行。钙反应堆是您的珊瑚礁储罐碱度的巡航控制，您的一些钙也是您的钙，但是定期观察将有助于保持一切正常。即使是最基本的钙反应堆设置，也有很多活动部件，因此每周一次，快速浏览一下气泡计数器，流出率，媒体水平和外观，只是为了验证一切都在名义上运行。
