Kalk/Ca reactor

[BCOrchidGuy]

I've read through hundreds (yeah honest) of previous posts trying to find a simple answer to the question, when is a kalk reactor better than a Calcium reactor and when do you absolutely need the Calcium reactor.

If you're dosing your kalk through your freshwater top off and it's keeping your calcium at an acceptable level then kalk is the way to go... (am I correct?)

If dosing kalk through freshwater top off can't keep your Ca level high enough you'll need the Ca reactor.

How confused am I?

Doug

[StirCrazy]

if your having to dose so much Kalk to maintain your Ca level that your PH is climbing up.. then you need to go to a Ca reactor. other wise Kalk is fine.

I am only running Kalk in a kalk reactor right at the moment and am having no problems. I will be adding a Ca reactor when I fix my old one but I don;t need it in my opinion.

Steve

[Jack]

A kalk reactor is fine if you keep up with your demand. Some benifits are; higher pH and it precipitates phosphate.

Kalk reactors work by replacing evaportated water with saturated calcium. If youre calcium demand is really high and the tank doesn't evaporat enough... you can't dose enough. It has a max, IMO. That's the way I look at it anyways. Properly mixed kalk has a pH of 12 that's why you can't add to much of it aswell.

A reactor is nice because it's almost "set and forget" and doses minerals from the media. Since reactors has a low effluent pH I use kalk to replace all evaporated water aswell so I get the best of both worlds. :mrgreen: