What other supplements are *needed* when running Calcium Reactor?

[Kostas G.]

Hello

A question I have been trying to answer is what other supplements are needed by an SPS & LPS aquarium when using a Calcium reactor to cover its Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium(with MagPro added) needs and assuming one is successful keeping these 3 constant? I mean these are just 3 elements getting replenished. What about the many other more that seawater contains and are used up in growth or everyday life of corals and macroalgae?

My questions are:
1. If nothing else than food is added to an SPS & LPS tank with a Chaeto refugium, other than what the calcium reactor supplies, would the corals have problems? What kind of problems?(coloration?recession?, death?)

2. What other elements should be replenished that a Ca reactor does not supply?

3. What are some tried and successful products and dosing schedules from those of you using Ca reactor? What you dose apart from what your reactor adds and how do you see your corals react to them? How do you judge quantities?

Thank you very much

 

[Vette67]

I have a calcium reactor and for 15 years, I haven’t added anything other than mag sulphate and mag chloride, even though I have Re-Mag in my reactor. Then I bought an alkalinity test kit about 3 weeks ago. My alk was down at 5.2. I was blissfully unaware that it was that low, and figured the reactor was keeping up with alk. It was not. So I have since started dosing sodium bicarbonate. But with my alk that low, it begs the question of where my pH is, so I have a Milwaukee pH controller coming in tomorrow. If my pH is low, I will drip dose kalkwasswer to bring it up. But that is still an unknown. Only other thing I dose is iodine, when I remember. I don’t test for it, so I way under dose it so that I don’t do anything too bad too quickly.

Now even with my alk at 5.2 for who knows how many days/weeks/years, I was able to grow this acro from a 1.5” plug to the size of a volleyball in about 4 years. Which begs the question: how important is alkalinity really?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I think it is a reasonable strategy to try a trace a trace element mixture from a trusted company and see if it benefits your tank. The reactor is only adding skeletal ingredients, not elements taken into tissues, such as iron and manganese that are rapidly depleted.

 

[Vette67]

I agree with Randy. He is the expert, after all. But I will say that if you are doing regular water changes, most decent salt mixes contain enough of the trace elements that they can get replenished that way as well. But it probably would be a good idea to dose a quality trace element mix. Something I may look into too.

My Milwaukee ORP / pH controller came in, and after calibration, I’m at 8.20 pH. I couldn’t dial it in better if I tried. I will monitor to see if there are swings between day and night, but since I run a 40 gallon refugium full of chaeto, counter to daylight, I would expect that to smooth out the night time pH drop.

I will continue to monitor alk and keep it as close to 8 as I can by adding the sodium bicarbonate / sodium carbonate mix. Randy actually has a good recipe for mixing that up to keep alk stable.

So those are the main 3 I dose. Magnesium, carbonate and iodine. Those along with a good trace element mix and regular water changes should get you many years of successful reefing with a calcium reactor.