cedar

Hi everyone...I am happy to say that my tank is running great!We have 6 nemo's, one yellow tang,one clam...t. crocea...and one fire shrimp and two cleaner shrimp.we also have snails and crabs. My question is that my LFS is saying it might be a good idea to get a calcium reactor.We are running 240 lbs live rock with sump and protein skimmer and are upgrading the sump to add a refugium. Our tank is 120 g.I just wondered what the general consenses is on calcium reactors. any info would be great.

au01st

It's a little unnerving that they would advise you to get anything without knowing your numbers. What are your Calcium, Carbonate Hardness, and magnesium levels?

Calcium reactors are mainly used on tanks that have large amounts of SPS and LPS coral, who use calcium in constructing their skeletons. I have several LPS and SPS pieces, and my calcium rarely drops below 400 (I add a capful of Purple-up every other day). That said, you can get by with dosing the tank for the suplements you require until you have many many corals that require calcium.


For your stocking, I would remove 4 clownfish, leaving only the largest and the smallest one in the tank. Clownfish are all born male, but can turn female (they cannot turn back) and they will pair off. Removing all but the largest and smallest will give you the best chance of one male and one female. Also, even in large systems, they will find each other and they will fight once they've paired off.

How deep is your tank? If it's deeper than 20" you will need to move the clam up onto the rocks so it can receive sufficient PAR from the lights. Some species of clams prefer to live on the rocks, but I can't remember off the top of my head which do, so just make sure of your placement so he doesn't hop around.

Mike

Calcium reactors can be initially expensive but you can make up the costs of running them over time vs. buying supplements to keep calcium and alkalinity levels up. Test your calc. and alk. levels and then chart them over a period of days/weeks to see how much they are falling. Once you've figured out how quickly these levels are dropping you'll have a better idea about whether or not you need a calcium reactor.