Quote:
Originally Posted by Spar
+1000
I ditched my Ca Rx on my 450g after feeling like I twiddle with settings way too often. Too many independent parts you have to rely on. I went on a 2 week vacation last year and as Murphy's Law would predict, my CO2 ran out on something like Day 2. My tank sitters wouldn't have noticed that. Came back to most of my coral near-dead from an Alk crash.
Dosing with a peristaltic pump for each of Ca and Alk is so much more simple ("KISS" as stated above").
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Man, something ALWAYS happens during vacation!!!
But in all fairness, really anything could go wrong.
Your doser pump could break down or something with the two-part.
I have used a dosing pump for years, on two different tanks, using the BRS two-part solutions. On my first tank i was always fiddling with it. I could never get the balance right. I my current tank, I learned a bit more and have gotten things pretty stable. But I just switched from two-part to a reactor because I was dumping 300ml of solution into my 200g tank every day. Every 12 days or so I had to mix up another gallon of both alk and calc. So there is the monetary aspect, and then i figured the bonus would be the extra trace elements that get added to the tank along with the alk and calc when using the reactor. It has taken a few days to break in and tune but it looks like my levels have stabilized and alk is even starting to rise a little. Even with two-part I had to adjust the dose now and then to adjust for more or less uptake. With either dosing or a reactor, you need to test at least weekly. Now instead of punching in a number on my computer, i will just need to make a bubble count adjustment. And it's taking care of both Alk and Calc at the same time.
So is there a way to tell how much CO2 is left in the tank or when it's starting to get low? I would think that after you've gone through 2-3 tanks you would have a general idea of how long it lasts but some kind of gauge or something would be nice.