Still have to dose calcium with a calcium reactor?

[limitup]

I'm looking into getting a calcium reactor. One of the things the guy at my [acronym:bbf7dc9a50="Local Fish Store"]LFS[/acronym:bbf7dc9a50] said was that although they are great, you will still need to add calcium manually every now and then. I said, can't you just crank up the calcium reactor to output the amount you need, and he said no it can only do so much blah blah. So I guess I'm wondering first of all, does this make sense? And if so, what exactly are the benefits of a calcium reactor if you still need to manually add calcium every now and then?

[BillyZ]

I'm no that familiar with them so hopefully someone else will chime in.

The way they work is by passing water that has been subject to high levels of [acronym:07ed2f96ff="Carbon dioxide"]CO2[/acronym:07ed2f96ff] to drop the [acronym:07ed2f96ff="power head or Measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions, depending on context"]ph[/acronym:07ed2f96ff] over a volume of calcium carbonate. That water draws the [acronym:07ed2f96ff="Calcium"]CA[/acronym:07ed2f96ff] and is then returned to the tank. The rate at which this happens I assume has a maximum. If the water moves too quickly it won't have the chance to draw off the [acronym:07ed2f96ff="Calcium"]CA[/acronym:07ed2f96ff] (I assume). So I would imagine the thing to do would be to be sure you get a reactor that is sufficiently sized for your needs. Probably go a little bigger than you think so that as your tank grows (and your corals grow) you still have some room to grow in your reactor.