I am going away for a week or so and of course I can't check my reef. I have had occasional problems with my Ca reactor clogging and filling with gas. I was thinking I would just turn off the gas while I was gone. Would this cause my Ca levels to plummet? I have a bunch of corals, frags mostly, so I don't think demand is enormous. I thought I would keep my kalk reactor going at a kind of low level. Any opinions?
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Calcium Reactor and Vacation
- Thread starter jimroth
- Start date
Jim
I always clean Ca RX real well, top off my Kalk and clean the Kalk mixer, clean the skimmer a day or two ahead cause it always goes a little crazy for a day or so after a good cleaning, clean all pads, change the carbon, check the GFO, dish out two of those seven day pill boxes (one with pellets one with frozen) to maintain food portions, make sure there is a full barrel of fresh SW made up and double check that the RO system is purring along, cross my fingers, say three Hail Marys, toss sea salt over my shoulder, and avoid all cracks in the cement on the way out before going on vacation.
And if after all that the only thing that goes wrong while I am away is my Ca RX stopped flowing .... COOL!
... works every time ;D
I always clean Ca RX real well, top off my Kalk and clean the Kalk mixer, clean the skimmer a day or two ahead cause it always goes a little crazy for a day or so after a good cleaning, clean all pads, change the carbon, check the GFO, dish out two of those seven day pill boxes (one with pellets one with frozen) to maintain food portions, make sure there is a full barrel of fresh SW made up and double check that the RO system is purring along, cross my fingers, say three Hail Marys, toss sea salt over my shoulder, and avoid all cracks in the cement on the way out before going on vacation.
And if after all that the only thing that goes wrong while I am away is my Ca RX stopped flowing .... COOL!
... works every time ;D
Baxreefs said:
You are too funny Bax. Do you say a magic spell too, or perhaps bury a statue of a saint in the gravel?
I don't do anything for a week before I go away, too many people have been bit! Murphy's law is a bitch. Cleaning the skimmer sounds like a good idea, though. I suppose I should give the valve on the Ca reactor a good cleaning and start tracking how long I can go without a clog; it's already been like a month. I'm worried if it goes empty too long the recirc pump (a mag) will burn out. Wht do you think about my question; how much will Ca drop in a week without the reactor? I thought it might drop rather slowly.
You're right about what can go wrong, there's so much!
--float valves fail open, fresh water flood
--float valves fail closed, no top up, burn out return pump
--skimmer goes crazy, non-issue because I have a working shutoff
--working shutoff fails, skimmer goes crazy
--AC-3 fails, lights stay off or on for a week (probably not life threatening)
--tank breaker trips (hasn't happened, but bad)
--power outage
--unforseen clogging of drain line causes overflow
--surprise heat wave or cold spell
I'm scaring myself. Is there a patron saint of reef tanks?
Before I started using my Korallin 1502, I'd have similar problems with excess gas in my Knop-C. If I went away on vacation, I would take the reactor offline the day I left after slowly dosing calcium chloride (Turbo Calc) the week prior to leaving on vacation to get to an oversaturated level of calcium(~480-500). This would get me through the week with respect to calcium, however, it would take me a couple of weeks to dial my alkalinity back in.