[ben]

seeing as this is a hot topic at the moment i thought id start a thread for people to list their choice of media , for us who know little about it.

can you experianced guys tell us what you choose and why.

cheers
ben

[jed]

ben, on Jul 2 2008, 06:28 PM, said:

seeing as this is a hot topic at the moment i thought id start a thread for people to list their choice of media , for us who know little about it.

can you experianced guys tell us what you choose and why.

cheers
ben

well i've used Arm mixed with grotech mag chips for the past year with no issue's,apart from a period where it wasn't putting out enough calcium in balance with kh,but after adding calc supplements for a month it sorted itself out.
reason i chose Arm, it takes less co2 to dissolve and supposed to have less phosphate than any other media,not sure how true that is though,on my next change i may go for a coral branch in the 1st chamber and Arm the 2nd.

[SLAPPY]

jed, on Jul 2 2008, 06:42 PM, said:

well i've used Arm mixed with grotech mag chips for the past year with no issue's,apart from a period where it wasn't putting out enough calcium in balance with kh,but after adding calc supplements for a month it sorted itself out.
reason i chose Arm, it takes less co2 to dissolve and supposed to have less phosphate than any other media,not sure how true that is though,on my next change i may go for a coral branch in the 1st chamber and Arm the 2nd.

Brett

You say you have 2 reactors running, are they both linked to each other, any photos by any chance?

[ben]

yeh ive read that ARM can dissolve too fast if the ph is too low, so im worried about using it. the reef bones sound better but i cant find anywhere that sells them

[jed]

ben, on Jul 2 2008, 07:05 PM, said:

yeh ive read that ARM can dissolve too fast if the ph is too low, so im worried about using it. the reef bones sound better but i cant find anywhere that sells them

i've never managed to turn it to mush yet and i did start to run it quite hard until i upgraded to 2 reactors,i'll try and get a pic for you later although it won't be easy to see with the mess under my cabinet
pm'd a link for some media

[ben]

cool

[chriss]

As per Jed, Arm and Grotech mag chips. I HAVE turned it too mush once, my own fault. Considering I have no experience of any other medias I can't fault it.

Chris

[TrevC]

Ben I'm using reef bones that came with the 1501. Seems fine, no issues at the moment.
Would suggest you go for a pH controller, less to worry about and so much easier to set up.

[Social D]

Looking forward to getting one myself, My kalk stirrer stopped working last night
And it comsumed 25 scoops of bio-calcium just to bring it up to 440ppm!

A question how do you work out how much mag chips to add?

[jed]

Andrew, on Jul 3 2008, 11:00 PM, said:

Mines running with ARM and mag chips, i've had no problems with the ARM media but i've heard if you lower the ph too much i.e below 7.3 it will ruin the media!

Andrew i think you mean 6.3 although i thought it was risky to go below 6.5

Tim, on Jul 3 2008, 11:32 PM, said:

Looking forward to getting one myself, My kalk stirrer stopped working last night
And it comsumed 25 scoops of bio-calcium just to bring it up to 440ppm!

A question how do you work out how much mag chips to add?

sounds like a good excuse Tim
mag chips,you add about 10% of your overall media from memory

pic for tony of my reactors, although probably won't help much,the larger is a bit cloudy as i just moved it trying to get a better pic.

[chriss]

Regarding the mag chips, I found they tend to push the ph up so put some in a DI pod connected to the outlet.

Chris

[ben]

i might use my kalk stirrer as an efflo chamber and put mag chips in that

[SLAPPY]

Thanks Brett, how do you know what's what in there (pipe and cable wise)?

[Simon Garratt]

I use coral branch media in my home made monster. Latest batch is from a company called 'Wave' which is actually sold as course coral gravel rather than reactor media. I used to use Shuran branch media (shown in image) but this can be quite pricy per kilo so switched to the Wave which comes in at around £11.00 for 10 kilo's and is about twice as course (up to 2" chunks).



I can actually use just about any media in mine as i have adjustable flow for using finer fluidising medias etc, but the main reason i use the course stuff is that you can get some serious flow rate through it without it lifting up and clogging which is good from a chemistry point of veiw as it allows better diffusiuon of gas throughout the media, and its a more all encompassing media than any of the land based hydrocarbonate medias which are limited in other trace elements. In effect branch media redistributes nearly all the bound elements that corals use up, back into solution at the same levels they were taken up in the first place, so no need to worry about MG dosing or the vast majority of other elements as its all there ready to be dissolved back into solution at balanced levels (as long as you start off balanced in the first place)..


I think the limiting factor though with this media is that many reactors just dont have powerfull enough pumps on them to get the recirculation rates required to get the best from this type of media. If that were the case, i think we would see the end of products like arm etc as they would be pretty much defuct.

Regards

Si.

[ben]

ive gone for the coral gravel too as it seems to be a good choice for the v2 range, and as im not using a controller yet it has less chance of melting away like the ARM seems to do.


ps, si you shouldnt leave your money lieing around like that , or the wife will get it,lol

[Simon Garratt]

Tell me about it... i never did see that note again...


Its still worth getting a controler to be honest though Ben as this media does vary in its output with just small tweaks in pH....Im getting about 40+DkH at 6.45 and 40ml/min which seems to be about its best (most stable) setting. You can go down to as low as 6.2 if you push it, but the effluant then starts going slightly milky which screws up the readings.

that is a point woth noting actually as ive seen alot of people quote output readings whilst over running the reactor...ie unless the effluant is completely clear, chances are you are measuring both dissolved and particulates which is false...the dust doesnt do anything for your system as its not actually 'dissolved into solution at a chemical level, but a test kit doesnt know that....

regards

si.

[Lost Boys]

I have been using the Wave media for some time and found this to give excellent results and i pass the fluid through a container of Arm to just raise the PH back up, works really well and the SPS seem to be doing fine.

[ben]

yeh i will get a controller in the future.

so si, your saying the water in the reactor shouldnt become milky?