The 15-Minute Calcium Reactor. Text-only plans for a simple one-pass calcium reactor that you can make in about 15 minutes from a household water filter. This is the reactor that I use on my system now. I will add pictures later. (Last modified 9/15/98)

What Chris was up to in May 1998.

Some potential skimmer injectors.

Pictures of my 15 gallon tank taken in March 1998.

Pictures of homemade recirculating calcium reactor. I made this reactor for a friend, and have never used it personally. He says he likes it.

Pictures of my homemade downdraft skimmer.

Pictures of my tanks taken in March 1997.

My reef tank is a 40 gallon glass aquarium with 55 pounds of live sand from Tropico Reeflife, 44 pounds of CaribSea Reef Sand (dead sand), and 55 pounds of "premium" live rock from Tropico Reeflife. Above the main aquarium is a 20 gallon refugium tank with 55 pounds of Tropico Reeflife's coralline grade live rock. This rock used to be in the main aquarium before I got the premium rock.

• The light fixture over my main reef is a real shabby piece of work. Read about it here.
• To see the coralline grade rock alone, soon after I received it, click here.
• To see the premium rock in the main reef, click here.
• To see the refugium, click here.
• To see how I handle fresh water topoff to make up for evaporation, click here.
• Here's a picture of my 2.5 gallon "prison" tank, where I store crabs, urchins, and my carnivorous "mystery" snails. I had a small mantis shrimp in it for a while, but one of the crabs killed it. (I saw the crab playing with the tail of the mantis shrimp.) The tank holds just enough live sand to cover the bottom, and one live rock. The rock is mostly bare at the moment because for months the tank had no light. Water circulation is via an airlift pump that moves water from one end of the tank to the other. There is a heater, but no other hardware.
• Cool red bubble algae in the main tank.