HESITATION

hmmm ... someone posted on the forums about a 2nd hand (1 year old) Schuran Pico calcium reactor for sale. Comes with the CO2 bottle and solenoid valve .. so essentially plug and play. Considering VERY hard. It's one of the very few calcium reactors that are small yet efficient, and can comfortably fit into my cabinet - although, with such a pretty (and expensive) piece of equipment I'd want to place it externally to show it off. =D

The next plus point - the guy lives at pasir panjang.

Hmmm. Hmmmm. Not cheap though. Hmmmm. Maybe if he lowers the price by $50? Hmmm. Do I *need* it? Hmmmm. I know I'd do better with a Nilsen reactor connected to a float switch for automatic water top-ups using kalkwasser, but those units are huge - AND COST THE SAME. Without the German brand's reliability. Hmmm. Same price huh. But Nilsen tops up water for me. But do I need to top up frequently? Not really. 500ml per week is plenty. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

GAH. I'll PM him and ask if he can lower the price. HMMMMMMMM. Do I need so much calcium in my tank? OK, I'll measure Ca tonight. If it's in the 300 range I might need supplementation.

Just got my bank interest payout, so I kinda can afford something nice for myself. Or with that money .. what can I do to make my tank better? Let's see. I can:

1) Buy a Mazzei skimmer. Or mini beckett, which is now out of the question. Too large. Mazzei .. hmm. Tempting. Then I'll be wanting more and more .. cos with the new acrylic skimmers I'll start lusting for an ozone generator and ORP controller. Gah.

2) Buy a spanking new sump tank + make a new lighting hood to accomodate better reflectors. And with spare $ to boot to buy a nice pH monitor. This is the thing that's keeping me from the Ca reactor - opportunity costs. Then again, I procrastinate so much. New sump and hood will mean trips down to Kelantan lane with drawins and measurements and all that shit. But I know I'll need them one day.

3) Buy a pinpoint calcium monitor + a bottle of 1L rowaphos. Read Dr. Holmes-Farley's comment on electronic calcium monitoring and kinda think it's unnecessary. It only takes me 5 minutes MAX to titrate the levels of calcium in my tank.

4) Buy tonnes of new corals. Which may eat up Ca in the tank, then I'm back to square one.

5) Buy a nice opthalmoscope and some new books.

I should wait till Aquarama this weekend - may be able to pick up a Deltec Ca reactor then. But Deltecs are huge.

How? How? How???