Pics of DSB that delivers calcium?

Look at the neat organisms growing since only March in this 75+ gal. system which has no calcium reactor but uses a very deep DSB of Utah Oolitic Sand, an RDP Refugium, an algae scrubber, a skimmer, and four 55W PC fluorescent lights.
This is the tank of a WMAS member, FS, whom I met by accident at Aquatic Dreams today. (BTW - Aquatic Dreams IS as good as everyone says.)

Camera flash illuminates the DSB but makes the pic yellower than actual:


The algae scrubber is extremely bright. It's sitting above the refugium:



Excellent Halimeda (and hard coral) growth with no calcium reactor!


Excellent Organ Pipe coral, a difficult coral for most tanks, again, in the absense of a calcium reactor:


This sps is growing at the bottom of the tank!


These are some of the happy fish of this tank that was also on this years Reef Tour:


To me this aquarium shows that a unique growth of coral and algae which require major amounts of Calcium is possible with a deep DSB and without MH lighting!! I theorize that the deep areas of this sand bed are natural calcium reactors.
What do y'all think?

Mark, that is a good looking tank.  If the DSB is producing enough calcium to sustain hard corals, without the addition of any additives, then I would assume that he/she is going through substrate like crazy.  Maybe I am in left field here, but why wouldn't this person put a reactor on it?  Or MH?  If this tank is doing this good w/o those elements, think of what it could do with them.  It is a very nice looking tank.  Congrats to the owner!

Edited by Travis

A reactor is not necessary to maintain constant high calcium and alkalinity values.  Contrary to what Mark orginally posted, Spack is adding both calcium and alkalinity in the form of "Reef Builder" and "he adds calcium".  I'd contend that it's not his sand bed supplying these elements, but his additives. 

Back to the reactor question.  Crazy-sps,  if you have a moderate to high calcium demand tank then the most economical way to supply calcium/alkalinity in a BALANCED fashion is almost always a calcium reactor.  If you don't care about the ionic composition in your tank, then it's pretty cheap to just use "buffer" (or baking soda) and turbo calcium in an UNBALANCED fashion.  I prefer a balanced approach and would suggest that route.

Jon, I agree with you completely. I don't see a ton of calcifying coral in that tank from the pic. If there was a lot of it, then I think it would be a different story. Are you going to get a skimmer for your 125?

Edited by Marcus

Well I'll be darned!  I just reread your initial post and you never did say he wasn't adding additives.  I must have just read that into your post .

*Never mind too*

Edited by jfinch