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Durand tank build (1 Viewer)

My overflow has still been all over the place. SO for documentation purposes so I can keep track of what Ive been doing. I’ve turned my return pump down from 5(max) to 3. Then increased my mp10’s from 50% to 60% power. I also added a small nano pump to the sump to mix things around and keep the top off the water from collecting crap. See how all this affect my nighttime overflow box fluctuation.
 
Thanks, I remeber dosing kalk back in the day and did exactly as you did with milk jugs. I eventually just went to 2 part. But took the tank down before I could see the results. Thought there might be a better solution this time around but Milk jug it is. Thinking of using a Kamoer wifi for pump If I cant find a used brs dosing pump. The Kamoer one im using for my afr has worked well for me, maybe hook to ac controller to not run or shut off if PH gets above a set amount. Is your kalk water your only water you are using for dosing and ATO. Or do you run a separate ATO as well. My plan is to hopefully have my ATO still online. Run Kalk in low dose for PH increase, and AFR for trace, mag,alc,cal. Hopefully this all works together and I dont crash the tank. 😝
I just a have a large return pump chamber so I don't do anything with an ato it's about a 180 gallon system so I just dump 5 gallons in every few days lol
 
Kalk powder, dosing pump, and test kits all ordered. Ill need to look for a better container then a milk jug but might have to do at first. 🤞🏽this works like I hope 😝 Broke down and got the algae free. Im to nervous to use a razor blade on the glass still. Also really trying to keep my hands out of the tank.
 
I have a large ato container (50 Gallons) that feeds a couple systems. So I don't want to put Kalk in my ato.

I am consistently running 8.3 Alk and 420 Calc. If I want to start dosing Kalk and back off on some of the two part, any suggestions.
 
I have a large ato container (50 Gallons) that feeds a couple systems. So I don't want to put Kalk in my ato.

I am consistently running 8.3 Alk and 420 Calc. If I want to start dosing Kalk and back off on some of the two part, any suggestions.
Are your systems tied together? I would just start slow, probably with fully saturated kalk solution witch is about 1 and 1/2 tsp kalkwasser per gallon maybe a bit more or less depending on the witch kalkwasser you get. Slowly add more kalk and less two part it's certainly cheaper but doing the math on this for ball park idea of what to dose would be difficult. Probably more of a touch and go situation. And a pro tip always keep your kalk powder in a air tight bag or even better two. I use the brs kalk and the bags are not air tight I have a large zip lock over the bag and squeeze as much air out as possible then another ziplock. Not certain of your system size but you might just want to start with a bucket with an air tight lid. Some people go as far as making a float on the inside of the kalk container so that air (co2) doesn't touch the surface of the kalk solution. Also Milwaukee has several different hand held ph probes that are accurate, I forget what model but they can be used to measure your kalk solution so that every time you mix up a new batch you'll have consistent results. Should be a ph of 12.54 at around 77 degrees F. I'm not familiar with the relation between kalk solutions ph and temp but it does fluctuate from what I'm reading. I have far to many notebooks and can't find my notes but this is about everything. Again a bit of a ramble but should be solid info. Kalk is much cheaper than 2 part. It also has a detoxifying effect what this detoxify's I'm not certain but it's what I've read probably from a randy Holmes-Farley article.
 
Are your systems tied together? I would just start slow, probably with fully saturated kalk solution witch is about 1 and 1/2 tsp kalkwasser per gallon maybe a bit more or less depending on the witch kalkwasser you get. Slowly add more kalk and less two part it's certainly cheaper but doing the math on this for ball park idea of what to dose would be difficult. Probably more of a touch and go situation. And a pro tip always keep your kalk powder in a air tight bag or even better two. I use the brs kalk and the bags are not air tight I have a large zip lock over the bag and squeeze as much air out as possible then another ziplock. Not certain of your system size but you might just want to start with a bucket with an air tight lid. Some people go as far as making a float on the inside of the kalk container so that air (co2) doesn't touch the surface of the kalk solution. Also Milwaukee has several different hand held ph probes that are accurate, I forget what model but they can be used to measure your kalk solution so that every time you mix up a new batch you'll have consistent results. Should be a ph of 12.54 at around 77 degrees F. I'm not familiar with the relation between kalk solutions ph and temp but it does fluctuate from what I'm reading. I have far to many notebooks and can't find my notes but this is about everything. Again a bit of a ramble but should be solid info. Kalk is much cheaper than 2 part. It also has a detoxifying effect what this detoxify's I'm not certain but it's what I've read probably from a randy Holmes-Farley article.

Good info. I have about 200 gallons total system. Load is light to moderate now, but will be heavy as I add and things grow. If I do the Kalk mix like you suggest...how much would you drip in a day.

Right now I am dosing 56ml of Alk two part from BRS and 13.5 ml pf Calc.
 
At a total replacement from using some online calculators you'd be using around 2.6 liters of fully saturated kalk a day. But I would make this change slowly over time. I'd probably start with 100ml a day and bump back the soda ash 2ml and the Calc around .5ml these are some rough estimates. Would be easier if we knew the total volumes of your system but there's all kinds of things that take up water volume rock, sand, coral, etc. Personally I started with kalk then I added two part. It'sa little difficult to figure especially when trying to keep a stable environment. Just hard to be exact,
 
Well, I know some of you believe in science, so I decided I would play chemist today.

I took a gallon of my tank water. Alk is at 8.3 and Calc is at 410. I added 1 ml of Kalk at a time and took some measurements:
- adding 1ml Kalk Alk to 8.6 Calc to 415
- adding 2ml Kalk Alk to 8.75 Calc to 420
- adding 4ml Kalk Alk to 8.9 Calc to 440

I use Salifert tests, so lots of drops of this and drops of that. So probably some precision variability. I am thinking of adding Kalk and just keeping my settings where they are and start off by adding 50ml a day. My system is around 200 gallons, so my Alk and Calk shouldn't move to much and I can watch PH. I can then slowly move the kalk up to my desired PH, or within reason.

Maybe science is real
 
Sounds like a good plan I use mainly kalk then a little soda ash and all for reef in an attempt to keep some of the trace elements up.
 
My science for the day. Got my cal and mag test kit today.
cal was 40-60 maybe. Tested three times. 😬 saliferttest kit
Mag was around 1410 also salifert test kit
Alk I’m having hanna trouble with. My one reg came in 150ppm and the other 135ppm.

So now I’m going to mix up my kalk. I’m maybe thinking I need to pick up something to raise my calc back up to normal range??? Or maybe the kalk will do that for me. Going to run to reef maybe tomorrow and have them test my alk just to see what one of my reg is bad.(same lot and same exp date).
 
Kalk mixed and settling. Did 1/2 tsp in a 1 gallon jug. Have doser set up to dose 2ml per hour for 5 hours starting at 1am with a total of 10ml per night. Figured this hopefully is a good starting point with out putting in to much. I have it dumping into my sump near the new pump I put in so lot of flow ti mix kalk. Also set up controller to turn pump off if ph gets about 8.2. I’m currently sitting at 7.8 fingers crossed I don’t wake up to a nuked tank. 🙃
 
Might make an impact it's a fairly low dose though. I'm not familiar with the way you measure alk, I always measure in dkh. I've never heard of anybody with Calc so low😬
 
My hanna that was given to me measures ppm. So I always forget to convert it When taking about it. depending on what reg I use. I’m 7.4 or 8.3 Lol. Gotta get a second Set of eyes on it.

i can’t believe calc is that low. But when testing the kit says to dump 6ml right away then just a few drops and swirl. Mine changed while adding the first few ml. so it’s way low.

maybe I should increase the ml per hour?
 
I mean, if you’re doing regular water changes is it even possible for your calcium to be off by a full order of magnitude? I would think not? I’d be looking to double check it with a different kit. It’s two weeks away, but If you were planning to come to Hudson for my meeting on Nov 5th you could bring some tank water with you and we could test stuff with my Red Sea kit if you wanted.
 
I mean, if you’re doing regular water changes is it even possible for your calcium to be off by a full order of magnitude? I would think not? I’d be looking to double check it with a different kit. It’s two weeks away, but If you were planning to come to Hudson for my meeting on Nov 5th you could bring some tank water with you and we could test stuff with my Red Sea kit if you wanted.
its hard to say. im going have rc test cal,mag,and alk if they will tomorrow. I’ve been doing weekly water changes of about 12 gallons. I’ll hope it’s a bad test kit and hope for some answers tomorrow
 
Think I have finally figured out maybe what was going on with my overflow box and the changes in the water height. Last night well setting up my Kalk system the overflow box water level dropped a few inches and starting making lots of noise at the exact time I noticed my mp’s went into feeding mode and the auto feeder dumped food into the tank. No this morning I woke up to the overflow box being back at the level it was yesterday before the mp’s turned down. It seems to me that when ever anything changes in the main tank be that water level raises from putting my arm or hands in the tank or the flow changes from the mp’s the first response is the water level in the overflow box. The tank then takes many hours to get back to normal running levels. Im going to test this today and see what happens. I have the mp’s set to just run all the time and never change at any point.

As of 4am, tank is still going well from the 3 doses of Kalk that have be added so far. I dont see any spikes in the ph or ever raise level but im sure 6ml is just to low of a dose to really show any improvements yet. Going To try testing the calc again this am before heading out for the day and see if maybe I was doing something wrong yesterday.
 
Wow, felling dumb. LOl I knew it just had to be operator error. After adding my 2ml of water to test vial and then the ca-1. Water turns a little pink before mixing. Once I start adding the Ca-2 a few drops at a time and swirling the water instantly turned pink. So I stopped adding and read. This reads 40-50 for calc. But if you follow the directions and add the .6 like your suppone to and swirl for 5 seconds the water turns back to pink. Then start adding the few drops at a time and swirl. When doing this the correct way. 🤦🏽‍♂️ My fresh salt measures 500 and my tank is at 450. So from what I have my tank is pretty much whee i want it in those terms. So now that I lost a full night of sleep trying to figure out how I was going to raise my calc by 400 lol I can go back to focusing on raising my PH. LOL 1 night of dosing the 10Ml didnt show any results. Think I raise it by 10ml for tonight and see what happens. Instead of adding 2ml per hour. Ill go 2ml per 1/2 hour giving a total of 10 doses and 20ml of the 1/2 tablespoon per gallon solution.
 
Wow, felling dumb. LOl I knew it just had to be operator error. After adding my 2ml of water to test vial and then the ca-1. Water turns a little pink before mixing. Once I start adding the Ca-2 a few drops at a time and swirling the water instantly turned pink. So I stopped adding and read. This reads 40-50 for calc. But if you follow the directions and add the .6 like your suppone to and swirl for 5 seconds the water turns back to pink. Then start adding the few drops at a time and swirl. When doing this the correct way. 🤦🏽‍♂️ My fresh salt measures 500 and my tank is at 450. So from what I have my tank is pretty much whee i want it in those terms. So now that I lost a full night of sleep trying to figure out how I was going to raise my calc by 400 lol I can go back to focusing on raising my PH. LOL 1 night of dosing the 10Ml didnt show any results. Think I raise it by 10ml for tonight and see what happens. Instead of adding 2ml per hour. Ill go 2ml per 1/2 hour giving a total of 10 doses and 20ml of the 1/2 tablespoon per gallon solution.
Often times when I'm reading directions I'll skip a whole step/line. Couple days ago I was putting another mp10 on my tank and I was trying to reset it man I read the directions like 10 times finally tried to read it out loud and.... well let's just say I thought the thing was broken and I was getting pissed 😅
 
Added a screen top today. Just didn’t feel comfortable not having one. Food these nice corners on brs by neat aquatics. Has a lip on the outer edge of the plastic corner so it not only a corner but also hangs on the edge of the tank. Nice tight fitted. Just left a little room between edge and auto feeder
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Is there away to change where the evaporation happens in the sump? I want to if its possible to rearrange my sump that the area that water evaporates and gets filed from ato is not the same place my return pump sits. I tried some google searches but not really sure how to explain it in away google understand LOL. The change in the height of water in the return chamber is what I think is the cause of the water level changing in the overflow. Not having as bad of an issue as I was having now that the flow has been slowed down, but I dont want to run like this if I dont have to. As the water evaporates and ato kicks on raising the water line. The overflow box water level moves up and down very slowly. But by evening time the evaporation slows and the ato stops filling. Hours after all this has happened the water level equal out eventually and that height is either low and makes noise In overflow or its high ano goes down the emergency drain. Its a back and forth, back and forth torn in my side.
 

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