Durand tank build (1 Viewer)

[Varig]

I don't think 100mL doses would be that bad IF it's over a couple of minutes. How fast does your dosing pump dose? Is it like 10mL/min or 100mL/min?

 

[reef junkie]

I don't think 100mL doses would be that bad IF it's over a couple of minutes. How fast does your dosing pump dose? Is it like 10mL/min or 100mL/min?

95.8ml took 2min 40sec

 

[Varig]

Gotcha. I mean I'm no expert, but I think if you're putting that into a high flow area that's not going to be an issue. I guess if you start to see lots of precipitation, I was wrong

 

[reef junkie]

Gotcha. I mean I'm no expert, but I think if you're putting that into a high flow area that's not going to be an issue. I guess if you start to see lots of precipitation, I was wrong

first dose seemed fine. Thanks


I took a few zip ties and addd to the stirrer with the hopes it will stir the mud a little more keeping the saturation higher. Also cleaned and raised the mud out. Added 1/2 cup Kalk back in. Stirred and mixed up and reset in the cabinet. Gonna let it settle a little before turning back on and hope that I can start to see better numbers. I keep checking my alk a few times a day and noticed it going from 7.9-8.2.

 

[reef junkie]

Swapped out my 1/4” bird netting that I had in my screen top for the 1/8” netting from BRS today. Im not a fan The clear/white netting reflect so much light now it looks so bright. The bird netting faded away being black. Im going to leave it A few dayes and see if it grows on me.

Never received my ball valve today from Amazon. Figured that would happen with the bad roads. Hopefully tomorrow I can start building the scrubber. Need the 3d parts still but Im excited to get it started.

 

[reef junkie]

2200ml of kalk seems to be a bit more then what seems to work for my evaporation rate. Water level was pretty high in return pump chamber this am. So lowered to 2100ml. Will see what the water level does over the next 24 hours. Measured my alk this morning at was at 8.5. The added kalk I think help bump the Dkh a little. But if I need to lower my dose I’ll be needing to supplement. So quickly mixed up some all for reef and thinking I’ll just start with 6ml for a few days and then retest. Thinking I’d like to be at 9dkh.

the start of the scrubber has started. Got the ball valve today. Now just need those skimmer parts.

I’m a little confused on best way to set up scrubber. I was planning to have the line from skimmer go to a t. That would then t off to the scrubber and the other end of the t to the ball valve. Then if the ph got over say 8.4. The ball valve would open allowing the skimmer to pull fresh air from the ball valve being open. And then if the ph dropped below say 8.2. The ball valve would be closed and all air get pulled into the skimmer again. Does this sound correct?

 

[Jonty]

Yes

 

[reef junkie]

Bored this am, decided to test everything I have test kits for.

Temp 78
Ph probe 7.89 Hanna 8
Alk Hanna 8.5 DKH
Phosphate Hanna .05
Magnesium Salifert over 1500
Calcium Salifert over 500
Nitrates Hanna 0.00

Since starting Kalk i have not been able to get anything for result on mag and calc. Not sure if I should be concerned or not. Only time I see a change in corals is when the alk gets below 8. Still working slowly to get alk to 9. Adjusted all for reef to 8ml per day. Kalk think im going to have to lower a little more. Water level is still sitting high. Want to give the tank a little more time to evaporate the extra water out Before adjusting Dose.

on a plus side its been over a week and Ive not had to adjust the gate valve once. LOL the tank has been silent as well. I feel like I was starting to loose my mind for a hot minute. .

Second ph probe should be here today from BRS. I picked up the double junction this time. Be interesting to see how it reads With my Hanna and current ph probe being a little different.

 

[reef junkie]

New Ph probe arrived, calibrated and installed. recalibrated the old(few moths old) one as well while i had solution out. Old one now reads 7.95. New one reads 8.05. Water level was still up this evening. So gonna have to drop the alk Dose down some more. Think I had better luck at 1800ml then then the 2100 and then 2000ml. Must fluctuate a few 100ml depending on how cold it is outside and how much the furnace kicks on. Im set for 1900ml now of Kalk and 8ml of all for reef. Will check alk in the am and see how we sit. Sure is fussy, but helps to keep my mind bust between shoveling snow.

 

[reef junkie]

Well got half my scrubber installed today. Still waiting for the skimmer attachment and collection cup. Tested everything and so far seems to be set correct. We’ll see when the other parts get in and I can have it pulling air in from the skimmer cup.

Setting as of today.

Now that I have my overflow working properly I was able to switch my mp10’s back to reef crest mode. Getting some good random flow back into the tank again.

Also received my second magnet attachment for my tunze ato yesterday and got that in. I might be close to a bug free system yet . Minus user error.

 

[reef junkie]

I was reading through my build thread to figure out when I set this tank up. Can’t believe its only been 4 months. LOL Feel like it’s been going a year already . Im still playing around with the all for reef dosing. I keep dropping it by .5ml after starting at 6ml dosing per day. I didn’t need much to get me up to 9dkh. Actually ended up at 9.5. So im backing it off a little every few days to get closer to 9dkh. Kalk stirrer seems to be doing a much better job staying at a higheR solution now that I have less in the stirrer. I’ll be adding another 1/2 cup ok powder ever 2 weeks now. SPS have really responded well to the new regiment. The acros I got not that long ago that started to pale out have all come back to a nice color and have already encrusted over the glue and onto the rockwork. SO that’s goos news. Im waiting my numbers closely. I feel the tank is too clean. My LPS just don’t look as great as I think they should and my zoas just sort hang out. Look great and colorful. But now real sigh of growth. Already feeding the tank twice a day TDO pellets, 1 cube of mysis per week and 3 feedings of Reef chili per week.

Still waiting for my skimmer parts to arrive for my CO2 scrubber along with a new tool to help with bubble algae removal. That stuff is everywhere. And since I like to tinker figured that would be my next obsession. Maybe removing those might help my numbers.

 

[spsick]

I was reading through my build thread to figure out when I set this tank up. Can’t believe its only been 4 months. LOL Feel like it’s been going a year already . Im still playing around with the all for reef dosing. I keep dropping it by .5ml after starting at 6ml dosing per day. I didn’t need much to get me up to 9dkh. Actually ended up at 9.5. So im backing it off a little every few days to get closer to 9dkh. Kalk stirrer seems to be doing a much better job staying at a higheR solution now that I have less in the stirrer. I’ll be adding another 1/2 cup ok powder ever 2 weeks now. SPS have really responded well to the new regiment. The acros I got not that long ago that started to pale out have all come back to a nice color and have already encrusted over the glue and onto the rockwork. SO that’s goos news. Im waiting my numbers closely. I feel the tank is too clean. My LPS just don’t look as great as I think they should and my zoas just sort hang out. Look great and colorful. But now real sigh of growth. Already feeding the tank twice a day TDO pellets, 1 cube of mysis per week and 3 feedings of Reef chili per week.

Still waiting for my skimmer parts to arrive for my CO2 scrubber along with a new tool to help with bubble algae removal. That stuff is everywhere. And since I like to tinker figured that would be my next obsession. Maybe removing those might help my numbers.

Did you get the tool from Fish of Hex? That thing works great!

 

[reef junkie]

Did you get the tool from Fish of Hex? That thing works great!

I did, excited to get my hands on it. They had a bunch of cool stuff They make.

 

[HouseofStark]

What solenoid did you end up going with? I will be interested to see if you have less skimmate production with recirculating. Seen and have been reading skimmate production lessens with recirculating setup? Some say yes, some say they don't notice any reduction. You could remove the skimmer silencer and run the tubing directly to the skimmer pump, not that its hurting anything connected to the silencer. Build is coming along nicely! Looking good!

 

[reef junkie]

Thanks. I am having fun with the new set up. The skimmer runs through the ball valve now and not noticed any difference. I will update once skimmer is hooked up. I was thinking about removing the silencer. But forgot to order a barb fitting to tie the lines together so this is how it goes for now. Might change it out later. See pic below for the valve I ordered. But i wish I would have gotten the always closed and not always open. I did not do a lot of research or fully understand what I was really doing LOL in terms of how things worked. But if I had one that was always closed. Then the power to that switch would just stay off and only turn on to close the valve when needed. But maybe having alway open means if the power goes out or there is some sort of issue the switch will open and allow fresh air in to the skimmer. Either way its what I got for now,

 

[reef junkie]

Finally got word that my parts from fish of hex have shipped. Should receive Wednesday and hopefully be able to get the co2 scrubber up and running quickly. PH has been just sitting around that 7.7-8.
Stirrer is working much better now as well with adding new Kalk powder every two weeks. I’ve noticed in the first 2 weeks LPS looks very puffy and happy now. Ive not tested alk in a few days. But had to reduce my all for reef down to just 2.5ml per day And Kalk is at 1900ml per day. Hope summer evaporation does not slow down to much so I dont have to change my dosage to much.
Other than that think things are looking good. Will start tackling the bubble algae as well this weekend. Looked back yesterday At my first little nano I started with this time around and was not even a year yet. LOL 4 tanks in less than a year. HAHAHA. Think im in the long haul now with this one. Bit im running out of things to tinker with LOL so who know what to come. Will be time to start fragging soon as things are getting crowded.

 

[reef junkie]

We are up and running with the new scrubber. Took about 5min to install. Took picture of screen on controller for reference so I can remember where I started.

 

[reef junkie]

Tank has never been over 8 for ph. Gonna take this as a good sign only being in less than 5hrs.

 

[reef junkie]

This morning was still sitting around 8.08 for PH. Hope today or during the day Im able to get to that 8.2-8.3 range. I sort of thought this was going to be a quick jump up in numbers For some reason. Maybe it’s a slow a steady incline. maybe im even maxed out at what im able to achieve.

If in fact having the Kalk stirrer and co2 scrubber still can’t get me to the desired PH is there any other options? I start to question if things are maybe not Hooked up properly or is the Kalk stirrer not full saturation. Sort of confused as to why all this did not do it. I did start out at 7.78 for PH before adding Kalk and scrubber. .03 seems like a pretty low increase after all this???

 

[Varig]

I don't recall, but when is the last time you calibrated your PH probe? Is it possible it's off and that's part of the issue? I've never run a CO2 scrubber, others will comment I'm sure, but from reading here it sure seems like people can get WAY more lift in pH out of them than you saw. Though to that end, is pH like anything else in our reefs, it's not good to make a step change in 1 day? Maybe it's a good thing if it takes you a few days/weeks to get the full benefit so there can be a ramp to 8.3 instead of that step change?