180 Build Thread

[palvyre]

I suspected that may be the problem which is why I made sure to detail that out. Guess I need to find some dosing pumps that will slowly add my gallon over the course of a day.

 

[palvyre]

Any ideas on a cheap way to dose this until I can do it right with some kind of auto top off ?

 

[gmoney243]

I dont think its the water ive put in 5 at a time of fresh water with no problems. But i agree with the single daily dose of alk is causing spikes and thats not good

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[palvyre]

Yeah I need a good way to get my alk in. Looking for options. Figure I'll mix my alk with my gallon of top off water and then somehow gravity feed it into the tank. Just not sure what to use yet.

 

[Dowtish]

I wouldnt dose your alk and calcium thru an ATO. It will damage the pump very quickly, and it's not really a good way to measure how much is really going in.

This is what I use:
BRS 2 Part Doser

I have the alk dose 2 times a day. 12 noon and 12 midnight
I have cal dose 2 times a day at 5am and 5pm
I manually add mag when necessary

They are spaced out so they dont interfere with each other chemically, and it slowly drips 1.1 ml per minute, so no spikes. You will have to figure out what your tank demand is, and then set up some timers, or add them to a controller if you have one. Right now my demand is around 70ml a day for each using BRS 2 part mixes. So the pumps runs in 2, 30 minutes intervals for each.

Once I added these to my system everything got really happy. Best $170 I spent on the tank. Stability is key, and this will make that happen.

 

[schooleyosis]

Airline tubing tied in a loose knot from a jug of some sort that just allows it to drip the solution until the jug is empty.

 

[schooleyosis]

I wouldnt dose your alk and calcium thru an ATO. It will damage the pump very quickly, and it's not really a good way to measure how much is really going in.

This is what I use:
BRS 2 Part Doser

I have the alk dose 2 times a day. 12 noon and 12 midnight
I have cal dose 2 times a day at 5am and 5pm
I manually add mag when necessary

They are spaced out so they dont interfere with each other chemically, and it slowly drips 1.1 ml per minute, so no spikes. You will have to figure out what your tank demand is, and then set up some timers, or add them to a controller if you have one. Right now my demand is around 70ml a day for each using BRS 2 part mixes. So the pumps runs in 2, 30 minutes intervals for each.

Once I added these to my system everything got really happy. Best $170 I spent on the tank. Stability is key, and this will make that happen.

This is exactly what I use. I dose ALK from 2am to 3am and CAL from 12pm to 1pm though... Chris has me thinking of setting up my dosing schedule a little differently now though. I like to dose ALK at night when the PH tends to be the lowest as the ALK dosing helps keep the pH up!

 

[Dowtish]

I also have heard some good things about this doser. Especially for the price.

Marine Magic Aquarium Dosing Pump Triple | eBay

 

[palvyre]

I'll likely do that when I can. Just need an energy bar for my apex and the two part doser. I guess I would need to switch to soda ash as well from the reef builder I use now.

 

[palvyre]

Ordered that system from eBay. Need to buy some soda ash, don't suppose we have a BRS group buy going on anytime soon.

 

[schooleyosis]

No need for a group buy. I already purchased 5 gallon buckets of CAL, ALK, and MAG from the BRS 2-Part system. I bought them in bulk in a group buy a few months back to help all of us save on costs of these as a lot of us use the additives. I broke them all down into 1-gallon bags (I feel like a drug dealer, lol) and sell each one for $15. I'm not trying to make money. Just bought it all in bulk to help MTRC members save some $$$$ in the long run. Let me know if you are interested in buying any!

 

[palvyre]

Doh. Wish I had known, when I didn't go through with my order last night, they sent me a $5 coupon. So I went ahead and ordered.

 

[schooleyosis]

It's all good. I'll probably have plenty for ya when you need more.

 

[palvyre]

Feeding CBB it's clam. At one point 6 fish were all picking at it.

 

[palvyre]

The maroon clowns abandoned the carpet anemone in favor of the RBTA, sheesh.

 

[Dowtish]

Haha...I would rather wiggle in the rbta over a carpet too.:D

 

[gmoney243]

I duno thats some nice carpet.

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[schooleyosis]

Good feeding photo. All the fish look nice and plump. How big is that foxface?

 

[palvyre]

Foxface is 6". The largest fish length wise in the tank.

 

[schooleyosis]

Sweet! How long have you had it? It has great color for it's size. Everyone that I've seen look pretty drab once they get really big. Not sure if that's just when they get really big, due to age, or just the public aquariums that I've seen them in.