75 gallon GlassCages build

[BAMatter]

And so my adventure of dosing Kalkwasser has begun. Recalibrated my PH probes and got everything set up in Hydros. Was reading 8.13 this morning and slowly brought it up to 8.21, will maintain this for a day, and barring any coral stress will bump up to 8.3 Tuesday. Dosing with a BRS 1.1ml/min peristaltic pump, which calibrated out to about 1.83mil/min. Had to get a bit creative and drilled a small hole in some PVC and put the dosing line in it so it doesn’t suck up and slurry.

 

[Mikey-D]

This tank has been in the planning stages for about 6 months now, and parts are finally starting to show up. Tank is a Planet Aquarium 75 gallon rimless, internal overflow with 1” drain and 3/4” return- it will sit on an R&J Enterprises stand, with a Trigger Systems Triton 34V2 sump, a 5 gallon Triton ATO res, and will be doing Full Triton Method and plan to do an LPS dominated tank with several gardens and a nice gradual shelving scape.

I scored a used pair of Hydra 64’s, and recently purchased the Prime Refugium LED to light up the 11 gallon fuge. Also snagged a Bubble Magus Curve 5 Elite, Sicce Syncra 5.0 return, and a couple other goodies.

I plan on running a Hydros Control 4 with a JBAquatics button box, a Hydros WaveEngine with 2 OctoPulse 2’s, InkBird controller with dual Eheim 150w heaters, and will use a Red Sea ReefDose pump.

Pretty excited as this build comes together. Started a thread to track it all, I’m hoping the tank will be here in the next few weeks.

I am pratically running the exact same setup, except im doing it with a 40b, Reef Octo 110 and a biomedia reactor with a fuge as well. Also doing the triton method. I will be following this.

 

[BAMatter]

I am pratically running the exact same setup, except im doing it with a 40b, Reef Octo 110 and a biomedia reactor with a fuge as well. Also doing the triton method. I will be following this.

Sweet! Just found your build I’ll be following

 

[Mikey-D]

Sweet! Just found your build I’ll be following

Where did you put your dosing lines? I'm thinking with the return pipe leading right into the fuge the high flow would be sufficient. Also how did the sock work out, I have been thinkng that the flow may be too much and will need to diffuse like you have, I was thinking the 4" bio cups that brs has might help with that and just dremel the sump a bit for it to fit correctly.

 

[BAMatter]

Where did you put your dosing lines? I'm thinking with the return pipe leading right into the fuge the high flow would be sufficient. Also how did the sock work out, I have been thinkng that the flow may be too much and will need to diffuse like you have, I was thinking the 4" bio cups that brs has might help with that and just dremel the sump a bit for it to fit correctly.

I used the return chamber for dosing lines. Not a large fan of socks due to cleaning, but I do run a filter cup with floss on occasion.

 

[BAMatter]

Realizing the BRS 1.1ml/min pump is not going to cut it, and have a second pump on order. I’ll set up dual pumps off the same Kalk vessel on separate outlets, and that should take care of the needed amount to keep PH stable, as it started to drop early this morning and the pump has pretty much been running consistently since 1:00am. Guess it will be good to have the redundancy of 2 pumps in case 1 fails, the other one will at least be able to dose to some degree.

 

[BAMatter]

Went through almost a gallon of Kalkwasser between 8:00am yesterday and 5:30pm tonight. PH slowly rose from 8.13 to 8.23 and I cut it to just maintain there for the night. My 1.1ml/min pump couldn’t keep up with the demand overnight and PH toggled between 8.21-8.23. I have another pump on order and will just run 2 to sustain levels a bit better. Alkalinity rose from 9.4 to 10.0 but since I’ve been Kalk brain washed I’m not worried.

 

[BAMatter]

Added a second BRS 1.1mil/min pump and seems to be doing the trick. Been slowly getting to 8.3. Only seeing stress out of my red digi that I took a frag from my other tank. Kalk consumption drastically dropped now that I’m really just maintaining at this point. Alk is going up pretty quickly. Will run all tests again tonight or tomorrow to see where we’re at.

 

[BAMatter]

Got PH stabilized between 8.30-8.32 since Sunday morning. Looks like the tank is responding well. I did have a frag of red digi that didn’t look too hot but started to show polyp extension yesterday morning and I’m hoping with the stability it has a nice comeback. Alk also jumped from .6dkh on night 1, another .3dkh on night 2, and then has been rising .1dkh daily. Last night tested at 10.7dkh. So the sharp increases have stopped, wondering if it will level out soon and then begin to drop. Very interested to see how much supplemental Alk/Cal/Mag I’ll need. May just dose Core7 since I have a lot left, but also considering switching to All For Reef as well.

 

[Mikey-D]

Are you having these issues with the triton method? I have everything ordered and shipped. Any sound advise before starting. The plan is to go dose immediately and go full on with lights since im using ocean pulled rock and sandbed with critters day 1.

 

[BAMatter]

Are you having these issues with the triton method? I have everything ordered and shipped. Any sound advise before starting. The plan is to go dose immediately and go full on with lights since im using ocean pulled rock and sandbed with critters day 1.

Not having issues with Triton directly, but it’s definitely not keeping my PH anywhere near as high as they said it would. That said I switched to Kalk dosing based off PH value. The Triton Core7 is very potent and I’d recommend cutting it 50/50 with RODI so you can space doses out throughout the day. I had an issue with parameters going a bit up and down because it was hard to dial in ml’s at full strength.

 

[BAMatter]

Kalk has been successful so far. Stabilized PH at 8.30-8.32. Had an Alk spike up to about 10.7 dkh from 9.4 dkh, but the tank caught up and it’s begun to decline again. Dropping about .3dkh daily. I’ll begin dosing Triton Core7 again when Alk hits 8.8 dkh. Considering purchasing an Alkatronic to hook up to my Hydros collective to really lock in Alk and PH. Didn’t realize how low the PH was in my aquariums all these years until now.

 

[BAMatter]

Been a long time since updated… coming along.

 

[V A R I A N T]

And so my adventure of dosing Kalkwasser has begun. Recalibrated my PH probes and got everything set up in Hydros. Was reading 8.13 this morning and slowly brought it up to 8.21, will maintain this for a day, and barring any coral stress will bump up to 8.3 Tuesday. Dosing with a BRS 1.1ml/min peristaltic pump, which calibrated out to about 1.83mil/min. Had to get a bit creative and drilled a small hole in some PVC and put the dosing line in it so it doesn’t suck up and slurry.

Interesting experiment and read. Can you clarify the purpose of the pH probe in the kalk solution?

 

[BAMatter]

Interesting experiment and read. Can you clarify the purpose of the pH probe in the kalk solution?

1 probe in the system, and 1 in the solution bottle just to make sure it’s been fully saturated with kalk.

 

[Llorgon]

Tank is looking great! Have you noticed any differences since getting the pH stable?

 

[BAMatter]

Tank is looking great! Have you noticed any differences since getting the pH stable?

Everything’s doing great… I haven’t had to dose any Alk/Cal since the kalk boosted my alk. Once it drops back down, I’ll start to stabilize the Alk as well, but focusing on PH stability first.

I can’t get higher than 8.24 dosing kalk or I end up dosing more than I evap. I also added a CO2 scrubber and have the 8.19-8.22 pretty dialed in. My Hydros is instructed to dose at 8.20 and stop at 8.21. At night it does dip to 8.19 at times and day up to 8.22.

Been an interesting method. I’m dosing ESV Transition Elements, Aquavitro Fuel, love phyto daily, and feed the system 4 times a day with a mixture of pellets, and also feed frozen at night. PO4 and NO3 are 0.08 and 10, give or take, and need to dose NeoNitro and NeoPhos to keep those numbers where they are.

 

[Llorgon]

Everything’s doing great… I haven’t had to dose any Alk/Cal since the kalk boosted my alk. Once it drops back down, I’ll start to stabilize the Alk as well, but focusing on PH stability first.

I can’t get higher than 8.24 dosing kalk or I end up dosing more than I evap. I also added a CO2 scrubber and have the 8.19-8.22 pretty dialed in. My Hydros is instructed to dose at 8.20 and stop at 8.21. At night it does dip to 8.19 at times and day up to 8.22.

Been an interesting method. I’m dosing ESV Transition Elements, Aquavitro Fuel, love phyto daily, and feed the system 4 times a day with a mixture of pellets, and also feed frozen at night. PO4 and NO3 are 0.08 and 10, give or take, and need to dose NeoNitro and NeoPhos to keep those numbers where they are.

Interesting on not being able to get the pH above 8.2. mine seems to jump between 8.1-8.4. I should probably try and narrow that gap at some point.

That's a ton of nutrients to be putting in. Feeding once a day and adding live phyto caused my PO4 went from 0.03 to 0.1.

 

[BAMatter]

Interesting on not being able to get the pH above 8.2. mine seems to jump between 8.1-8.4. I should probably try and narrow that gap at some point.

That's a ton of nutrients to be putting in. Feeding once a day and adding live phyto caused my PO4 went from 0.03 to 0.1.

Yep. Tank is definitely PH suppressed, that’s how I ended up with this kalk method. Hoping when I start to dose 2 part it helps bring it up a bit more.

 

[Llorgon]

What sort of cuc do you have in the tank? I'm slowly adding more to mine.