Biglurr's 175 Build With Pics!

[Biglurr54]

Nice Setup! Curious of a couple things. With your Kalk reactor, do you just suck water from the tank and into the reactor slowly to pretty much drip it? How did you figure your initial dosing amount, I'm guessing just start out slow and adjust?

Was also wondering about your aminos. Just started manually dosing acropower once a day, but want to hook it up to my dose. Can you give more details as to your dosing regimen and if you leave your protein skimmer on while dosing or not?

Again, tank looks awesome! Thanks!

So for the kalk, with the digital drive dosing pump I can adjust the output in .01 ml per hour. I have it set to dose 1 gallon over 24 hrs. As my tank grows and matures I will increase the mount along with increasing the amount of carx effluent. I'm trying to avoid pH drop from the carx. I set it up to have the pump pull from the ATO and push through the reactor. This is not the typical way I would recommend doing this. If i get a leak, i will push liquid on the floor until i stop it. This set up works for me because its in a wet basement so water on the floor is no big deal. The benefit to this set up is that I'm passing fresh ro through the tubing instead of the abrasive Kalk water.

That said, the correct way to set this up would be RO container-kalk reactor-pump-tank. This pulls the ro through the reactor and if it develops a leak, it will pull air in instead of pushing water out. The down fall to this orientation is you will wear out the tubing slightly faster. How fast? i have no idea.

I was using the carx for 100% of my needs when i added the Kalk reactor. I stopped the CO2 on the reactor and added the Kalk reactor. Then I tested ALK 2xs a day for a couple weeks and slowly brought the carx back up and making up the difference with 2 part until it all stabilized and i didnt have to dose 2 part. Now i test Alk every other day and i adjust the caRX to dose more or less then. Its trial and error and small adjustments every 24 hours with tests in between. A lot like starting 2 part.

Running the Carx or Kalk off the new Versa pump would give you the ability to control the dose from your phone and its extremely appealing to me right now! If only Apex would do a continuous duty dosing pump!

Aminos started with Brightwell and I dosed at their recommended daily amount. I switched to Acropower because I like two little fishies and its cheaper. When i switched, i increase the dose to slightly higher than what hey recommend as a beginning dose. I'm watching my nitrate and PO4 to see if I get a jump from it. I dont turn off my skimmer. I should. Ite easy enough to code in apex but on\off cycles are tough on pumps. My dosing lines dump right in front of the return pump. My thought is that it will go up into the display and very little will make it back down through the skimmer immediately. This is not the most efficient way but its the lazy way for me. If i wanted to get crazy with it, i would run my skimmer for 12 hrs a day, and dose the aminos on an opposite schedule and link it all with the lights so the corals have time with aminos with lights on and lights off with no skimmer on. I would have to play with the best times and settings. Currently I dose Ammino and Chaeto grow at 00:30 and 12:30 which is right after the AWC does its cycle.

If i were you, calculate a daily dose, divide by two, and dose it every 12 hrs. Let it go like that for a month and watch po4. If po4 gets out of hand then lower your dose.

 

[ajjw0828]

Thanks for the detailed answer! I'm going to try that out with my aminos when I get home. I'm now in the market for a GEO kalk reactor after seeing this!

 

[Biglurr54]

Nice Setup! Curious of a couple things. With your Kalk reactor, do you just suck water from the tank and into the reactor slowly to pretty much drip it? How did you figure your initial dosing amount, I'm guessing just start out slow and adjust?

Was also wondering about your aminos. Just started manually dosing acropower once a day, but want to hook it up to my dose. Can you give more details as to your dosing regimen and if you leave your protein skimmer on while dosing or not?

Again, tank looks awesome! Thanks!

I just re-read your question and the Kalk reactor works off fresh RODI water (Think ATO water). Not tank water. So you are limited to dosing only what you evaporate.

 

[Biglurr54]

Thanks for the detailed answer! I'm going to try that out with my aminos when I get home. I'm now in the market for a GEO kalk reactor after seeing this!

Geo is a great one, but there are other options. TLF makes a cheap but decent one but i believe the feed pump does the stirring which a dosing pump wouldnt be powerful enough to stir. Not sure how easy it would be to plumb to a dosing pump and stirring pump. There are also stick stirred ones what people prefer. I prefer the pump driven stirrers because a maxijet is cheap and easy to obtain, a stirring motor and top to a reactor is not as cheap or easy.

Ive toyed with the idea of a DIY reactor on a magnetic stirrer. At the end of the day, for me, the geo was the best fit and i got a great deal on it from a buddy. It also matched my reactor.

 

[ajjw0828]

Geo is a great one, but there are other options. TLF makes a cheap but decent one but i believe the feed pump does the stirring which a dosing pump wouldnt be powerful enough to stir. Not sure how easy it would be to plumb to a dosing pump and stirring pump. There are also stick stirred ones what people prefer. I prefer the pump driven stirrers because a maxijet is cheap and easy to obtain, a stirring motor and top to a reactor is not as cheap or easy.

Ive toyed with the idea of a DIY reactor on a magnetic stirrer. At the end of the day, for me, the geo was the best fit and i got a great deal on it from a buddy. It also matched my reactor.

Thanks for the tip, I will have to look TLF up and see if it will work for what I'm envisioning. I was also wondering what the name is of that almost purpleish looking milli/ acro is next to what looks to be a Solar flare? Really like the color of that one. ALL of you your corals are really popping. Do you think its due to the addition of your DIY leds or acropower, or both?

 

[Biglurr54]

I think everything has matured and adjusted well. I think it's all part of the main system and everything is just as important. I think the biggest factor is tank maturity with minimal changes.

I'm not sure what one your talking about. Plus I don't have a solar flare. The most purple coral I have is what I believe is a jf fox flame.

are you talking about this one?

 

[Biglurr54]

This mille is an unknown battle coral mille.

 

[ajjw0828]

This mille is an unknown battle coral mille.

Yup. That’s the one, it’s sweet. I’m going to have to check out battle corals and see if Adam has anymore!

 

[Biglurr54]

I havent updated the thread in a while. I havent done much. I basically forgot about the tank all summer and was rewarded each time i cleaned off he glass. I stopped dosing Amino acids because my bottle ran out, I got lazy and never got a new one, and the corals didn't seem to change. I also stopped harvesting the cheato reactor. I stopped dosing Cheatogro and the cheato barely grows now so i just leave the reactor running but theres very little cheato growing. I swapped the frag area light out with a XR15 Pro. I miss the Fuge area. it was much easier to maintain and see the condition of the Cheato. I also need alot more room in the frag area.

So i am going to completely redo the sump closet. Out with the old and all new going in.

Water will come from the display and go into a 20x20x20 rimless cube Fuge. It will be lit by a Kessil H380 or XR15 Freshwater. It will then go into a 48x24x13 60G rimless frag tank. The frag tank will be lit by a Reef breeders Photon 50V2+. Circulation will be 2x XF250s and 2x Mp40s. This will be a frag and grow out area. Water will then flow down under the stand to a 40x24x16 80g rimless frag tank. This will have a section for filter socks, media chamber, then a massive skimmer/ reactor chamber, then into the last chamber where there will be 2x Panworld 150s mounted externally. I may swap out the rubbermaid ATO Bin with a Glass tank, or I may mount the rubbermaid bin elsewhere and keep it. Its worked well so far, it just doesn't fit well with the new sump build. This is a big swap but will give me a lot more frag and sump room in the long run.

 

[Biglurr54]

Pics. White light with no filters or camera editing.