My lil reef

[Rick.45cal]

 

[drawman]

Nice looks like tropic marin balling is doing a fine job if you ask me!

 

[Rick.45cal]

Nice looks like tropic marin balling is doing a fine job if you ask me!

I’m satisfied with it’s performance!

 

[Abhishek]

Hi Rick,

I have been intrigued by the ECM42s for a while now. Saw them in person in action at a friend's place and even tried it in a new system without any corals or rocks. Even talked for hours with Dillon from WWC who uses it.

Everything I could find was that it was a brilliant pump but designed to literally shoot water at a greater distance rather than broader flow patterns .

So if I have a tank grater than 6 foot, in all sense it seems amazing ! What I couldn't understand is how to use it in tank that are 4-5 ft ?Even Dillon suggest to stay away from these if tanks are less than 6 foot..

What are your thoughts ? How do you like them and control them in your tank ? Am intrigued to see what an ECM42 can offer that a new Tunze Stream 3 with the flow rectifier cannot with 5 years of warranty !

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Rick.45cal]

Hi Rick,

I have been intrigued by the ECM42s for a while now. Saw them in person in action at a friend's place and even tried it in a new system without any corals or rocks. Even talked for hours with Dillon from WWC who uses it.

Everything I could find was that it was a brilliant pump but designed to literally shoot water at a greater distance rather than broader flow patterns .

So if I have a tank grater than 6 foot, in all sense it seems amazing ! What I couldn't understand is how to use it in tank that are 4-5 ft ?Even Dillon suggest to stay away from these if tanks are less than 6 foot..

What are your thoughts ? How do you like them and control them in your tank ? Am intrigued to see what an ECM42 can offer that a new Tunze Stream 3 with the flow rectifier cannot with 5 years of warranty !

Regards,
Abhishek

I had to look those up, I can’t do a fair comparison since I have no experience with those, but I can tell you about my experiece with the ECM-42’s in a 5’ tank. They’ve been amazing pumps and I’m not sure anything I’ve seen compares to them since they create a laminar flow, there’s very little turbulence in the stream of water. So I have mine turned all the way up to the max and on my Apex I run the two pumps on a side at the same time, this creates a very strong “gyre” or total movement of all the water in the tank, they move so much water at the top that all the water in the bottom of the tank is pushed and forced to replace it. I was alternating the sides exclusively of each other until a few months ago and I changed the timing so that one side’s time off is shorter 15 seconds than the other side, so it creates a rolling overlap where all four pumps are on at the same time. Which creates a huge amount of turbulence inside the center of the tank and creates two super gyres within the tank. I noticed a significant increase in alkalinity uptake immediately and have observed noticable increases in growth rates in most if not all of the corals. I have one in particular that really didn’t do much for two years and suddenly it had several new branches growing.

So my synopsis is if you want to increase your growth significantly moving water is one of the best ways to do it. At somepoint I would like to add 2 more ECM42’s

 

[drawman]

I’m satisfied with it’s performance!

I had to look those up, I can’t do a fair comparison since I have no experience with those, but I can tell you about my experiece with the ECM-42’s in a 5’ tank. They’ve been amazing pumps and I’m not sure anything I’ve seen compares to them since they create a laminar flow, there’s very little turbulence in the stream of water. So I have mine turned all the way up to the max and on my Apex I run the two pumps on a side at the same time, this creates a very strong “gyre” or total movement of all the water in the tank, they move so much water at the top that all the water in the bottom of the tank is pushed and forced to replace it. I was alternating the sides exclusively of each other until a few months ago and I changed the timing so that one side’s time off is shorter 15 seconds than the other side, so it creates a rolling overlap where all four pumps are on at the same time. Which creates a huge amount of turbulence inside the center of the tank and creates two super gyres within the tank. I noticed a significant increase in alkalinity uptake immediately and have observed noticable increases in growth rates in most if not all of the corals. I have one in particular that really didn’t do much for two years and suddenly it had several new branches growing.

So my synopsis is if you want to increase your growth significantly moving water is one of the best ways to do it. At somepoint I would like to add 2 more ECM42’s

I think we need a video Rick!

I'm curious how much are you dosing the TM elements? Good ole eyeball test?

 

[Rick.45cal]

I think we need a video Rick!

I'm curious how much are you dosing the TM elements? Good ole eyeball test?

I’ll upload a video for you! Right now I’m dosing 525ml of each part everyday!

 

[Rick.45cal]

I think we need a video Rick!

I'm curious how much are you dosing the TM elements? Good ole eyeball test?

It’s about 18 seconds in where all four ECM42’s are on at the same time.

 

[TX_Punisher]

I add some Tropic Marin elements daily and that’s pretty much it.

All three parts? Or one and two?

Thanks

 

[Rick.45cal]

All three parts? Or one and two?

Thanks

I dose all three parts in equal amounts based off of my alkalinity, so everday I dose 525ml of part A, 525ml of part B, and 525ml of part C. I dose them consistently over 24 hours using 2 Dos modules for my apex

Whoops I misread your post the Tropic marin elements I dose are the K+ elements and the A- elements, and the tank gets 6ml of each every day

 

[TX_Punisher]

Whoops I misread your post the Tropic marin elements I dose are the K+ elements and the A- elements, and the tank gets 6ml of each every day

That’s what I was looking for. Thanks.

 

[Rick.45cal]

That’s what I was looking for. Thanks.

I don’t usually say this about anything in the reefing hobby, but the balling salts and those elements are magic.

 

[Abhishek]

Thanks for the video and explanation man ! It really looks quite a lot of surface movement from the video .
So it’s a narrow band of laminar flow from each pump . Wonder what would happen if you had sand as the sand would be constantly rolled from one end to the other with the force of the laminar waves hitting each end .

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Fin]

Very impressive looking reef! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Rick.45cal]

Thanks for the video and explanation man ! It really looks quite a lot of surface movement from the video .
So it’s a narrow band of laminar flow from each pump . Wonder what would happen if you had sand as the sand would be constantly rolled from one end to the other with the force of the laminar waves hitting each end .

Regards,
Abhishek

There’s sand in my tank, it’s all been pushed towards the back under the rocks. I got tired of spreading it out all the time in the front so I tossed down some ceramic tiles which I’m letting favias and encrusting monti’s overtake

 

[Rick.45cal]

Very impressive looking reef! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for looking!

 

[drawman]

Yeah looks like you're moving a ton of water Rick I like it.

 

[Rick.45cal]

 

[drawman]

That coralline is THIIIICCCCKKK bro!

 

[Rick.45cal]

That coralline is THIIIICCCCKKK bro!

I cleaned the Panta Rhei pumps of all of their coraline algae, and there is so much more current I watched a big chunk of coraline blow off the center overflow today! Lol