+ Reply to Thread
Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 123
Results 21 to 25 of 25

Thread: Bleeching..

  1. #21

    Join Date
    May 2011
    Location
    The Netherlands
    Posts
    144
    Maybe you've got a very fair point there Ace.
    If you look at fora which SPS systems are most succesfull are almost all (fully) automated..In case off a scrubber that would mean adding a calciumreactor for keeping the ca/mg supply stable.. Or have a strickt kalkwasser regime..
    And prefereably also the food supply..
    Or am I missing something?

  2. #22
    Banned
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    940
    Dosing pumps are the best way to keep a system stable. Seen to many tank crashes due to calcium reactor and Kalkwasser stirrers failing. CA reactor failures are usually preventable unless the regulator breaks, kalkwasser stirrers on the other hand usually fail in ways that are not preventable and end up dumping a large amount of kalkwasser powder directly into the tank when they fail. CO2 bottles going empty for a week before you notice, pump clogging, regulators breaking, bubble counter failing, lots of things go wrong with calcium reactors. Plus they are really only needed on large tanks (100G+) that are heavily stocked. On smaller tanks they are just to big and expensive of a cost when dosing pumps can do the job better and more accurately. In the long run on large tanks, CA reactors end up being much cheaper, but on smaller tanks that are moderately stocked it would probably take 10+ years to break even with a CA reactor vs a couple dosing pumps and BRS 2 part.

    Kalkwasser is great in top off water but you have to make sure everything is setup properly. You don't want your ATO to kick on when your system is 1G low and dump 1G worth of kalk water at 1 shot. The smaller you can make your ATO increments the better for stability, but with kalkwasser you still want to stay at around the 90-95% of the system intake so you don't go over, and then use dosing pumps to fine tune the little remaining. It takes a month or 2 to get everything dialed in perfectly with that method, but once you do all you have to really do is test once a month just to make sure everything is still dosing properly. Obviously as corals grow they will consume more so once a month you may have to add a couple more ml worth of Alk/CA in your dosing to maintain a steady level, but once you have all the pieces in place it really isn't that much work to get the system dialed in.

  3. #23

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    MN, USA
    Posts
    50
    Quote Originally Posted by Ace25 View Post
    Kalkwasser is great in top off water but you have to make sure everything is setup properly.
    This is so true, so many people throw it together, make assumptions, and don't think through all the possible failure points. I would never setup Kalkwasser in a level based ATO.

    Done right can be your best friend, done wrong is fatal.

    None back siphon dosing pump, combined with a controller that can turn off if pH reaches to high ( 8.6 ish ). Simple kalkwasser resevoir method. Kalk stirrers rarely are setup correctly and provide 50% saturation at best for most people and they don't even realize it. If you do use a kalk stirrer/reactor, you must test the effluent with a conductivity meter to verify saturation level.

    I've been running exclusively since 2003, prior to that ran in conjunction with a CA reactor. I have the luxury of have very large surface area ( 36 square feet total ), In the winter time when furnace runs high it gets very dry thus lots of evaporation ( about 8 gallons a day ). So I actually have to tone it down because the alk will gradually shift upward. This is where I made the connection that if I start to see recession on the encrusted edges of SPS/acros to check the alkalinity.

  4. #24
    Banned
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    940
    Good call on the back siphoning. I forgot about that issue, but had it happen myself. If the hose for the ATO is in the water in the sump and you use kalk top off water on a level ATO setup (one where the ATO and sump are side by side, not above/below each other) and something like a Maxi-jet1200 for the ATO pump, when the pump turns off it will suck water out of the sump into the ATO container, and it will keep going back and forth as the water level fluctuates, which leads to all the kalk water in the ATO going into the tank in a very short time frame, 10-15 minutes on a 5G bucket.

  5. #25
    Banned
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Uk! England
    Posts
    1,212
    Never had the need for a powered top off myself. All I do is put a tablespoon of kalk into my top off container that has a gravity fed restricted syphon then lob in 5 litres of RO/DI. it takes about 8 hours to dispense, job done.

+ Reply to Thread
Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 123

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts