Kessil

Leemar Starphire 290

sfsuphysics said:
Kris, btw the next time you give your chaeto ball a haircut let me know looks like a very simple and effective way to keep it from floating away and keeps it under the light.
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Anytime Mike, I have a lot of it. If you want a huge amount, then give me another week or two. If you just want a gallon bag full, then I gotcha covered when your ready.
 
Sweet, I can wait so it's no big deal. I want to see if I can jerry rig a little cage like you did first, so while gallon baggy would work fine, I don't need it right now.
 
sfsuphysics said:
hehehe... spend thirty minutes thinking of insightful response to something, type up a masterpiece that even the greatest literary minds in the world would weep to read, hit reply, get server error, fine I'll just hit the back button and copy it then paste it later... wait, where did it go? DAMN YOU INTERNET!!!!!
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Consider adding Lazarus form recovery as an add-on to your browser.
It is pretty good about saving that sort of thing.

Since I can't wait for your masterpiece. :)
 
Kris - just watched both of your video's (tank + mtce) - great way to start my day with coffee! Stunning tank - so beautiful! Thanks for sharing!! (great music selection - was that Chris Bode?! love him...)
 
sfsuphysics said:
Sweet, I can wait so it's no big deal. I want to see if I can jerry rig a little cage like you did first, so while gallon baggy would work fine, I don't need it right now.
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Cool, just let me know when your ready.

rygh said:
Consider adding Lazarus form recovery as an add-on to your browser.
It is pretty good about saving that sort of thing.

Since I can't wait for your masterpiece. :)
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Thanks for the tip Mark.

Geneva Wong said:
Kris - just watched both of your video's (tank + mtce) - great way to start my day with coffee! Stunning tank - so beautiful! Thanks for sharing!! (great music selection - was that Chris Bode?! love him...)
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Thanks for taking the time to watch Geneva! Glad you liked it. The music is "B-Tribe." I have used them a couple times. I am always looking for new music for video's, so I will check out Chris Brode as I haven't heard of him. Thanks much.
 
neuro said:
got a bunch of questions after seeing your video, figured I'd ask here instead of during my next visit, incase some folk have the same questions and before i forget!!:
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Ok........Neuro's questions........take 2.

1. You mentioned that your calc reactor stabilizes your alk? [~3:45] (Sorry I know nothing of calc reactors)

I am also not an expert on Calcium reactors. This is the first one I have ever set up and used. I bought it with all my original equipment order, but never set it up for the first couple years. I read so many horror stories of the reactors going crazy and melting the media.......causing massive in tank precip and just messing up the params in general. I did a TON of reading about them, and still wasn't completely grasping the concept. I spoke to several people at aquarium stores and such.........only to learn that they didn't really understand them either. LOL! So I kept putting it off.
Calcium reactors............from a NOVICE' perspective.......what I have learned: So in very simple terms, a calcium reactor is a chamber in which you place the media (dead coral skeletons). This chamber is filled with tank water from a very small feed pump (approx 100gph or titrate to your needs). The water in the chamber is circulated with a much larger pump to keep it well mixed and to create good contact with all the media. CO2 is added to the chamber to lower the PH of the water in the chamber (Tank water is 8.1 -8.4ish)......the PH will start to essentially melt the media once the PH is below approx 7.0. This turns the dead coral skeleton back into a useable / liquid state that is then added back into the aquarium for use by the corals. The lower the PH, the faster the media melts......the more concentrated the calcium and trace elements will be. If you drop the PH too low, the media will turn to mush and you will OD your tank and possibly cause massive precip and stress to the tank inhabitants. :eek:
I was told there is a buffering effect from the calcium reactor that will help stabilize Alkalinity. I was also told this would not be enough to completely stabalize it, but would help. I am not completely clear on how, or why it raises the Alk, but for my tank, it raises it A LOT!

I finally set up the reactor after reading many, many articles about them.......including a very specific one about the brand of reactor I am using. Once I had it all ready to go, I chickened out again and left it for over a month before turning it on. The tank was going very well, why screw it up? Well, it was going well because I was spending a ton of time on it. I wanted to make the daily maintenance / stress a bit less. Soooooooo.....
I started up the reactor..........the feed pump.......made sure there were no leaks. I calibrated the PH monitor on the tank as well as the new PH controller for the Calcium reactor. Once this was all working.......the PH on the controller and the tank matched. I started up the CO2.
I use the electronic Carbon doser regulator. You can get a really nice / really expensive regulator that are supposed to be very easy to adjust and will remain consistent. However much of what I read pointed to the fact that as the CO2 tank starts to empty, the amount of CO2 being dosed can slowly start to drop and be inconsistent. So many people have moved over to the electronic regulator. This is supposedly very accurate and very consistent. So far this has been my experience with it as well. "Set it and forget it." It is also not crazy expensive.
So with the carbon doser, you can set how often it sends a "bubble" of CO2. The more bubbles, the more CO2, the more your PH will drop. You can also adjust how large the bubble is......so if you get down to a bubble every second, and still haven't got enough CO2, you can make the bubble bigger. I started with one bubble every 5 seconds..........I then left it for a few hours to see how much the CO2 would drop. Every couple hours I would change the setting from a bubble every 5 to one every 4 seconds, to 3 seconds, etc, etc. I did this until I had the PH below 7.0. I left it for a couple days, and started testing my Alk and Calcium a couple times a day as well as watching for any stress in the tank. I settled on a PH of 6.85 for the first week and discovered my Alk had gone from 9.5 DKH to 11.5 DKH and a couple soft corals started showing some stress (primarily my green polyp leather coral). So I cut the alk on my doser in half........no change..........cut it in half again............no change............so I shut down the Alk and Calcium on the doser completely.
At this point I was still using Kalkwasser as well with my ATO system. My Calcium levels had dropped to 350 and my Alk was still 11.5 DKH............UGHHH!! So I turned off the Kalkwasser and the Alk dropped to 10.5 DKH.... better. However I am still a bit low on Calcium.......I dropped the PH in the reactor to 6.6.........This raised the Alk again to 11.0 DKH, however I am not seeing stress, and in fact I am getting some fantastic new growth on the corals. colors seem a bit more vibrant as well. Calcium is still hovering around 400.......acceptable, but 450 would be better. So I started up my doser with just calcium again and BOOM!! Alk 11.0 DKH and Calcium 450 and stable!!! A fantastic growth spurt for all corals started..............AND IS STILL GOING!!!! :D
I haven't had to do, or change ANYTHING since I started it up. Alk remains stable, as does calcium. Mag is holding 1350-1400 with the salt mix only. No dosing. HEAVEN!!

Twice since I started the reactor, the PH controller shut down my CO2. This is by design..........if the PH drops too much, the controller will cut power to the CO2 regulator to prevent the above mentioned nightmare!! Both times it turned out to be a clogged line for the feed pump. Meaning the water in the chamber was just circulating with no new water being added or taken away. This was still getting a steady stream of CO2, so the PH started dropping. I now check this regularly, as well as looking at the PH of the chamber EVERY time I walk by it. no problems. ;) I am very happy with the Calcium reactor so far. I am still very concerned for possible problems, but that is true with pretty much EVERYTHING on the tank. Heaters can break, temp controllers can stop working, pumps can clog / burn up, etc, etc, etc. Just part of reefing.

Sorry for the long response. Here are some links that I used........you might like them if this interests you. Thanks.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/sh/feature/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index...hing-in-between-part-2#ariyuimenu_ariyui62_78


http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-12/pr/index.php

http://www.aquariumplants.com/CarbonDoser_Electronic_Co2_Regulator_p/co2.htm


2. You're using two water blasters, and it looks like both of them are in operation. You also mentioned one was a backup. Does this mean you can run the tank on a single pump? [~5:19]

Yup, just a safety net. If one pump goes out, It will give me at least half of my turnover rate while I replace the broken pump. This will allow the tank to still be heated / filtered while waiting for the new one.

3. Would it be simpler to use a single, larger pump? Or is the 'mirroring' of the pumps what you're after?

One pump is completely fine........just a bit more stress if it fails. heaters have to be moved into the tank, and you won't be able to skim, etc unless you temporarily modify your system.

4. Can you confirm, that you're not dosing kalkwasser now? [~6:26] It almost looks as if the reactor is on.

No Kalk at the moment. It works very well, and I may put it back on the system if the alk ever starts to drop again.


5. When you drain from that extra tubing, how do you know when to stop, and how much do you know to add back?

So I have 4........44 gallon Brute containers. Two of them will be filled with approx 70 gallons of RO / DI water...mixed and heated. The other two will be sitting right next to the full containers......I drain until they are approx the same. Then add the fresh water back to the tank. If I am off a little, I just add a little of what was drained, or I just leave it if it's a tad too much and let the water evaporate back to the right level. It is generally dead on, and very easy to measure.
 
are those electronic CO2 dosers new? I seem to remember that was one of the things that shied me away from doing a calcium reactor was the fact that you needed to have a "bubble counter" then hope your CO2 canister always had enough pressure so that the rate of dosing CO2 didn't change, and then...

Who knows maybe I'll go to a calcium reactor finally :D

I do have to say that it's odd that your calcium and alkalinity went so far out of whack, I thought they should basically be inline when doing a reactor since there's both calcium and alkalinity in the coral media you use.
 
sfsuphysics said:
are those electronic CO2 dosers new? I seem to remember that was one of the things that shied me away from doing a calcium reactor was the fact that you needed to have a "bubble counter" then hope your CO2 canister always had enough pressure so that the rate of dosing CO2 didn't change, and then...

Who knows maybe I'll go to a calcium reactor finally :D

I do have to say that it's odd that your calcium and alkalinity went so far out of whack, I thought they should basically be inline when doing a reactor since there's both calcium and alkalinity in the coral media you use.
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The Carbon Doser has been around for several years. Maybe longer? I was surprised at the changes as well, but very happy to have it all stable now. I think the two part dosing is also a viable solution. I never really got mine dialed in. Seemed pretty inconsistent........still needing to be adjusted with buffer from time to time. Water changes always screwed it up as well. I would have to watch for several days after each change to get it back on track. The Calcium reactor doesn't seem to have that problem. Numbers are almost exact before and after the water change.
 
Thanks for the writeup Kris, there are some extra details after our visit.

How often do you think you'll have to replace the CO2?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Wonder why, seems the calcium reactor would have the same issues as the two part with water changes screwing up your numbers.
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No idea, but I'm not arguing. ;)

neuro said:
Thanks for the writeup Kris, there are some extra details after our visit.

How often do you think you'll have to replace the CO2?
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Good question. I have heard 6 months to a year. I'm thinking about just taking it in and having it re-filled to get an idea of how much I have used. Maybe just do it on a regular 4 or 5 month schedule. it's not expensive, but a bit of a pain. Redwood city was the only place I could find that would let me use my own bottle. Otherwise you just exchange them.
 
What kind of cost is there for CO2? I have a big ugly canister that I never had CO2 in (but it is a CO2 canister), but have no idea what carbon dioxide costs... it's free in the air... just need to separate it :D
 
Just weigh yourself then again holding the tank. Tank should say how many lbs of c02 it holds and the empty weight on it.

Mike, 15 lb tank to refill was $37 recently not far from us
 
Kris, more details on the c02 controller you are using? I was under the impression that a super expensive regulator was the only was to get consistent gas release no matter how much pressure the tank had left. I think its a dual stage regulator maybe?
Just saw a new product on reef builders from Interzoo this year that seems like a cool new electronic ca reactor controller.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Thanks for the info Mike,t hat's not too bad at all, might need to think about going the CO2 direction.

Also Kris has such bad ass video skills you can see the website of the doser on the doser. Here it is
http://www.aquariumplants.com/CarbonDoser_Electronic_Co2_Regulator_p/co2.htm
And is it super expensive? Well it's pricier than most regulators out there by a good margin, don't know if I'd call it super expensive though
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For me, it's that one, or a much costlier one. Most in the hobby are crap IME

or...
http://www.bareefers.org/forum/index.php?threads/pimp-my-regulator.12295/#post-198422
 
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From what I can understand is that you can get the electronic control box to add on to your existing regulator.
Ian made something like this and Gimito can probably chime in on this as to where to get the parts.
Yes, I run calcium reactors to all my tanks and you just gotta keep an eye on the CO2 tank.
As for refilling canister, you can call up the dispenser to hold the aluminum for you to change out. They checked and certified the canister so I do not mind trading mine in anyway.
 
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