Max’s 30 gal

[CaseyP]

I’ve had those spinners in the past but it was on an IM 10 I had in my bedroom and I couldn’t get past the noise. Do you notice yours? I heard they should be quiet after some time but I wasn’t patient enough since it was a bit of an annoying sound

The IM one I linked has been quiet. With this generic version of the Axium DC pump on my 20g nano, it's insanely quiet that the only way I know it's working is by looking at the water ripples. I remember a different version I had long ago made like a clicking sound, probably when the gears wear out.

 

[max_nano]

Those Neros have a ton of power too so you can run them on like alternating modes or try to generate a soft gyre "washing machine" style that Jake Adams always liked.

The way you have it laid out looks great with the motion/flow of the LPS and soft corals so definitely feel like you've got the right idea for a lower energy tank!

Funny you mention Jake, I set up the pumps and scape based on his video about flow. I tried a few different orientations like having the Nero’s on the back walls, on the same end, but found the best results with pointing them at each other in the back/bottom of the tank. They’re in antisync on a pulse mode and the water the collides in the middle flows out the front center and then hits the water from the return pumps and seems to make some nice random movement without being too harsh

It’s probably overkill to be using the Nero 5 now that I’ve dropped them down to 20-30% but it’ll be good to have the headroom and I like to keep them <70% for silence.

 

[max_nano]

The IM one I linked has been quiet. With this generic version of the Axium DC pump on my 20g nano, it's insanely quiet that the only way I know it's working is by looking at the water ripples. I remember a different version I had long ago made like a clicking sound, probably when the gears wear out.

Ok I think I’ll give the spinners a shot again with the stock IM dc pump but those pumps you linked are tempting. The wave mode seems pretty nice and I could still use 2 for redundancy.

I had reached out to AI to see if there was any way to pulse the axium or potentially have them sync with the Neros but their only selling point is the single feed mode and that just doesn’t justify the price. But it is a great form factor for the AIO tanks. Im using 2 sicce 1.0 now and its a little tight

 

[Darkxerox]

Oh wow they're 5s not 3s! Yeah that's a ton of flow for a nano.

I wouldn't try to worry about the return flow either with that level of powerhead flow already. Just think of that as something to push water through your filtration.

 

[CaseyP]

I believe ZKSJ is the OEM manufacturer of all those style pumps. Axium, TMC, the one I bought, etc. Difference is the controller and app control. You can get the OEM one cheap on Aliexpress if you're willing to wait and deal with return risk. I went with Amazon because I wanted it sooner than later and I can return easily at my local whole foods. Stock IM AC pump was rediculously loud, sicce 1.0 was better but still audible, and the one I have now is eerily silent.

 

[max_nano]

Oh wow they're 5s not 3s! Yeah that's a ton of flow for a nano.

I wouldn't try to worry about the return flow either with that level of powerhead flow already. Just think of that as something to push water through your filtration.

Yeah it's a lot but the 3s weren't out when I got them, and I do like the way they can ramp up quickly and send a lot of water in a pulse. When this tank had more coral I think it was pulsing up to 70 or 80% for maybe 8 seconds, then off for 4. With the other pump in antisync there was some overlap time where both would be on and the flow collided.

It's nice to know I've got plenty of room to turn them up, and hopefully I can get back to having enough coral growth to restrict flow

Here's a video of what that looked like:

 

[Darkxerox]

Yeah it's a lot but the 3s weren't out when I got them, and I do like the way they can ramp up quickly and send a lot of water in a pulse. When this tank had more coral I think it was pulsing up to 70 or 80% for maybe 8 seconds, then off for 4. With the other pump in antisync there was some overlap time where both would be on and the flow collided.

It's nice to know I've got plenty of room to turn them up, and hopefully I can get back to having enough coral growth to restrict flow

Here's a video of what that looked like:

I watched it and immediately thought wow that return pump sounds really messed up! Looks like pretty good flow, nothing getting ripped hard.

 

[max_nano]

I watched it and immediately thought wow that return pump sounds really messed up! Looks like pretty good flow, nothing getting ripped hard.

Haha, I did the bubble audio to hide the water noise and set the mood but that's funny it sounded like a poorly tuned drain. I'd hope this AIO never gets that loud

 

[max_nano]

I'm continuing to see pretty good results from the pH based kalk dosing, but obviously it's hard to judge after just 2-3 weeks. LPS seem very fluffy and zoas have been perking up, but that could also be a result of the tank being more stable now that I'm seeing less nuisance algae.

In the past week the pH has been around 8-8.4 and I'm currently adjust the programming to minimize the risk of low ambient CO2 making the kalk overdose and the risk of pH getting too high from dosing while the lights are on.

The kalk schedule is now setup with the following rules

• dose between 12am-12pm
  • I saw that was the average time where it dosed when the schedule was only restricted by the pH value
• dose when pH is below 8.15
  • dosing up to 8.2 raised the daytime peak to >8.45 and I'd like to stay under 8.4
• dose a maximum of 190mL per day
  • I raised this until I saw the dosing stop before hitting the 12pm cutoff. This limit helps me avoid surpassing the daily evaporation rate and is a safety in case the pH probe is reading wrong

Alk has been interesting. So far it has just stayed stable despite the variation in daily doses of kalk. It has been between 8.5-9 since I started this with the tests from yesterday showing 8.9

In the chart you can see the daily change is getting smaller with the last 2 days having only a .2 change going between roughly 8.1 and 8.3. Now I'm curious to see how the tank responds to a more consistent pH.

On the Humble fish forum there is a member who has been running their tank this way for 2 years and they have some great results with their SPS dominant tank but I'm not sure how well it will work with my smaller tank and smaller amount of coral. They have a 300g system and are up to 23L of kalk a day, so a tank 10x my tank but dosing 100x the kalk

Here's their post if you're interested: https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/so-i-added-a-kalk-stirrer.18716/post-383300

 

[Darkxerox]

Since you have much more control than most for dosing, maybe ramp up dosing volume as it gets later into the night? This might flatten out the trough even more.

 

[max_nano]

Since you have much more control than most for dosing, maybe ramp up dosing volume as it gets later into the night? This might flatten out the trough even more.

That’s an interesting idea. I could do that but it would increase the complexity.

Right now I’m able to control the dosing schedule by setting the volume and number of doses per day, the time window when the doser is allowed to run that schedule, and the pH value where the dosing will run.

If I wanted to ramp up I think that it would be easiest to setup another dosing schedule, but then I’d have 2 schedules to change. I could also set individual doses but that would be tough since I want a lot of small doses. Right now it’s set to do 60x8mL doses which is really 30x8mL doses from 12am-12pm

But I like the idea of trying to push the dosing at the start of the dosing. I think I could increase the number of doses and then it should push the pH to the limit and then it will stop dosing.

In the latest round of dosing the schedule ran 100% while in the past few days it had been running just 1am-11am. It’s interesting to see the little jumps after the dosing, I think this is a sign that the 8mL dose is a good amount. When I first set this up I was doing 20mL and that caused a very clear spike. It seems like it would be better to do multiple small doses rather than a big dose that shoots the pH up.

I want to leave this for a week or 2 and see the results of the schedule, but I may increase the number of doses if the alk isn’t rising too quickly. I think increasing the number of 8mL doses will be interesting

In the tank the water has gotten pretty clear and the snails/pods are starting to catch up with the film algae on the glass. I see so many tiny pods on the side and back glass that I don’t scrape. I’m also starting to see coraline growing on some of the rocks.

 

[Coral reefer]

Nice work making lemonade out of the lemons life threw you

 

[max_nano]

Nice work making lemonade out of the lemons life threw you

Thanks! It was such a “shitty” situation that I had to just focus on the positives. I appreciate you encouraging me to keep the tank up rather than shutting down

it was stressful having to pack up my entire apartment and semi shut down the tank but I’m happy now that I’m past it all and still have the fish and some of my original corals like the toadstool my coral beauty likes to eat. Haha

I’m also moving from green to purple on the brown, then green, then purple progression

Jan 17

Feb 9

 

[max_nano]

Kalk dosing based on pH has the pH between 8.1-8.4 recently

I’m up to 15mL doses and that seems to be the right amount to keep the daily minimum pH up. It’s tough to push any more since I’ve found that dosing more will raise the daily maximum pH. I might try reducing the amount of time it can dose, but raising the individual dose volume to see if that would flatten this out more.

I switched the pumps over to the dc pumps that @CaseyP suggested and the lower flow has been good. I also got the IM spinner and it has been clicking but it seems to be getting better with time and if it doesn’t stop I’ll just switch back to the duck bill and save them for another tank. I think they’d be quieter if there was less flow. I like that these pumps just plug in with usb and it seems like they would be easy to setup with that eco flow battery that was mentioned on another thread here and has been getting good reviews from telegraham