Brew's 187g slice of the ocean

[Sallstrom]

So, I have an update, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm dosing over 400ml per day of each 2 part. The calcium reactor is at a pH of 6.7dkh. Alkalinity is holding steady but not climbing. This is ridiculous. Maybe the reactor needs to break in before it starts really adding significant amounts of alk and kalk.

Calcium reactors might live their own lives a bit(and pH probes and all other things ). So I thinks it's easiest meassure outcoming water from the reactor (dKH) and see how well it's works. I checked our last test and we had around 40 dKH our from one of our CaRx's for example. That's okey I think.
The two things you can play around with are flow and pH. I usually just change the pH and that will give more or less dKH. At the moment our Calcium reactors run with a pH at 6,4. So perhaps you can lower your pH a bit?

 

[Brew12]

Calcium reactors might live their own lives a bit(and pH probes and all other things ). So I thinks it's easiest meassure outcoming water from the reactor (dKH) and see how well it's works. I checked our last test and we had around 40 dKH our from one of our CaRx's for example. That's okey I think.
The two things you can play around with are flow and pH. I usually just change the pH and that will give more or less dKH. At the moment our Calcium reactors run with a pH at 6,4. So perhaps you can lower your pH a bit?

The CaRx I have is designed to be constant flow and only varying the pH. I did one measurement of the output yesterday and it was only around 15dKH but I think the performance is improving as the media become saturated with the acidic water.

So the morning update: My Alk has slowly climbed through the night and was at 9.9dKH when I woke up. This was a wonderful thing to see because my KH Monitor reduced 2 part dosing on it's own by 24ml per day and Alk still rose. I changed my setpoint for Alk at 9.5dKH so my KH Director will now try to reduce how much 2 part I dose. Once it hits the limit of how much it is allowed to reduce dosing I will lower my dosing setpoint. I will do this until I reach a fairly level Alk. Once there, I will lower the pH in the reactor and begin the process of lowering dosing again.

I think this will give me the smoothest transition from 2 part to the CaRx. What I'll need to decide eventually is if I will completely get away from 2-part dosing or if I will set the CaRx to maintain most of the load and the 2-part to make the adjustments. I haven't done any research into how the KH Director controls a CaRx but I guess it's time to learn because I know it can be done.

 

[Sallstrom]

The CaRx I have is designed to be constant flow and only varying the pH. I did one measurement of the output yesterday and it was only around 15dKH but I think the performance is improving as the media become saturated with the acidic water.

So the morning update: My Alk has slowly climbed through the night and was at 9.9dKH when I woke up. This was a wonderful thing to see because my KH Monitor reduced 2 part dosing on it's own by 24ml per day and Alk still rose. I changed my setpoint for Alk at 9.5dKH so my KH Director will now try to reduce how much 2 part I dose. Once it hits the limit of how much it is allowed to reduce dosing I will lower my dosing setpoint. I will do this until I reach a fairly level Alk. Once there, I will lower the pH in the reactor and begin the process of lowering dosing again.

I think this will give me the smoothest transition from 2 part to the CaRx. What I'll need to decide eventually is if I will completely get away from 2-part dosing or if I will set the CaRx to maintain most of the load and the 2-part to make the adjustments. I haven't done any research into how the KH Director controls a CaRx but I guess it's time to learn because I know it can be done.

Sometimes pH in the tank will be pretty low when running a CaRx. So using other dosing as well can be a way to aviod "too low" ph.

 

[Brew12]

Sometimes pH in the tank will be pretty low when running a CaRx. So using other dosing as well can be a way to aviod "too low" ph.

At the very least, I plan to continue dosing the 1.4L of Kalk every day. I'm hoping that, and good air exchange, keeps my pH in a good place. I also added the optional second media chamber to help raise pH of the effluent. So far so good.

 

[Brew12]

Alk is climbing a bit faster than I expected. Already dialed it down to dosing 310ml per day... Alk was 10.1dKH last check. This would be brutal without continuous Alk monitoring!

 

[Victoria M]

This is pretty cool to see in real time.

 

[Brew12]

This is pretty cool to see in real time.

Thanks! It is pretty nerve racking, too. I would feel better if I were home monitoring things, but technology can be a wonderful thing!

Dosing down to 264ml per day, 10.3dKH

 

[Victoria M]

Thanks! It is pretty nerve racking, too. I would feel better if I were home monitoring things, but technology can be a wonderful thing!

Dosing down to 264ml per day, 10.3dKH

Controlling and changing things remotely? That is crazy to me. I mean, I guess I can fiddle with my lights so that is kinda like it... here is my controller.

 

[Brew12]

Controlling and changing things remotely? That is crazy to me. I mean, I guess I can fiddle with my lights so that is kinda like it... here is my controller

It is nice to be able to do this. Which reminds me.. I need to stop the Mg dosing.

 

[Victoria M]

It is nice to be able to do this. Which reminds me.. I need to stop the Mg dosing.

I see that And I am filled with I wants one of them thingys too!

 

[Brew12]

I see that And I am filled with I wants one of them thingys too!

It's a luxury thing I'm glad to have, but they are far from needed unless you are foolish enough to do something like this remotely. I was hoping to do this on Sunday... ;Sorry

Dosing set to 120ml per day, Alk at 10.2dKH

 

[Victoria M]

I just want to see all my numbers all neat and tidy. It sorta looks like a patient lab result.

 

[Brew12]

I'm not really sure what to do with these numbers.. well.. I know what I could do but I'm not sure the math is worth it.
The effluent is around 25dKH and it's flowing exactly 50ml per minute.

Ok... I lied.. I'm doing the math. I'm pretty sure that means my reactor is adding roughly 3.5dkh per day to the tank. I'm still adding 48ml per day of 2 part and 1.4L of Kalk.

And I love it when the numbers work out! I ran it through one of Randy's calculator and the 3.5dKH would require 400ml of 2-part. That almost lines up perfectly with where I thought my usage was.

 

[Brew12]

Wow... Just wow. This means my tank is consuming 4.2dKH per day. That just doesn't seem possible but I've now confirmed it with 2 different methods of adding Alk and Calc.

I'm so glad I switched to that calcium reactor! @UWC I'm not sure what exactly Chroma does, but in what, 2 months, I've doubled my Alk demand? I'm sold! And only 7ml per day. I can't think of anything else that would have changed other than just more time.

 

[Maxx]

How complicated was the GHL to get set up?

I'm coming back into the hobby after a few years hiatus and I'm seriously contemplating either a GHL or an Apex, (although I do find the CoralVue controller to be interesting), and I'm not sure which route I'll end up going.

 

[Brew12]

How complicated was the GHL to get set up?

I'm coming back into the hobby after a few years hiatus and I'm seriously contemplating either a GHL or an Apex, (although I do find the CoralVue controller to be interesting), and I'm not sure which route I'll end up going.

It was a bit harder than an Apex, but once you get it figured out it isn't bad at all. I have come to prefer it over the Apex programming. If you aren't used to more industrial based programming, you may need a little help.

 

[Maxx]

I'm definitely NOT a programmer.
I would most certainly need help setting a controller up, Apex or GHL.
Other than programming, is there anything about the GHL you dislike?

 

[Brew12]

I'm definitely NOT a programmer.
I would most certainly need help setting a controller up, Apex or GHL.
Other than programming, is there anything about the GHL you dislike?

Nope. I'm a fan.

 

[UWC]

Wow... Just wow. This means my tank is consuming 4.2dKH per day. That just doesn't seem possible but I've now confirmed it with 2 different methods of adding Alk and Calc.

I'm so glad I switched to that calcium reactor! @UWC I'm not sure what exactly Chroma does, but in what, 2 months, I've doubled my Alk demand? I'm sold! And only 7ml per day. I can't think of anything else that would have changed other than just more time.

Consider it steroids for healthy SPS

 

[Brew12]

I did a little more work on the tank last night... Something happened in my tank yesterday afternoon that caused my skimmer to go nuts. It filled my skimmate locker and shut down the skimmer. Best guess is something spawned. While I was in there I knew my Chaeto needed to be harvested, so I pulled out a basketball sized piece of it. I'm guessing these last two actions, along with the new CaRx, contributed to a lower pH. It's still over 7.9 so I'm not worried at all. I don't think it will go that low again tonight.

Alkalinity was a little low this morning at 9.0dKH. I dialed up the CO2 flow instead of adjusting my 2-part dosing. I was torn on the best way to handle it. Still pretty darn happy to be making this big of a change and still kept alkalinity in a 1.3dKH band.