Rob's Really Rad 180 Reef Rally

[RobB'z Reef]

More equipment rolling in, just received a coup of AI 16HD's for my QT tanks (overkill yes). I never owned LED aquarium lights before as they didn't exist when I last was in reefing so I wanted to play a bit lol. Got my two COR-20 return pumps, couple 300w titanium heaters (BRS), and two DX18's (36") as well as three bags of Carib Sea Special Grade sand. Few more things in transit I think but getting there! Wrangling over whether or not I want to get into an Apex early on or wait a bit...

I'm training Olive to be my backup when I'm traveling for work. She's very attentive.

I have yet to unbox the fixtures, but will do that tonight more than likely.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Pretty sweet... one thing I wish I realized sooner is while everyone will tell you to buy all kinds of stuff like 75% of it is unneeded..

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Pretty sweet... one thing I wish I realized sooner is while everyone will tell you to buy all kinds of stuff like 75% of it is unneeded..

Agreed! My first tank was on a shoe shoe string and it did fine. Fortunately this go around I can afford a few luxury items that are definitely unnecessary. Back then I didn't travel for work, now I do for weeks on end. I'll have to account for that in this build.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Following along!!

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Following along!!

Awesome sauce!

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I did nothing reef related and spent the weekend playing outside!

 

[MERKEY]

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I did nothing reef related and spent the weekend playing outside!

Thats a good thing!

But really get to work and get this thread updated!!!

 

[RobB'z Reef]

So I've been thinking about future planning for automation as I travel periodically for a couple weeks at a time for work. I'm fairly confident that I'll be using Kalk for calcium/alk replenishment as I have past experience using that to some level of success. Mixing every couple days by hand isn't necessarily time consuming but it's not the schedule I want to rely on longer term. I already have my RODI plumbed to my mixing station and it has a float valve that's tied in to a solenoid that can shut off the water and the booster pump. I typically make water in large batches so I also have a manual shut off valve for that in place to avoid TDS creep on my membrane. I'm thinking I want to T off from there and fill a 20 gallon ATO reservoir that will then feed a non-pressurized kalk reactor (avast) that then tops off my sump.

For mitigating risk I would plumb in another float valve as it adds another level of control (another solenoid, time out functions etc). Feeding the ATO storage thru the float valve it could also initiate a shut down of my RODI unit and booster pump using the existing setup I already have. Using a Tunze 3155 with the solenoid option rather than the pump I can then fill from a low water level state, say 2-4 gallons which would eliminate constant on/off with my RODI unit. Feeding the kalk reactor avoids having to run that caustic solution thru my top off pumps etc. Obviously this will require another ATO control to fill my sump but I'm ok with that as I would configure the same level of redundancy to the sump as I have the ATO reservoir.

I also theorized one more level of risk mitigation by having an emergency overflow bulkhead installed that I would then plumb to my floor drain in both the ATO storage unit and the sump. This would 100% protect my floors as in the unlikely event everything fails in the open position, all that happens is i waste water into the drain and not my floor. If the sump ended up getting over filled (you hear about that often enough) it would end up reducing salinity for sure or overdosing kalk, but again, no destroyed house. This made me realize there isn't really an ATO reservoir out there that I want for this configuration. Since Bashsea is already making my sump I thought why not get a custom made to my specification matching ATO reservoir? They put out a Smart Series 10 gallon and I somewhat used that as a starting point. The kalk reactor would sit right on top of the unit and the height would be perfect for gravity feeding the kalk/top off water. This config would not suffer the usual siphon issues most ATO's run into, so that's just another added bonus.

So am I crazy?

 

[JoshH]

So I've been thinking about future planning for automation as I travel periodically for a couple weeks at a time for work. I'm fairly confident that I'll be using Kalk for calcium/alk replenishment as I have past experience using that to some level of success. Mixing every couple days by hand isn't necessarily time consuming but it's not the schedule I want to rely on longer term. I already have my RODI plumbed to my mixing station and it has a float valve that's tied in to a solenoid that can shut off the water and the booster pump. I typically make water in large batches so I also have a manual shut off valve for that in place to avoid TDS creep on my membrane. I'm thinking I want to T off from there and fill a 20 gallon ATO reservoir that will then feed a non-pressurized kalk reactor (avast) that then tops off my sump.

For mitigating risk I would plumb in another float valve as it adds another level of control (another solenoid, time out functions etc). Feeding the ATO storage thru the float valve it could also initiate a shut down of my RODI unit and booster pump using the existing setup I already have. Using a Tunze 3155 with the solenoid option rather than the pump I can then fill from a low water level state, say 2-4 gallons which would eliminate constant on/off with my RODI unit. Feeding the kalk reactor avoids having to run that caustic solution thru my top off pumps etc. Obviously this will require another ATO control to fill my sump but I'm ok with that as I would configure the same level of redundancy to the sump as I have the ATO reservoir.

I also theorized one more level of risk mitigation by having an emergency overflow bulkhead installed that I would then plumb to my floor drain in both the ATO storage unit and the sump. This would 100% protect my floors as in the unlikely event everything fails in the open position, all that happens is i waste water into the drain and not my floor. If the sump ended up getting over filled (you hear about that often enough) it would end up reducing salinity for sure or overdosing kalk, but again, no destroyed house. This made me realize there isn't really an ATO reservoir out there that I want for this configuration. Since Bashsea is already making my sump I thought why not get a custom made to my specification matching ATO reservoir? They put out a Smart Series 10 gallon and I somewhat used that as a starting point. The kalk reactor would sit right on top of the unit and the height would be perfect for gravity feeding the kalk/top off water. This config would not suffer the usual siphon issues most ATO's run into, so that's just another added bonus.

So am I crazy?

Now that, is a complicated plan lol honestly if your reservoir is 25 plus gallons I wouldn't worry about having it refill itself. Even at a gallon a day you're looking at 3 1/2 weeks of top off water. I might have missed it but were you planning on having the reactor fed by a dosing pump of some sorts? That would be the route I would go as it separates your kalk dosing from the function of the ATO. It also gives you MUCH more control of when you are dosing and how much to help fine tune things. I personally wouldn't want a float valve anywhere near water saturated with kalk as it greatly increases the risk of failure...

I'm a little confused about your comment on ATO's having siphon issues. When set up properly no ATO should have any issues whatsoever with siphoning.

BUT, inspite of all that, LOVE the custom green ATO! Something I'm going to skip because I have the room for water storage but I had a custom blue ATO reservoir on my last build and it was totally worth the extra expense.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

I'll be following this build, it seems interesting! I must say you've absolutely planned this better than I ever could have xD
Good luck and God bless.

 

[revhtree]

Looks to be a good build you got going!

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Now that, is a complicated plan lol

At face value yeah it isn't the simplest approach haha, fair point

I might have missed it but were you planning on having the reactor fed by a dosing pump of some sorts?

Yes, the reactor will be fed by a second Tunze that monitors the sump level

I personally wouldn't want a float valve anywhere near water saturated with kalk as it greatly increases the risk of failure...

I won't have a float valve in any kalk water, one in the ATO reservoir (pure rodi water there), and one in the sump. Those are considered secondary backups and by no means my main method of shutting off water supply. The 3155's are primary for that with the solenoid in the one managing the ATO, and the dual level sensors for the one monitoring the sump.

Appreciate your thoughts as always!

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Looks to be a good build you got going!

thank you sir!

 

[RobB'z Reef]

I'll be following this build, it seems interesting! I must say you've absolutely planned this better than I ever could have xD
Good luck and God bless.

thank you, i really appreciate your following along!

 

[michelle gioppo]

you have a great plan. keep it up

 

[Reef370]

Haha, I literally just told rob that! See Rob!!

 

[RobB'z Reef]

I decided to reconfigure my rodi unit a bit as I was burning through mixed bed resin like it was going out of style. I was only getting around 150 gallons before exhausting the canister. So I'm going to try single bed (cation/anion/mixed). With much help from some BRS videos, I switched my canisters around and repacked the new pro resins in and was back up and making water in no time. I'll report back and let you know if this is successful or not. Being on well water, I'm hoping this improves things a bit. Should know soon enough. My rock is nearly cycled and doing water changes for that is where my water had been going recently. Hoping I can try using it on a tank sooner lol

 

[RobB'z Reef]

LR finally cycled yay!

Now where's that darned tank at??

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Quarantine tanks are up! Going to start the cycle this coming week with some biospira. Meanwhile it's time to start window shopping for some fish which I'm sure I'll spend hours of time over thinking!

 

[Reef370]

I thought you said you were getting Mollies.. theirs no way you can be over thinking that?? Haha!