Anyone tried dosing Kalk as supplement to CR? (not as an ATO)

[o2manyfish]

Tony,

The tank looks amazing. Looks like you finally stopped cursing the SOB that talked you into buying that monster. I love the Goldflake angel!!!!

I run my calc rx 24/7 and then all my topoff is through my custom Avast Kalk Rx.

Before the Avast I installed an Asco Red Hat 3 way valve. When the pH is over 8.4 and the topoff is running then the Asco turns on and the top off bypasses the Kalk Rx.

Please Please Please - Make sure for your topoff you have triple back ups
1) At least 2 float switches to keep track of water level -
2) A line in your code that shuts off the topoff is the salinity value gets too low
3) A line in your code that shuts off if the bypass valve is on and the pH goes .5 above when it turns on

4) Neptune recommended installing a virtual outlet that only lets your topoff run for a max amount of time -- But it doesn't work.


Also with your ATO, depending what your system is comprised of - Mine is straight from RO to system to tank - I don't store it ahead of time. So I have mine on a time delay to reduce the number of times a day the RO runs. The less times it runs and the longer it runs then the longer the RO membranes will last.

Great looking tank - If you want a couple of large pieces of coral to look at, come by my house the next time you are up in the valley. I got some small colonies in the outside frag tanks you can borrow for awhile


Dave B

 

[iSeeMax101]

Tony help me set up my tank. I need to get this thing automated already

 

[laverda]

I would just set it to run for 3 hours prior to when you PH bottoms out. That will prevent the big dip in PH. I would als set the macx at 8.2-8.25 as your currently way lower than 8.5 at that big a change will cause problems. You can always increase it a bit later. I can not tell when you ph is the lowest, if it was at 3am I would use this code
Fallback OFF'
OSC 000:00/001:30/028:30 Then ON
If Time 4:00 to 00:59 Then OFF
If pH > 8.20 Then OFF
So it would dose for 1.5 min every 30 min from 1:am till 4:am. This small amount should not have a big affect on your ALk level yet reduce your PH swing. Fine tune as needed.

 

[m0nkie]

Thanks for all the recommendations. For now im going to keep things easy to see how my tank reacts to kalk and correct the dosing amount. Then i will tweak the timing

So far im dosing 50ml per minute. 1.5min every 30min. So about 3600ml a day. Almost a gallon a day. Result was my alk dropped. 8.5 > 8.2. PH did not change either.

I upped the dosing to 5min every 30min. 12000ml a day. About 3gal a day. That's getting close to my evaporation rate. I'll see if it makes a difference

 

[wishntoboutside]

Tony,

I have not seen pictures of your tank in a long time. It looks great. love the nem.

 

[m0nkie]

thanks Richard!

 

[m0nkie]

the bump up in kalk helped. I'm going to wait a week or two to see if it stays this way. then I will start twitching the timing. A little more dosing at lights off to smooth out the curve

Low 8.07
High 8.25

 

[o2manyfish]

I don't think you should worry about tweaking this much more. Both sides of your spike are pretty equal. And we are talking about a parameter that varies with the amount the photosynthetic activity that is occurring in your tank. I'm guessing the room your tank is in is not 100% pitch black. So the smoother side of the up curve is probably related to the amount of ambient light in the room during the day while your lights are ramping up to peak intensity.

I think your pH swing is looking pretty good and the numbers are where you want, pat yourself on the back and now go tinker with something like cleaning up all those wires you hid behind the towel you don't want anyone to see (just kidding this is what I did - I don't know that you did it too).

The only thing I would do now that you have this where you think you want it, is to run a double probe calibration and make sure the numbers are what you want them to be.

Nothing worse than thinking you have made a difference only to find out that the probe / controller is what has changed and not what you have been struggling to try to correct.


Dave B

 

[m0nkie]

that's a good idea. thanks Dave. I'll go recalibrate the probes tonight. Been at least 6-7 months since last calibration.

I painted the entire room black, my wires hide themselves