OK! Enough chat...Starting a 1000g+ Reef
- Thread starter JohnL
- Start date
Lucky Strike
New member
John,
Ive seen that you have updated your skimmer with aquatic eco stones. I tried searching through your thread and you have lik 8 - 10 splits and did not find it. Can you point me to the page if there is one or give a small synopsis about the difference bubble size and skimming?
Ive seen that you have updated your skimmer with aquatic eco stones. I tried searching through your thread and you have lik 8 - 10 splits and did not find it. Can you point me to the page if there is one or give a small synopsis about the difference bubble size and skimming?
jnarowe
New member
Good question. The difference to me is longevity. I originally got their regular or medium pore stones, and have switched to the fine pore a few months ago when I built the new manifold.
Prior to that I had wood stones. The wood stones can actually put out a finer bubble, but need to be replaced fairly often. The Aquatic-Eco fine pore stones gave me a lot more stone surface area (I am now running 8 x 9") so more air into the skimmer, but with perhaps slightly larger bubbles.
The big deal is that they can be cleaned and re-used, giving them an excellent lifespan. All I do is pull the manifold out about every 6 months and soak the stones in a weak muriatic bath.
As far as skimming goes, switching to the Aquatic-Eco stones did up my skimming, but that is not a direct relationship since I increased the stone sizes significantly. If I had say 20+ of the wood stones, they might skim as well or better. BUT, wood stones turn to mush in a couple of months or so.
HTH!
Prior to that I had wood stones. The wood stones can actually put out a finer bubble, but need to be replaced fairly often. The Aquatic-Eco fine pore stones gave me a lot more stone surface area (I am now running 8 x 9") so more air into the skimmer, but with perhaps slightly larger bubbles.
The big deal is that they can be cleaned and re-used, giving them an excellent lifespan. All I do is pull the manifold out about every 6 months and soak the stones in a weak muriatic bath.
As far as skimming goes, switching to the Aquatic-Eco stones did up my skimming, but that is not a direct relationship since I increased the stone sizes significantly. If I had say 20+ of the wood stones, they might skim as well or better. BUT, wood stones turn to mush in a couple of months or so.
HTH!
Lucky Strike
New member
Thanks - very concise. I know that the life span is the big plus about the aquatic eco stones.. i just am not familar with how they compare to the wood blocks in skimming ability / performance. I have to make a choice, use my alita 120 or use my dart n/w for my next skimmer. Since i will eventually have 2 identical setups i may set one up with the air pump and one with the dart and see how they compare... just which one to build first.
jnarowe
New member
I am not known for being concise! 
I would love to do that myself. I think it would be cool to have two identical Volcanos, but with one using an airstone manifold. Just a dream I know!
For your size tank, two would be a good idea anyway. The Alita 120 can really push some air too. They are sweet pumps for sure. When I swtiched to the larger stones, the draw from the pump actually went down to 105W which is another benefit of using over-sized stones.
As far as timing your builds, I would do the airstone skimmer first. It is gauranteed to work with little fuss, set and forget, and then you can spend more quality time on the Dart NW.
I would love to do that myself. I think it would be cool to have two identical Volcanos, but with one using an airstone manifold. Just a dream I know!
For your size tank, two would be a good idea anyway. The Alita 120 can really push some air too. They are sweet pumps for sure. When I swtiched to the larger stones, the draw from the pump actually went down to 105W which is another benefit of using over-sized stones.
As far as timing your builds, I would do the airstone skimmer first. It is gauranteed to work with little fuss, set and forget, and then you can spend more quality time on the Dart NW.
Lucky Strike
New member
"I am not known for being concise! "
Oh my..!!?? could this be.. could this mean you are getting back to your old self???
(i am totally joking please dont take offense)
Yea i do like the idea of building the air stone one first because there is less holes in the skimmer body and it will be easier for me to build. Im 100% diy the whole thing its going to be a fiberglass skimmer with some windows for watching the bubbles swirl around. I think that it could be close between the two, one hand you have 2 - 3x the air with the alita over the dart for about the same watts and the dart has the processing capability of churning up all the water through the pump housing many many times before the water actually leaves the skimmer. I think if you optimized each skimmer design, thus in the end each one is different, it could be hard to tell who is the winner, but if you compared each one on the same packaging (body height, diameter, etc) i would think there would be more of a winner / loser depending upon the packaging. i think you have to force feed the dart above 36" and that puts you over 120 watts and puts a restriction on design (atleast in my case - 120 watt max). The air pump you can make really tall to optimize processing of the water and dwell time.. seems like a battle fit for pay per view.. lol
Speaking of which your skimmer is in the 54" range correct? would you make it taller than that? larger in diameter?
Oh my..!!?? could this be.. could this mean you are getting back to your old self???
(i am totally joking please dont take offense)
Yea i do like the idea of building the air stone one first because there is less holes in the skimmer body and it will be easier for me to build. Im 100% diy the whole thing its going to be a fiberglass skimmer with some windows for watching the bubbles swirl around. I think that it could be close between the two, one hand you have 2 - 3x the air with the alita over the dart for about the same watts and the dart has the processing capability of churning up all the water through the pump housing many many times before the water actually leaves the skimmer. I think if you optimized each skimmer design, thus in the end each one is different, it could be hard to tell who is the winner, but if you compared each one on the same packaging (body height, diameter, etc) i would think there would be more of a winner / loser depending upon the packaging. i think you have to force feed the dart above 36" and that puts you over 120 watts and puts a restriction on design (atleast in my case - 120 watt max). The air pump you can make really tall to optimize processing of the water and dwell time.. seems like a battle fit for pay per view.. lol
Speaking of which your skimmer is in the 54" range correct? would you make it taller than that? larger in diameter?
jnarowe
New member
no. no need to go taller. in fact, in my situation, I may make the next one slightly shorter to feed more water by gravity. I am not totally sure this will work, but currently I am getting about 600 gph through it and I would like to up that.
And BTW, what would be wrong with a combo skimmer? Recirc NW and air stone driven?
And BTW, what would be wrong with a combo skimmer? Recirc NW and air stone driven?
jnarowe
New member
Actually I had a little snafu yesterday involving the AC temp. probe. I was messing around with the COND probe and unplugged it. What I didn't notice is that I also unplugged the temp. probe accidentally. Then I started getting the alarm emails and went down to investigate. When the temp. probe is off, then everything esle gets FUBAR'd because they use the system temp. as part of their formula, so the ORP and pH readings were all off.
So when I plugged it back in, I did not get the correct readings. I then reset the ACIII Pro and it appeared to solve the problem. However, I noticed throughout the day that the temp. did not get up to where it normally would, nor did the pH. Up this morning and the pH is at 7.80. So this means I now have to calibrate the temp. probe (and all probes) to get back on track.
Once I have it done correctly, I will pull the erroneous data points so it will not mess up my report on the Two Little Fishes kalkwasser. I had expected to post about it today with graphs etc. but I am guessing it will be another day or two before that is all ready for public consumption.
Just to do a quick update on the kalk, the TLF is still going fine. When I lowered my stir times by one minute, the alkalinity took nearly a 1 point dive in about 30 hours, so I re-programmed it back to 4 minutes per stir rather than 3. The alkalinity did go back up, so I am interested to see where it sits today, even with the temp. probe screw-up.
That is all.
So when I plugged it back in, I did not get the correct readings. I then reset the ACIII Pro and it appeared to solve the problem. However, I noticed throughout the day that the temp. did not get up to where it normally would, nor did the pH. Up this morning and the pH is at 7.80. So this means I now have to calibrate the temp. probe (and all probes) to get back on track.
Once I have it done correctly, I will pull the erroneous data points so it will not mess up my report on the Two Little Fishes kalkwasser. I had expected to post about it today with graphs etc. but I am guessing it will be another day or two before that is all ready for public consumption.
Just to do a quick update on the kalk, the TLF is still going fine. When I lowered my stir times by one minute, the alkalinity took nearly a 1 point dive in about 30 hours, so I re-programmed it back to 4 minutes per stir rather than 3. The alkalinity did go back up, so I am interested to see where it sits today, even with the temp. probe screw-up.
That is all.
jnarowe
New member
re-Posted from Kevin:
The Rowa Kalk lasted about 4 days for me. Over the weekend, my pH did not go above 8.08 on Saturday, so my calcium reactor did not turn on for the day. I also noticed the powder was no longer bright white and had a slight brown color to it and when it stirred, it looked like a rust color. On Sunday, my pH peaked at 8.13 so my calcium reactor turned on for a few hours and then turned off after my pH dropped below 8.10. Monday through Wednesday my pH peaked at 8.07 and my pH fell to 7.79 last night. I dumped the Rowa Kalk which had a rust color to it and cleaned out the reactor this evening and refilled the reactor with 1/4 of Mrs Wages pickling lime. My alk dropped to 7.5 so I used to buffer to bump it back up to 8.0. My calcium levels also dropped to 410, so I bumped that back up to 420.
The Rowa Kalk lasted about 4 days for me. Over the weekend, my pH did not go above 8.08 on Saturday, so my calcium reactor did not turn on for the day. I also noticed the powder was no longer bright white and had a slight brown color to it and when it stirred, it looked like a rust color. On Sunday, my pH peaked at 8.13 so my calcium reactor turned on for a few hours and then turned off after my pH dropped below 8.10. Monday through Wednesday my pH peaked at 8.07 and my pH fell to 7.79 last night. I dumped the Rowa Kalk which had a rust color to it and cleaned out the reactor this evening and refilled the reactor with 1/4 of Mrs Wages pickling lime. My alk dropped to 7.5 so I used to buffer to bump it back up to 8.0. My calcium levels also dropped to 410, so I bumped that back up to 420.
Kurt03
Active member
Im cheering for Mrs. Wages!
Ive used it before with results as expected. Its just about all I used on my 55 to keep the alk/calc in line.
I didnt have a ph monitor or anything at the time to take constant readings though so interested to see how it does to the shall we say more expensive choices
Ive used it before with results as expected. Its just about all I used on my 55 to keep the alk/calc in line.
I didnt have a ph monitor or anything at the time to take constant readings though so interested to see how it does to the shall we say more expensive choices
jnarowe
New member
Ok, time to post some data. I have had a couple issues occur that have kept me from being my best in terms of this round of testing. The first is I have a slipped disk in my lower back so working on the tank or even getting water samples is reliant on my 11-year-old son to participate.
Second, I pulled my ORP probe to work on it some more and accidentally unplugged the temp. probe as well. I was going to remove the errant data, but decided to leave it as-is and note it. I hate messing with data anyway.
So the first week of using Two little Fishes (TLF) Kalkwasser:
Week 2:
Week 3:
I have to say that when evap. rate is good, this product is really doing well. I am very happy with its performance and will continue to use it until we see the curve start to drop. Again, the weather issue sort of mangles the data so I will keep that in mind and inform as needed.
Second, I pulled my ORP probe to work on it some more and accidentally unplugged the temp. probe as well. I was going to remove the errant data, but decided to leave it as-is and note it. I hate messing with data anyway.
So the first week of using Two little Fishes (TLF) Kalkwasser:
Week 2:
Week 3:
I have to say that when evap. rate is good, this product is really doing well. I am very happy with its performance and will continue to use it until we see the curve start to drop. Again, the weather issue sort of mangles the data so I will keep that in mind and inform as needed.
jnarowe
New member
This is the "rainbow" and Tyree Sunset rock I had to do surgery on last week. Looks like there is still a little STN going on though. Amazing how they are growing along each other without really doing battle:
Tort from Dang. Very slow growing but alive and well. Seems to be growing toward the light so I may move it up a bit.
Sweet little green slimer:
Trumpet from Colleen:
Misc:
Tort from Dang. Very slow growing but alive and well. Seems to be growing toward the light so I may move it up a bit.
Sweet little green slimer:
Trumpet from Colleen:
Misc:
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