<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15505831#post15505831 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by boret
Hookup, thanks for the tour!! 
No issues... loved showing it.
Even though I am sure you have accounted for it but, tank 4 doesn't seem to have a lot of room to hold all the water from all the tanks in case of a return pump failure (or power outage). Have you tested it?
Good catch, and yes I have tested it... though not really visible from the photo, there are two pieces of tape on the glass, low water line and high water line. I do not have the ATO installed at this time (waiting on hobby-based cash flow to return) so I manually do water changes and balance the salinity.
Are you going to document the coral growth/coloration with the ultralith system? That would be very informative.
This is the intent. I have not setup the ultralith system since I took it off-line 2 months ago from the crash. I want the system to stablize a bit first so I can start a photo-journal of the effects of the baling system.
Would you be so kind as to direct me to the right thread where this method is being discussed? What vendor do you use for the ultralith stuff?
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=569
Also, I built a calculator for the FaunaMarin Ultralith system that helps with ramp up. I'm kind of a "take it appart to understand it" kind of guy... so I just didn't understand Ultralith as described in the manuals and there were so many recommendations and scenarios that seemed to be based upon chicken bones and moon phases I needed to gain a better understanding. Building the calculator, then running scnearios against it that were posted in that above forum to see if my "calculator" gave the same results / recommendations provided me with a pretty good understanding of what each component does and why it does it.
Here's the calculator.
I gave it to my LFS if they agreed not to charge for it.
Any reason to go the Alk supplement route instead of the more typical Kalkwaser stirrer/ATO combo? Concerned about kalk overdose? I like the addition of kalk myself because is fairly straight forward, helps with pH and precipitates phosphates.
The baling method itself is designed to use the ml/day to achieve the exact balance that your system needs, thus creating the most stable environment. Though some people do report pH swings when using the Baling method the documetned events prove contrary... yes, ph might swing from 8.29 to 8.20 over a 24hr period... but that really isn't a swing.. it's a variance..
I also have heard way to many KALK overdosing horror stories, so staying away from that possible problem was attractive to me.
Dosing
So I am guessing you time the dosing base on a ml/per day regime to compensate for its depletion in the tank. I am also guessing these supplements are mixed up with RODI water. So you are also compensating a bit for evaporation but not completely, right? One of my concerns with dosing systems like that is how complex it seems to me to achieve a good balance between top off water due to evaporation and water you are adding through dosing. Depending on the humidity level in the house, the season of the year, overall temperature, your evaporation rate can fluctuate. With so many open tanks I am sure you are around 2-3 gallons per day. Would you care to enlighten me on your calculations to achieve balance?
Which brings me to my last question.... how do you control the salinity. You mentioned a salinity meter. How is that working out? Do you see any salinity swings in your setup?
First, I'm assuming you are refering to the evap in the dosing salts/mixes. Because the salts last for 3 months, they are VERY prone to evap... Right now I've got glass on the tops, save a very small corner cut out of them where my airline tubing goes into the container. This has not been up and running long enough to say with confidence that I have the evap problem licked.
I would NOT recommend doing it the way I have done it. I would recommend getting some plastic jugs where you could mod the cap to allow a pin-hole for air in, and the airline tubing to be inserted into the luqid. This would solve the evap that would occur.
I do not have the salinity probe at this time. It's a future purchase and like the ATO is waiting for more free hobby-money... :lol:
The evap from the main system is not an issue when dosing btw. The dosing is to replace what your system is consuming and is not based upon current salinity levels (yes, it's related but not to a point where we would care or have an impact assuming we are keeping our salinities within 1.024 - 1.026 swings). The amount of Ca,Mag and Alk consumed is constant, and therefore the dosing amounts are constant.
To achieve the "what is the right amount to dose"... Well i'm currently working on a calculator for that as well... it'll take a bit more time because I have to dose the products into a 10gallon bucket of water and run the tests to see how much 10ml of the product, mixed according to the instructions (my instructions btw, not the ones on the product box) raises the levels... then based upon a week of daily testing in a given tank, I can calculate the starting point for dosing, the ramp-up schedule to achieve the target levels that you want to sustain, and the sustainment dosing levels....
In short, test daily while dosing until you are "stable" at your desired levels of Ca, Mg and Alk... If you add a significant amount of coral in one shot, you'd better go back to frequent testing to see if there was an impact... as corals grow, they consume more (larger bodies etc..) so testing every-two weeks of Ca, Mg and Alk would be required.
Sorry about all the questions, I am just interested on how you have everything connected. It is different from mine, which relies on your typical Ca Reactor and Kalk through ATO, so I want to see the pros and cons of your system.
No problems. I love to chat about this stuff. And most importantly, i can only tell you why I did things my way, but I cannot say that "its the best, or only" way... there are about 100 differnt ways to skin the cat here.
I've got an Constant Trickle ATO system all planned out that's getting added to the system next... After I get the Ultralith reactor modded and automated... (and the hobby cash appears again too).
