MMMM Pumping of jugs. :lol:



What? All I said was "Pumping of jugs." We are still talking about dosing right?!

Ok ok ok before the lynch mob gets me..

Psst! Justin! http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/...sing-pump.html

:lol:

I knew that would come up. I'm serious though! What is all this talk of jugs and the pumping of those jugs?

Oh...

In a futile attempt to reclaim my honour now (I realize that ship has sailed long ago, I may as well ask for my hair to grow back, but I digress), I'll add to this that I held off doing the Aqualifter pump dosing for the longest time because I was *certain* I would need timers that could do sub-minute intervals. In the end though that was a moot concern: in fact I'll probably switch the durations to two minutes per cycle because I'm having trouble keeping my Ca steady for some reason (just keeps dropping and dropping).

+1

Plus, if the fluid is being pushed up a foot or two, it almost is only a drip. My ATO is a few feet and its a steady drip without a valve.

Siemens LOGO's bacically, a little PLC. Has inputs, controllable output relays, and a host of functions, timers, counters, even analog possibilities for temp controll too. I get them off Ebay. If your looking, look at the last 4 numbers of the model eg OBA0-OBA6 OBA6 is most current, and OBA0 is the originals. the amount of functions and possibilities increase with each model. Like the OBA0 cant have any Analog, I dont think that came into effect untill the 4 series. Have to watch the letters after too, some dont have internal clocks in them. You want a RC in the name, like Logo 230 RC along with the model number

search ebay, some can be found cheap. They even have a little LCD display that works with the OBA6. called the Logo! TD

All part of my master controller plan. presently I have a few OBA0's one doing lights on the 150g, another handeling ATO duties fro both tanks and the 3rd as spare. Programing is easy too, all Block Function logic. mostly Boolean with some premade functions. The PC programming software, LogoSoftComfort is real easy to use, even has a simulate function so you can test without plugging into the unit itself.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trk...All-Categories

Peristaltic i/v pumps are nice to have...I don't know the cost of the aquarium ones .. but I think one could achieve the same very inexpensively by using a bag such as i/v fluids are packaged in to hold whatever it is you want above the height of drip entry and adjusting the rate by the drip set..most are either 10 or 60 drops/ml. Easy and very inexpensive.I/v fluid bags (you may still be able to get bottles somewhere) come in many sizes..500ml to 20 liters or more. I have used the manual i/v flow controllers to adjust air line flow and it worked well.

I have a two part dozer but have not needed it so far so it is not hooked up right now. I am having a problem keeping my alk up and have been adding that to my top off water. It raises my PH too much though running at 8.5 and my alk is at 7.6 Can I go higher on my PH than that or am I doing something wrong?
My Ca and Mag are not a problem I just add a bit per week. I have a Ca reactor as well but not hooked up. I use baked arm and hammer.
Don't want to high jack this thread just wondering?

What are you dosing for your alk?....If its Randy's recipe then, dont bake the baking soda...add it directly to the water and then heat(so the BS disovles completely)....this way wont increase your ph.

I still have that pump. I think it is about $800 new. I paid $300 for it, and I will let it go for $150. I kinda forgot about it. It is infinitely variable.

At any rate, you can have more then one head on it.

It doesn't matter if your rates of calcium and alk are different (consumption) because you can just dilute one of the mixtures more.

FWIW, I was (and am still not) a big fan of pumps on timers. I have gone through a good 15-20 timers in my reefing career :wink: and they all fail at one time or another. If they fail on, that can be very bad!

You don't bake yours? I agree that the baked baking soda is a huge PITA to dissolve. I end up adding the stuff very slowly and sometimes use a blender. I'm using boiled RO/DI at this point too to make sure it dissolves "easier".

So looking at your tank and then looking at mine .. if you're not baking yours then I might just happily skip that step from now on. How much are you heating your baking soda water solution after you've mixed it?

I thought you had to bake it for an hour at 400 so it does not raise the PH?
I have done this but find it still raises my PH
Maybe I should use a different brand other than Arm and hammer.
What do you guys use?

Snapped some pictures last night of my setup. As you can see, it's pretty ghetto.

So: Two timers. I have them set to turn on 8 times per day for 2 minutes.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...g/P1010006.jpg

Schedule - Alkalinity
00:00-00:02
03:00-03:02
06:00-06:02
09:00-09:02
12:00-12:02
15:00-15:02
18:00-18:02
21:00-21:02

Schedule - Calcium
01:30-01:32
04:30-04:32
07:30-07:32
10:30-10:32
13:30-13:32
16:30-16:32
19:30-19:32
22:30-22:32

The reason for the plug splitters is that each timer controls two pumps, since I dose into two tanks, it's easier to control the driprate individually if they're on their own pump. For the cost of an Aqualifter (around $10-20 depending on where you shop) this is an easy way to scale upwards. If I really wanted, ie., if the Aqualifter pumps fail, I could just as easily switch these out for say the "Drew's Dosers" at BRS and just adjust the on/off times to longer or shorter if need be. Or I could just get a Profilux doser (I do admit I like them, I just can't afford one right now).

The pumps and jugs:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...g/P1010007.jpg

I never throw anything out so I had lots of these ARM and carbon containers lying around. They are nicely about 1 gallon each and easy to open up and clean and refill. I drilled two holes in each, have rigid airline tubing through those holes so the pumps pick up from the bottom of the container, and then just standard 1/4" tubing the pump intakes and 1/4" tubing that go to their respective tanks.

The irrigation dripvalves:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...g/P1010008.jpg

Pretty ghetto, I just have the tubes dangling over the sump right over the return pumps intake. I test Ca and Alk weekly and adjust the driprates as needed if there is drift in any of the parameters. You can get away with using a single timer if need be, and thus add the Ca and Alk at the same time, but then don't do what you see here (ie., being added to the same location) - put the drippers in different spots so that the additives don't react to each other.

looks good to me Tony clean your Salt Creep lazy bones

Where in calgary sells the aqualiftyer?

Big Als for sure. Maybe some other stores too, but I'm not 10)% certain which ones.

I love it when you talk dirty to me, you big non-salt-creepy kind of guy, you... :mrgreen:

:eek:

And now your just being a creepy kinda guy...

"Now" ?

Hey, you subsist on 4 hours of sleep and then get called lazy and come up with a better comeback. And a bigger logo. :p

Well...I actually went to sleep last night at 4am and was up at 8:30 this morning working on a big logo :lol:

Ok the setup is pretty close then. Man you are lazy bones.

Whatcha got for me?

What type of timer is needed to give such short time intervals..frequent repeats of 2 min and where does one get them? I think the ones I have are from IKEA and have 15 min increments! Also if you use a Ca reactor with CO2 is dosing needed or redundant?
Thx

this one works great

http://shop.rona.ca/shop/~timer-digi...tal-timer_shop

Pretty much any regular digital timer will do as long as it has enough on/off programs available. With it being digital you'll have at least one minute resolution. It's if you need an "on" period of less than one minute, where the timers get harder to find.

Thank you..now is 2 part dosing something one does when using a Ca reactor? I only have mine on for 12 hours at a time as I worry it will lower pH and I seem to find it hard to keep my pH at or above 8.

Sorry I missed that question before.

No, if you're already running a Ca reactor there's no need for 2-part dosing. (Well, with a small exception, I'll get to that later.) Similarly if you're already doing 2-part dosing, there's no need for a Ca reactor.

2-part dosing is showing a resurgence in popularity over the Ca reactor because it's simpler. A Ca reactor can be fussy to dial in, it requires pressurized CO2 which pulls down your pH, and it can only add Ca and Alk in balance with one another. It does a better job of *maintaining* levels than it does *raising* levels. So here's that exception I promised earlier: you still have to use 2-part dosing at first to bring your levels to target and then you use the reactor to maintain those levels. In actual fact you are better off leaving it on 24/7 rather than on for 12 hours only, because you want a steady-state situation. If you're finding a reactor is pulling your pH down too much, it is either not dialed in right or it's sized perhaps too big for your system. There's quite an art and a science to dialing it in. More on that later though. About the pH, for the most part it shouldn't be a concern. Whereas a typical reef should run about 8.4 daytime, 8.0 nighttime; a reactor fed tank will be more like 7.8-8.2, 7.7-8.1 or in some cases even 7.6-8.0. These are not numbers to worry about however. If it gets lower than 7.6 though, I would say something is off.

You want your reactor to be set at 6.7. You need whatever bubble rate to acheive this. You want a nominal flowrate of your effluent. A fast drip is usually where you want to start, or up to about 60ml/min. You dose manually to get your Ca and Alk to proper levels, then you leave the reactor run for a week, and test again. If the levels are down, you redose Ca/Alk back to target, and you increase the effluent rate, and adjust the bubble rate to achieve pH 6.7 (a pH controller is nice for this, you overset your bubble rate and let the pH controller turn on and off the solenoid to acheive 6.7. Nice, but certainly not necessary.) If your levels are up then you back off the effluent drip rate and the bubble rate to 6.7. No matter what your effluent rate, you want your reactor pH at 6.7. Anyhow and you test again in a few days to a week, and so on, and so on, and so on, until the levels remain constant.

....

Now conversely, 2 part dosing can achieve easily both level maintenance, and level raising. And it's not too hard to automate, although automation isn't necessary unless you happen to leave your tank for long periods of time and you don't want your tanksitter to worry about dosing. But due to the simplicity, a lot of people are no longer running Ca reactors (I used to, and don't anymore, and likely won't go back to it: I can use the CO2 equipment on my planted FW; and I can dose into multiple tanks whereas a Ca reactor can only be run on one tank).

Thank you. My tank came with a Ca reactor so I have continued to use it. Ca and dKh seem OK but the pH runs 7.8-8 which I had thought was detrimentally low. Thus I ran it only 12 hours hoping to stop the drop to 7.8 (that didn't happen). I run my effluent into a "cup" which overflows into the sump. The cup has a pH probe that is always on and runs 6.5-6.7. I had the effulent rate constant at about 60 drops /min (double the CO2 bubble count). If the tank pH is not an issue then I should be comfortable with how things are working and just use Ca and baking soda to adjust Ca and dKh as required.
Thank you for the explaination and numbers:)

7.8 is perfectly fine, IME/IMO. Were it me in your shoes I would leave your reactor on fulltime and call it done. Sounds like it's working well for you.

FWIW, I've found that tracking pH in the tank itself to be of minimal value. (Tracking the pH in the reactor OTOH is of utmost importance. :) But the tank itself, not so much.) It doesn't really tell you anything specific, but instead is a sort of "resultant" based on other parameters which come together in concert and then forms a pH value - it's better to track those individual parameters because they tell you more - your nitrate is up, your nitrate is down, your calcium is this, your alkalinity is that .. your magnesium is such and such. And so on. I haven't bothered testing pH myself in years, except for when I've had to answer the inevitable question on forums: "What is your pH?" when asking questions on other things. :) HTH!

Just remember the most important thing here that its a Alkalinity Reactor, and if anything that you should make sure that your alk is stable then out of any of it. your tank can get stressed out pretty quick with the ALk being unstable.