Scott's 270g aka Project Mayhem

[Scythanith]

Honestly right now my problems aren't the algae type so I am not even thinking about biopellets lol. I am still trying to get my Ca, Alk, Mg balanced.

[Myka]

^ Pretty much.

[Scythanith]

It's been somewhat of a pain in the butt! I had my numbers balanced and started dosing equal parts of the three part ™ system. Within 2 days my alk and mg was low and my ca was ok. I up'd my Part B & C dosing and it seemed like no matter how high I kept dialling up my dosing my alk & mg wouldn't go up. I was dosing extra Part C to try and raise the mg but I could NOT get it past 1300 according to my salifert test (confirmed by Bayside Corals test).

Maybe the chemistry experts can help me. I have ~300g of water volume. I made up the ™ recommended mix of a one gallon solution and have been dosing 2 x 175ml of part B. Two days ago I had an Alk of 7.4 and today I have an Alk of 9.4. What's going on!?

I lowered my dosing back to 2 x 150ml a day Part B and will see what happens in a couple days.

[sphelps]

Scott your tank and basement look great. The problem with new tanks is your chemistry demand is always changing until it becomes more established with a healthy number of corals. Then demand becomes more stable and you can dial things in and maintain levels without constant adjustment. Until then it's test and adjust at least a few times a week. I found this to be particular frustrating when I ran a 3 stage dosing system myself, three separate parts to test and adjust several times a week was just a pain, Ca in particular is hard enough just to test consistently. This is why I switched back to a Ca reactor, I just test Alk and maintain that assuming the rest remains balanced which for the majority of the time is exactly the case.

In regards to your Mag, I'm not sure why you would want levels above 1300, I'd say anything above 1200 is ideal. As far as the alk jump, that's pretty typical after upping the dosage, sometimes it takes a bit for the adjustment to register. It might take a while to come down what that size tank and little stock so don't be too quick to adjust, if it remains stable you're probably at the right dosage. Also upping Ca can help decrease Alk levels.

[Scythanith]

Thanks Steve. I plan on just testing for 3-4 days now and not adjusting anything and seeing what happens with the numbers.

[reefermadness]

Don't try and use your dosing pumps to adjust the levels. You will constantly be adjusting them like a yo yo. It's much better to manually bump your parameters to the levels you want and keep the dosers set as close to maintenance you can get. You will always have a little drift but if you regularly test and bump if needed it's not a big deal.

[Scythanith]

Originally Posted by kien

Red plate?! What manner of sorcery is this?!

I really wanted to put a picture up of a certain card from the game cards against humanity but I'd get in trouble If you've played the game you likely know which card I mean!

This is the best I can do!

[Scythanith]

Originally Posted by reefermadness

Don't try and use your dosing pumps to adjust the levels. You will constantly be adjusting them like a yo yo. It's much better to manually bump your parameters to the levels you want and keep the dosers set as close to maintenance you can get. You will always have a little drift but if you regularly test and bump if needed it's not a big deal.

Thanks Darryl, I will be just watching what happens for the next 3 days so that should show me a general consumption rate hopefully. One weird thing was I mixed up a 20g batch of fresh salt and it tested at 6.3 dKh. I asked Michael and he said that was normal. Seemed weird to me but he said that's the way the system worked. I googled it and saw reef builders mixed up a test batch and it tested at 8.3 dKh. Any opinions?

[Scythanith]

Well I have another little problem. I knew the bottom sump was too small after the first time I unplugged my main return pumps and the water from the display overwhelmed the bottom sump and dumped ~10g down the emergency drain. I had two power outages yesterday and each time it left my lower sump pump running half dry and emptied my ATO pail into the system. Now the ATO pail is currently only a 5g pail so it wasn't an issue but I made a promise to myself to not compromise anything in this project. So, I will need to build a larger bottom sump that can handle that extra volume. Right now the lower sump is 14 deep x 48 wide x 12 3/8 to the emergency overflow. That works out to ~36g. I need to up it to ~50g. SO I need to add ~14g of capacity. The stand itself can accomodate another 2" of sump to the front. I don't really want to go any taller and can't go any wider.

If I get a new sump made that is 5" deeper front to back that will add ~12.9g of volume which should be enough. That would also require me to build an add-on to the bottom of the sump stand to support the extra 3" of sump overhang.

Wendy suggested a sensor and pump that would start draining the lower sump when it got to a certain level and while I like that idea I know it would be fairly complex to work out not to mention the problem occurs when the power goes out so all the programming in the world isn't going to help at that moment. I honestly think a larger bottom sump is my safest & simplest solution. Any opinions or suggestions?

[FishyFishy!]

Can you run a simple check valve right after your pump? A george fischer wye check valve would be very effective and wouldn't limit flow very much.