THE Tank Build By Aqua Digital

[Aqua-Digital]

Hanging wire tails now hidden

[Chase31]

so you have two vats in the closet? one for new salt water and one for fresh?

[lastlight]

Looks great! That standpipe needs a painting really bad though...

[Aqua-Digital]

The standpipe will be reduced in size when my blank plates arrive for the overflow, you will then not see it.

First corals are in Courtesy of Pat at www.ottawainverts.com

Tri coloured Ricordea - reason = for a new set up this is an ideal choice for the tank

Bright orange Monti frag - reason = Very hardy and a good indicator of tanks stability

Nothing else will be added for two weeks.

Dosing -

2 drops of FM Bio per day
1ml of Ultra Bak
0.5ml of ultra Min-S

Ultra Life is being dosed also at present due to new fish introduction and the tank being new.

Paremeters

Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 0.2
P04 = 0.1
Ca = 460
MG = 1410
DKH = 7
Salinity = 1.0249

I will be switching to ProdiBio shortly as it needs to be reviewed by us.

I am not yet dosing any minerals as the draw on the tank is too low to warrant it, as soon as I see a dip in any of the 3 elements then I will set the balling up.

[Aqua-Digital]

Quick update -

New pump fitted now pulling 500L/hr and the pump is "silent" Tunze 1073.02.

Cloudy water = 75% gone

Params as of this morning

Salinity 1.0249
Redox 325mV
pH 8.02
Temp 28c
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0.03
PO4 0.03
Ca 470 (suspect new aragonite causing high Ca)
DKH 8
Mg 1410

All fish settled in and the two test corals thriving.

Big ProfiLux revue update to follow

[Aqua-Digital]

Well now the "Aqua Digital Tank Build" is nearing set up completion its now time to move onto the profiLux and show everyone what really can be done.

I thought I would do this step by step guide including software screen shots.

So lets start with
Temperature.

As you can see here all probes including the Temp probe are situated in the sump at a level that the probes will never be completely submersed.



(The white tipped probe is the new generic pH probe that will be coming with all beginner packs as of April, just field testing it)

So here is a screen shot of the temperature software screen. Here you can see my nominal value is 28 degrees and the hys is set to .02 meaning the tank will only fluctuate by .02, my graphing clearly shows this as an even saw tooth over a 24 hours period. Any more switching than this in a small tank that does not hold heat well could cause thermostat bounce, something to be aware of more so with chillers.



So thats the input but what about turning the heater on and off at the set value?

Next step is to program the power bar to control the heater, but first set the thermostat of your heater to 1-2 degrees above your nominal value, this is so the GHL had control over the heater but still allowing for failure redundancy, no matter how good your controller is, it could be made by Nasa for all I care, make sure you have redundancy or 3rd party cut out for such devices.

Ok onto the power bar. here you can see the power bar input screen and I have chosen socket 1 to be the temperature "heating" control socket. The socket is edited to be Temperature 1 - Heater. If you want to also control a chiller just select another socket i.e socket 2 and program that to Temperature 1 - Chiller. The ProfiLux will then turn either device on or off depending on your nominal value and Hys' set.



More about the other sockets later.

So thats the temperature set up. - Next pH

[Aqua-Digital]

OK so pH -

Well once you have set up the Temp everything starts to fall into place like a jigsaw really, setting pH up is no different you are just dealing with different values.

So here we have the pH screen



Just as the temperature control page, you have nominal value current value and hys'. As with the temp input there are plenty of other funky add ons to play with if you wished here, for example nocturnal mode etc, this is important only if you really do not like natures ability to lower pH at night, I personally let the tank follow a rythm.

So what can pH be used for? In my case its just monitoring, of course I can set an alarm to wake me at 2am if it drops too low, or goes to high if my Alk dosing got stuck on, or if running a kalk stirrer etc. But the main purpose in reef tanks for pH control other than just monitoring the tank is calcium reactor control.

So to set up a ca reactor Co2 solenoid (I do not have this on my tank as I cast that old pony out long ago )

First set up your nominal value in a ca reactor it should be around 6.2 to 6.5 depending on your media. The Hys' can be set to 0.1 in this case, we are controlling a solenoid so does not have so many issues with being switched on and off often.

Now go back to the socket function screen and decide what socket you wish the solenoid to be plugged into, lets say socket 2 for now.

Just as you did with the temp socket set up, select the socket to be edited and set as follows

pH - downward

thats it you are set, of course you can name the socket Co2 control or Freds Diner what ever you choose

If you want to control a Kalk stirrer you can do the same but opposite, if the pH drops you want the kalk to be turned on so set to pH up.

Next Salinity control - Oh thats a scary one