Scott's 270g aka Project Mayhem

[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 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.

[sphelps]

Scott did you ever try/consider cutting out the refugium to free up some extra volume in that lower sump?

[Scythanith]

Originally Posted by 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.

It's not backflow through the pumps, its the actual water volume from the display tank that is above the weir teeth draining into the sumps.When the top sump return pump is running, it raises the level in the main tank by ~1", the lower pump replenishes the top sump and makes up for any discrepancies in water height (usually due to evaporation). I already have a GF wye on the lower sump pump, so nothing drains back through it.

[sphelps]

I think you have a little more potential in that sump worth exploring, worst case you're replacing the sump anyway so why not try this first.

1. Add a snorkel to the pump, I've done this lots, usually use long radius ABS fitting.
2. Lower that running water level, I scaled out 3" which I think is easily feasible, maybe even more.
3. Cut out refugium, it'll add more volume to the pump chamber as well so it will have more catch up volume as well during start up.
4. Add a little height to your overflow chamber, ie if it's 12-3/8", can you make it 12-7/8"?

If you can do all that the added volume I calculate is this:

Refugium cut out and lower water level: (27*3+27*2)*13.5 = 1800 in3
Higher E-O-Flow: 0.5*47.5*13.5 = 320 in3

Total = 2120 or just over 9 gallons.

Rough numbers obviously and I didn't exclude the overflow box but you get the idea. I'd also still add a check valve to both return pumps, while it's not a total back-flow issue it will still cut back on a decent amount of water flowing back to the sump (16' of 1.25" Pipe will hold about a gallon).

[Duckhams]

Beautiful coral photography, really good build thread too! I feel very inspired.