Dosing setups - pictures

[mark]

Considering moving from a Ca reactor to a dosing system.

Wondering if anyone willing to put up pictures of their system and a description; tank, dosing system, what dosing and how much/often?

[JOEL]

tagging along

[kien]

My setup is pretty simple. I have a profilux with 3 heads. It supports 4 so I could buy another one to install if I wanted to but as it is, I only use two out of my 3 heads.



I dose Alkalinity (Baking Soda) with one and Calcium (from LittlesilverMax) with the other. I mix them and store them in 4L jugs but dose from 2L bottles as seen below.



There are two types of Profilux dosers, the standalone one (which has a built in timer) and the non-standalone one which requires a profilux controller. I have the latter because I have the controller. I dose each 4 times a day. Alkalinity is 49ml per dose and calcium is 66ml per dose. That's a depletion rate of 196ml of Alk a day and 264ml of calcium a day? Now that it is dialed in, all I do is top up the chemicals and test. When I first set it up I just guessed how much I needed. Then test every couple of days to see how much each depleted and compensated by pumping in more or less. I haven't touched the dosing amounts for about a month now.

Alk is 8.5dkH and calcium is 420ppm.

[mark]

Thanks Kien.

Any thoughts for the 3rd channel?

[kien]

Originally Posted by mark

Thanks Kien.

Any thoughts for the 3rd channel?

The 3rd channel was originally intended for magnesium. However, I have not been able to determine a depletion rate. I have only had to dose it once manually. I think my weekly water changes replish magnesium enough. So presently I have no plans for the third pump.

[Reefer Rob]

I dose Ca and Alk 20 times a day, and Mg 2 times a day with a profilux doser.
Started off with Aqualifter pumps, but I found it too frustrating keeping my levels consistent. At the time I was dosing Sodium Carbonate/Bicarbonate mix and it hardened the diaphragm in the aqualifter as well.

[Delphinus]

Mine's even more simple and would be fair to call it ghetto. I use two aqualifter pumps ($15 each), ARM or carbon containers for the reservoirs (about 1 gallon volume), and then needle valves at the output for throttling down the driprate. Adjusting the right volume is a combination of how many minutes on the timers are plus opening up or closing down the drip valves. The timers run at 6 intervals of 2 minutes each, offset by 1.5 hours so that they don't drip at the same time.

[PoonTang]

Mine is exactly the same as Tony's but I only have 1 pump and i dose Kalkwasser and makeup water. I adjust my levels by varying the amount of Kalk I use. My resevoir is a old salt bucket. Mine is set to run for 5 minutes every 3 hours during the night.

[mark]

well the Aqualifters would definitely get me a feel for dosing.

What concentrations are you guys mix the solutions?