James' 120 Gal Reef Trials and Tribulations

Thank you, yes I am in japan.

 

I just got back from 2 weeks in Guam, wow snorkeling there is pretty nice. I took some pictures but only on disposable camera's hopefully they turn out. Status of the tank.

Right before I left I received my new reflectors, so time to install some new lighting. I had only a 250 watt DE phoenix 14k, one 10k 150w coralvue (a holdover from moving until I could get some more lighting,) and 4 65w pc actinics. I ordered 2 Lumenbright mini's and 2 reeflux 175 12k's (I already had the ballast.) I was able to get everything the night before leaving. here is a picture of my hood.

Picasa Web Albums - james - lighting

Here is my lighting schedule.
2 actinics on 11 am
2 more actinics on noon
2 175 watt MH on 1 p.m.
all actinics off 1:01 p.m.
1 250 watt MH on 3 p.m.
1 250 watt MH off 7 p.m.
all actinics on 8:59 p.m.
2 175 watt MH off 9 p.m
2 actinics off 10 p.m.
2 actinics off 11 p.m.
Moonlights on from 11 p.m until 11 a.m.

The corals have started to colored up more in the past 2 weeks, everything looks great except for 2 ricordea... One bleached from the power of the lumenbright reflector, and the other just melted away.

I ended up putting together everything for the CA reactor before I left, I set it up with a very low flow and VERY low bubble count. Not smart.... The very low flow stopped. The ph inside the reactor dropped to about 4.0. The only smart thing I did was to set the bubble count so low that over the time that the reactor feed water stopped and when I got back the PH only dropped to around 4.0. I am not sure when the flow stopped, but I think it must have been sometime in week 2. The water coming out (once I opened the gate valve a bit more) is still clear so I don't think everything turned to mush, very good news for me at 40$ for 1 gallon of ARM in Japan. I haven't had time to actually open up one of the chambers to check the media yet but I am pretty sure it's still fine.

So now its time to work on dialing in the CA reactor, updates to come.

 

I forgot to add, I also bought a vortech right before I left. It arrived in the mail while I was gone. I set it up yesterday, I am very happy with it. Right now I am trying to decide placement (exact) and what mode I like best.

 

Do you have a pH controller? I only have had experience with one calcium reactor myself - the PM CR422 - it was nice but the things that I really appreciated were my solenoid ( I think it was a Reef Fanatic ) and my Reef Fanatic pH controller to help mitigate the bubble problems as you are describing.

EDIT - NICE DIY JOB BY THE WAY!

EDIT 2 -

Do you have a C02 Bubble Counter?

 

I have an aquacontroller JR. I have a solenoid connected to it which I can use 2 different ways. Number 1 I can put the probe in the effluent and control the co2 that way, or 2 I can put the probe in my tank and just have it shut off the co2 if the ph drops too much in the display. I had it setup to shut off if the ph in the display falls below 7.9. Because no effluent was my problem the ph in my display remained fine, but became almost dangerously low inside the chamber. The problem with putting the probe in the effluent is the 2 chamber design, the ph rises through the second chamber before it returns to the tank (in a perfect world.) I have been testing over the past day the effluent coming directly from the main chamber, and also the effluent coming from the second chamber, its within .03 ph from eachother. I do have a bubble counter

To fix my effluent problem, I opened the gate valve which is tee'd from one of me return lines a little more, and I put a needed valve at the end of the effluent. I opened the gate valve enough to get a good stream coming from the needle valve. Then used the needle valve to slow the flow, which also puts a bit of pressure on the system. Hopefully that pressure will keep a steady flow coming from the effluent line. So far so good.

Dialing it in I want the ph inside the chamber to be about 6.8. After sitting over night it is at 6.69, lower than I want, but I am getting close. I also have the effluent at a higher drip rate than I would like. The current bubble rate is about 72 per minute, the current drip rate is 115 ML per minute. At this rate If I cut back to 70 ML per minute I should require 43 bubbles of co2 per minute to maintain the 6.69 ph in the main chamber. I did a large adjustment and set it to 70 ml per minute and 40 bubbles per minute (I want the effluent PH inside the reactor to be a little higher.) I will check back in 2 or 3 hours and see how it works.

 

GOtta love figuring this stuff out eh? Looks like you are on your way! Nice work. I would think the pressure would help too. Good luck!

 

I am sitting at 6.86, 40 bubbles per minute and about 75 ML per minute. I think I am going to leave it here for a bit longer and then I will check the DKH of the effluent. I am Looking for a reading around 30. If I get anywhere between about 25 and 40 I will let it sit a week and test CA and ALK to see where I stand.

 

Where the reactor is today, it is at 37 drops per minute co2 and somehow over the course of the night last night and day today has lowered to 45ml per minute effluent. Tested the PH in the main chamber and its at 6.69. I am thinking to cut down the co2 to around 33 drops per minute but it's sure hard to adjust perfectly lots of back and forth adjustments (with a minute in between to figure out the rate.)

Since setting up the reactor, ph has been to low. I shut off the co2 last night, and did not turn it on again until today when the lights turned on. The ph still dropped to 7.9 through the course of the night(I am not sure what the ph was last night when the lights went out.) Now that the lights have been turned on 8 hours today (I also turned on the co2 as soon as the lights came on) the ph is still right at 8.0. Before the reactor the ph would get drop as low as 8.0 at night and raise to about 8.25 by the end of the day.

Now I am battling with the idea of setting up a Kalk reactor to run at night. I cannot decide how to attack this as far as timing wise. I can setup a seperate ATO that will be fed through a kalk reactor before going to the main tank, or just add the kalk reactor to my existing ATO. If I set it up to my existing ATO I only have one option of how to set it up. Basically, add water only at night during certain times, maybe 3 or 4 different times for a set amount of time through the night. If I set up 2 different ATO's then I can set it up to turn on A. ATO if the ph is above 8.2 or turn on B. ATO if the ph is below 8.2. The problem with either idea is the long term stability of CA and ALK. Depending on how much limewater is used as top-off one month and how much is used the next month may change. Which will directly affect how much ca/alk is added to the water.

I love this site, but I participate more in my thread than everyone combined. What does everyone think?

 

Until today, I haven't performed any cal/alk/mag tests since right before I left over 2 weeks ago. I am happy to say everything is perfect.

Calcium 440 with Salifert 480 with API (it is standard for me that API tests 30-50 ppm higher than Salifert)

ALK 11KH with API and also 3.25 mEq/L with instant ocean (3.25 mEq/L = 11.375 KH)

MAG 1350 with Elos

 

Very nice setup and pics. K+ for your efforts. This is definitely a thread to follow.