Isaac

chiller loop.  it circulates 40 degree water through it when its on.  my water chiller is what restaurant/softserve places use to cool equipment, i just adapted for my tank.  essentially, i have an HVAC condenser ouitside, and an evaporator coil inside a tank of water.  that tank circulates water though water "circuits" or channels.  I have one going to my server closet, one to my beer fridge, and one to aquarium.

so, i noticed a couple aiptasia on the "drain side" of my sump 2 weeks ago.  Got an aip-eating filefish.  checks on it yesterday... i had 20-30 mini ones!  the pump/return side still had noting thankfully.

So about every 2 years, i seem to drain/disconnect my sump and clean it out.  this time around i drained/disconnected it... put it on a couple furniture dollies and hosed it off.  then i scraped every surface.. rinse, then i powdered every surface w/ kalk. about 10 mins later, filled it up w/ water again, let it sit.  ask i manually cleaned everything that belonged it the sump, they went into this super-kalk tank to soak.  all the heaters that had those rubber ends on them.. removed.  Limiting surface area for things!

then rinse twice, finale fill/rinse w/ prime. everything back in.

its crazy how clean a clean sump looks.  Now i need something to hold a filter tray above a filter sock.  I'm abandoning the bioballs finally.

18 hours ago, Reefpuck said:

If you're willing to part out the eb8 I'd be interested. 

if ya do that, i'd be willing to take the temp/ph probes and display.... leaving you w/ just the base

i been using f.lux on my windows boxes for years, and twilight on android.  accepting a reddish hue at night definitely lets me sleep slightly better.. and now apparently lets me not go blind as early.

i put a stub on the end of my manifold so i could expand it if needed *wink*

point of my ATS was to clean out what the mechanical couldnt. so off the manifold works fine.  plus gets clogged less.

10 hours ago, Christyef said:

🤮. Speaking of, how big a pump do you run on your ATS? Is it controlled with a valve?

manifold off my jaebo12000

i always have some

"zone of crud" heh.

lights fade up you see a shadow walking through the majestic woods.  some french music begins to play.... a clearing emerges,,, light fades away...

"eau de ous-ton.  odeur de champions des marais."

cut scene.

Moral of the commercial? when doing some maint in the sump, dont forget to turn the algae scrubber flow back on, or it will cook and smell of saltwater marshes drying out and general slimy death smell.

you dont wanna "pressurize" the chamber too much in my opinion.  you definately dont want so much pressure where you are fighting the CO2's input from ever reaching the system. so if the valves are in the input, everything in the system gets pushed out as you put it in.   if you put the valves at the end, you create some backpressure.  minimal backpressure is good, and probably helps the valves from not clogging, but it will be a little harder to fine tune. both methods are pretty equal and it just depends on how it works out for you.  so.. thats the main take-away.. you cant reach water psi above the co2's input psi or you are fighting the co2 regulator.

i have a ball valve coming of my manifold, then the needle valve for fine control.  ball valves over time become very inconsistent and hard to get in the exact spot when you wanna dial something in.

their insides/mouth and that color.... mine anyways.

im at about 15-20g/week.  sump in garage tho.

flip the secondary in/out. put the filter & needle valve on the manifold end.  you'll clog up much faster w/ the current order.

https://austin.craigslist.org/grd/d/assorted-poly-barrels-and/6617005452.html

this is the guy that has all kinds of diff things:  https://austin.craigslist.org/mat/d/barrelsfood-grade-burn/6638788424.html

my first 55g held Propylene Glycol, my second 55g was apple cider vinegar, my 18g held oregano, my 20g held olive oil.   as long as it had food/foodgrade substance w/in it, and its rated food grade, yer good  

Just now, Isaac said:

im kinda scared to go above 55g for my rodi... if you dont cycle through it fast enough you might get algea growth n such.  on the salt side, as long as it has circulation and aeration... that'll last months w/o a prob.

oh, you said 20g *lol* doh!   I found some 20-25g ones on CL before.  lemme see if the guy still has em up.

im kinda scared to go above 55g for my rodi... if you dont cycle through it fast enough you might get algea growth n such.  on the salt side, as long as it has circulation and aeration... that'll last months w/o a prob.

that style DI chamber is... iffy.  I started out w/ that.  problem is, its very difficult to back the DI resin tightly in those.. just a design flaw. then it naturally laws sideways... makes it that much easier for water to create channels and essentially bypass the resin.  I just recently upgraded by system.. call me paranoid:

i gave up... heres mine. can be as simple as this (they are pretty common on "secondary" markets:

and for size comparison:

FYI, these probes slide perfectly into 3/8 pushfit fittings

lol.. this one is better/bigger (found at https://blog.marinedepot.com/education-center/charts-diagrams/what-is-a-calcium-reactor )

i was looking for a pict of my second reactor, stumbled upon this....

notice where the probe is.  some put it there, some put it in teh chamber... just depends on how it reacts/functions.  When i first started w/ my CARX, i had it on the effluent.  i moved it to the chamber for better accuracy.

second chamber would be at the end of the green line, and a new color (darker green?) would exit chamber 2 and end up in the sump/effluent dish.   hope this clears things up!  (im still looking for the pict of mine tho... i might just take one if i cant find it.

3 hours ago, Christyef said:

What kind of little containers are those?

6 weeks in the NICU 13yrs ago on sept 15   closest thing i can find on amazon are these: http://amzn.com/B0009XBX4K

15 minutes ago, HarleyGuy said:

Hi Isaac/All, 

I was referring to a secondary reactor to run effluent thru to increase the ph. I was under the impression that those are flow thru standard reactors and that CO2 was only injected in the primary reactor. That's why I was thinking BRS reactor. Is this all wrong?

Also, I still need a recommendation for the secondary reactor. I'm looking at a Bubble Magus C100-2. It looks well built and is priced at $60.

its possible,.. you'd have to use one of the plastic inserts to make sure the water flow is upwards.

1 hour ago, HarleyGuy said:

Also, I will put together a Visio diagram of hardware based on the recommendations above and share it here.

I love visios.. but nto sure ya really need one, this page has a picture w/ flows:  http://www.melevsreef.com/articles/how-to-set-up-a-calcium-reactor

1 hour ago, HarleyGuy said:

Question on the secondary reactor, would a BRS mini reactor work? (I would need to step down the input and output from 1/2"  to 1/4").  I'm a big fan of BRS reactors.

no, you need a chamber that has recirculating water.  you then introduce co2 to that recirculation to reduce the ph to eat at the media.  you then introduce a water supply to the chamber to push out the effluent (or water w/ all the good stuff).  these BRS canisters are meant for single upflows... ie rodi/gfo/carbon