Reef Discussion

[NiCd]

Hey everyone,

I am about to move house, the new place finally has access for NSW delivery so am looking at try and get back into weekly changes.

Just wanted to see what people are doing rather than the bucket method at the moment

Cheers
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[Sam Parker]

Litermeter. Auto changes between my four tanks 150 times a day, every day. Epitome of lazy reefing :)

 

[lukusis]

What Sam said

 

[NiCd]

What is the head height on them, I note is says draws water up to 25ft and pumps 60ft but in that with no head?

This is the floor plan, with the blue spot where I was looking at putting the tank, red spot where my water supply is planned on being

The place is on a slab so I can't pump or store under the house. I am redoing the floors in the lounge/dining/kitchen area to be sold timber on ply, so there is an opportunity to run a small line to an outside drain or even the kitchen for waste water but getting water in will have to be from outside near the laundry.

If I can pump up the outside wall, through the roof and down the wall into the sump I could do this but its a fair distance and not sure how accurate things would be

 

[Sam Parker]

It will do the distance no worries at all. Peristaltic pumps handle head differently to impeller units. It'd donthevtrip you mentioned five times over without sweating.

Accuracy is the main feature. They are incredibly accurate.

 

[NiCd]

Do you have to replace your ATO with thiers as well so it doesnt trip independently and mess things up or do you just run calibrated out and then calibrated amount in?

 

[NiCd]

Also where did you order from, I have gone through the SP website and it has no shipping options available to australia

 

[Andrew B]

Following :)

 

[Sam Parker]

No need to change anything with ATO. If you want to test it, go take half a cup of water out of your tank, wait five mins and put half a cup in. Repeat over and over again.

Easiest way to buy is by using a mail forwarder with spectrapure website. I use the shopmate Aussie post one :)

 

[somethingfishy76]

It will do the distance no worries at all. Peristaltic pumps handle head differently to impeller units. It'd donthevtrip you mentioned five times over without sweating.

Accuracy is the main feature. They are incredibly accurate.

Sam is the water changing wizard. I mean he doesn't even do them if you know what I mean but yet it does??? Ponder on these things my young apprentice.....

 

[macca_75]

I'm with Sam and use a Litermeter also. Have done a water change while reading this post :-) albehit a small one. My setup pumps the new water up 4m, across 9 and then back down 1 m. No issues.

The pumps are real units - bullet proof, don't even thing of a dosing pump when you try and picture them.

Just run JG tubing in your wall cavities and use JG Bulkhead fittings through an electrical blanking plate for a super neat finish. That way should you ever get rid of the tank just put either a blanking plate there or a power point.

It does not interfere with the ATO at all - although I have set mine to pump a little less out as my NSW is a little low in salinity (effectively I am topping off with 1L of NSW every day and the RO ATO does the rest. Works perfect and keeps it stable.

 

[Sam Parker]

Everyone that uses them, LOVES them :P

 

[NiCd]

Okay so I have ordered the precision doser and water exchange module.

I am doubting it will be here in time for the renos, so what size JG lines do I need to run?

Also out of curiosity water percentage of water are you changing each day?

 

[Sam Parker]

Okay so I have ordered the precision doser and water exchange module.

I am doubting it will be here in time for the renos, so what size JG lines do I need to run?

Also out of curiosity water percentage of water are you changing each day?

you're in the butter zone now! The system uses 1/4 inch john guest tubing.

I change 20l a day (but that is mainly because I change water from one tank to another through four separate tanks and it seems like a fairly small amount for four tanks. I usually recommend people divide whatever they historically have changed per week by seven and set the litremeter to that per day. Gives you a good way to compare apples with apples that way

 

[NiCd]

Divide 0 by 7 got it!

The idea is to get back to good habits now I am not at the top of a goat track and to then get some more upmarket livestock again.

The tank is like 380l or something like that so I was thinking 10l a day, which would give me a bit under 20% a week and make an IBC go for about three months. It seems realistic and sustainable.

 

[Sam Parker]

sounds like that would be ample. Good thing with the litremeter is it is so easy to change you can always dial it up or down as your needs change. Nitrate/phosphate getting too low, slow down the changes, getting a bit high and don't have any more GFO till next week - bump it up ;)

 

[NiCd]

sounds like that would be ample. The good thing with the litremeter is it is so easy to change you can always dial it up or down as your needs change. Nitrate/phosphate getting too low, slow down the changes, getting a bit high and don't have any more GFO till next week - bump it up ;)

Ideally, I would like to get away from GFO and zeo start if I can.

I would normally like to ease the tank in to it rather than going from nothing to 20% overnight but there is going to be a fair bit of disruption with the move and a whole lot of water changed in that process.

I was thinking I may as well run with it from that point as it will help knock down some of the nasties from the move anyway. What are your thoughts?

 

[Sam Parker]

That's the beauty of the litermeter system, you could set it to 90l a day and it wouldn't shock the tank. Small changes every five minutes, doesn't get much smoother ;)

 

[macca_75]

Have a read of http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/

From memory a continuous change is about 10% less effective than "big" changes (but has benefits around stability, etc).

For what it's worth I do 13L/day on a 8x2x2

 

[macca_75]

That's the beauty of the litermeter system, you could set it to 90l a day and it wouldn't shock the tank. Small changes every five minutes, doesn't get much smoother ;)

9 or 90 per day?