eMac909’s 150

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Do a anyone run there drain through the uv?
From all research I've been doing , I wouldn't do it. It'll get a lot of air bubbles and it's harder to control flow through it. You'll probably have to clean it more often aswell since everything will be going through it.

What wattage are you going into run?

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From all research I've been doing , I wouldn't do it. It'll get a lot of air bubbles and it's harder to control flow through it. You'll probably have to clean it more often aswell since everything will be going through it.

What wattage are you going into run?

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It’s a 36w

But would it get bubbles if I’m running it through the full siphon side? Also I wouldn’t be running the whole full siphon through the uv. What I was planning was to have the full siphon have a T then gate valves on each line after the T. Then have flow meters after the ball valves. I would then fine tune the flow through each line. Of course the line going to the sump having the heavier flow and the line going to the uv having a much slower flow but still having enough to sterilize a good amount off water.
Now yes there would be bubbles at the beginning of siphon flow but wouldn’t they eventually flow out of the line? Also I would think by having a few bubble at the beginning of the siphon flow that would break up any debris/detritus and like a skimmer have the detritus stick to the bubbles and get pulled out of the lines.
 
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It’s a 36w

But would it get bubbles if I’m running it through the full siphon side? Also I wouldn’t be running the whole full siphon through the uv. What I was planning was to have the full siphon have a T then gate valves on each line after the T. Then have flow meters after the ball valves. I would then fine tune the flow through each line. Of course the line going to the sump having the heavier flow and the line going to the uv having a much slower flow but still having enough to sterilize a good amount off water.
Now yes there would be bubbles at the beginning of siphon flow but wouldn’t they eventually flow out of the line? Also I would think by having a few bubble at the beginning of the siphon flow that would break up any debris/detritus and like a skimmer have the detritus stick to the bubbles and get pulled out of the lines.
That’s a lot of work. Why not keep it simple and run a small adjustable pump to feed the sterilizer? A pump will be more consistent and cheaper than a gate valve and flow meters.




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That’s a lot of work. Why not keep it simple and run a small adjustable pump to feed the sterilizer? A pump will be more consistent and cheaper than a gate valve and flow meters.




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Yea that’s the way Im currently running the uv. I was trying to eliminate the extra pump and heat from pump. Yes I could use a line off the manifold. But they say(idk who they are) that it’s not the best to have the outlet of the uv drain into the sump if it’s ran off the manifold. Due to the possibility of re-sterilizing sterilized water. I don’t want to run a return line up the back and over the euro brace of the tank. So I figured running it off the siphon drain would be my only option on not re-sterilizing sterilized water. I bought all the plumbing Wednesday and it wasn’t that bad. Less then a $100 for 20’ of 1” black pvc, 3 unions, 4 tru union ball valves, 3 reg ball valves, 20 elbows, 6 Tees, and a few reducers for manifold.
 
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Yea that’s the way Im currently running the uv. I was trying to eliminate the extra pump and heat from pump. Yes I could use a line off the manifold. But they say(idk who they are) that it’s not the best to have the outlet of the uv drain into the sump if it’s ran off the manifold. Due to the possibility of re-sterilizing sterilized water. I don’t want to run a return line up the back and over the euro brace of the tank. So I figured running it off the siphon drain would be my only option on not re-sterilizing sterilized water. I bought all the plumbing Wednesday and it wasn’t that bad. Less then a $100 for 20’ of 1” black pvc, 3 unions, 4 tru union ball valves, 3 reg ball valves, 20 elbows, 6 Tees, and a few reducers for manifold.
Even if you resterilize some water. The sump water does return back to the tank so at the end of the day all the water is processed in the system doesn’t matter if dump into sump or not. Mines feeds from the sump thru the algae reactor and back to the sump. All is fine. And reactor is full of pods


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So got everything pretty much situated. I did end up running the Uv of the siphon drain line. So fare it’s running flawlessly



I also installed a BRS reactor for gfo or carbon when needed.
The effluent from cal reactor drops into refuge so the cheato can consume the co2.

Then today I took an old phosban reactor and glued a magnetic stirrer to the bottom and added 1/4” elbows to the inlet/outlet and made a kalk reactor



The calcium reactor is running well using the 50ml BRS doser.
The diy float valve is working well too
 
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Did a few more modifications I cut the acrylic refugium lid into 3 sections so that it will make it easier to harvest cheato.

When when I need to harvest the center panel comes out

Also made light divider panels out of pvc sheet. The left side to stop light from going out the fan and outside of the tank.

The right to stop light from spilling into skimmer section.
 
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I have a question peps

What are the best ways to manually dose nitrates and phosphates?

And not by feeding more. So 2 weeks ago I got an icp test done to compare to my Red Sea tests. Well the Red Sea said no3 is at 0.0 and po4 was around 0.02. The icp test said the phosphorus was 0.01. So I shortened the lighting period of my refugium from 12 hours to 5 hours. I also started feeding heavier. From 2 times a day to 3 times a day and dosing .5 tea spoon of reef roids every other day. I have 7 fish and not really looking to add more at this time. I tested everything again today and now the phosphates look to be in between 0.00-0.02.

I’ve been having issues with sps stn’ing from the base to the tips on a hand full of frags. All the other parameters are with in range.
Alk 8.4dKh
Cal 440ppm
Mag 1500ppm
No3 0.00ppm
Po4 0.01ppm

Looking for recommendations on things to dose to raise no3 and possible po4. I’d also like to know if people had bad effects from stump rot.
 
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I have a question peps

What are the best ways to manually dose nitrates and phosphates?

And not by feeding more. So 2 weeks ago I got an icp test done to compare to my Red Sea tests. Well the Red Sea said no3 is at 0.0 and po4 was around 0.02. The icp test said the phosphorus was 0.01. So I shortened the lighting period of my refugium from 12 hours to 5 hours. I also started feeding heavier. From 2 times a day to 3 times a day and dosing .5 tea spoon of reef roids every other day. I have 7 fish and not really looking to add more at this time. I tested everything again today and now the phosphates look to be in between 0.00-0.02.

I’ve been having issues with sps stn’ing from the base to the tips on a hand full of frags. All the other parameters are with in range.
Alk 8.4dKh
Cal 440ppm
Mag 1500ppm
No3 0.00ppm
Po4 0.01ppm

Looking for recommendations on things to dose to raise no3 and possible po4. I’d also like to know if people had bad effects from stump rot.

It’s what I use for nitrate and I have in the past used tsp tri sodium phosphate for p04


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It’s what I use for nitrate and I have in the past used tsp tri sodium phosphate for p04


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Thank you good sir. I looked into that esv Bi-onic yesterday after you posted this and man i read that it supplements alk/cal too. Not sure if I want to use this. I’m already running a cal reactor and a kalk reactor.

I looked into dosing nitrates yesterday and found that fish of hex makes and has a diy on how to make a nitrate supplement using potassium nitrate. I found pharmacy grade potassium nitrate online for around $10. Was thinking about coping his formula. Plus the fact when I got my icp test the results showed I was low on potassium. I’m not sure but would potassium nitrate also bring up my potassium levels?
 
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Thank you good sir. I looked into that esv Bi-onic yesterday after you posted this and man i read that it supplements alk/cal too. Not sure if I want to use this. I’m already running a cal reactor and a kalk reactor.

I looked into dosing nitrates yesterday and found that fish of hex makes and has a diy on how to make a nitrate supplement using potassium nitrate. I found pharmacy grade potassium nitrate online for around $10. Was thinking about coping his formula. Plus the fact when I got my icp test the results showed I was low on potassium. I’m not sure but would potassium nitrate also bring up my potassium levels?
What you would dose wouldn’t be enough to effect your alk imho. But potassium nitrate is fine too you can also use stump remover which has a lot of success just not that pure


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What you would dose wouldn’t be enough to effect your alk imho. But potassium nitrate is fine too you can also use stump remover which has a lot of success just not that pure


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Yea but I’d be afraid of impunities in stump remover.
So on Saturday I removed all but a fist size ball of cheato from the fuge. Uped the auto feeder to 3 times a day. I want to see if this helps before I start dosing nitrates or phosphates. This morning I tested again and no3 still at 0.0 but phosphates seem to look to be at 0.02. I’m going to see if I can get the po4 to 0.06 or 0.08 then send another icp test off. And if icp test comes back in between 0.06-0.08 and I’m still not getting no3 to read then I’ll start dosing those and reduce feeding so I don’t top out po4

Side note fish are fat the 3 tangs seen to be schooling.

j/k they just lazy
 
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Finally got around to finishing all the switches for the breakout box. So here’s the switches on the breakout box
Slot 1 Stand doors(light in stand turns on when doors open
Slot 2 Skimmer cup(skimmer shutoff and alarms me when float switch is open)
Slot 3 Upper float switch in sump(when closed it alarms and turns off water solenoid from ato barrel and turns off ro/di unit)
Slot 4 Lower float switch in sump(when close it alarms me and turns off skimmer)
Slot 5 Float switch in calcium reactor(this alarms me that there to much air in the reactor and it turns of cal reactor and co2 solenoid)
Slot 6 Leak detector (if leak is detected it alarms and turns off skimmer, turns off calcium reactor feed pump, turns off calcium reactor, and closes water solenoid to stop water from ato barrel.


I used power jack plugs so the switches are unplugable so when I need to clean the skimmer cup or move the cal reactor to change the co2 tank.
 

Smite

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That skimmer shutoff float could have saved my ass last week. Dumped a full cup in my new tanks sump, thought everything was gonna be toast.

I came from planted tanks and had dry fertz left from way back when. The planted tank guys like quality so I'd trust those for your N and P. I think I bought mine from Bob's tropical. You'll just need to mix and test your own solution.
 
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Well after losing a rainbow grad and WD on Monday night. I decided to pull the trigger on dosing nitrates and phosphates.
Got a small bottle of seachem flourish phosphorus (sfp) and a large bottle of seachem flourish nitrogen (sfn). I dosed 2ml of sfp and 30ml of sfn. This morning I tested again po4 is still about 0.00 range and no3 was at 0.25. But wow what a difference a day makes. Things are getting polyp extension again. I swear over night a few of the green and blue acros got brighter. I’m going to test again tomorrow morning and see where things are falling. I’d like to see how well the corals do with a no3 level at 2.0 or maybe even 4.0. But I’m going to dose slowly. I dont want to see any algae issues pop up from over dosing nitrates and phosphates.
 

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