The LAST big upgrade

[michika]

Originally Posted by FishyFishy!

With the DC pump, did you reduce the 2" intake at the pump, or closer to the inlet?

On the pump side actually. The inlet was left alone. It will be getting a screen as I've been looking at smaller and smaller fish.

Originally Posted by mseepman

Wow, a Hammerhead to a waveline? I assuming the Hammerhead was really throttled back because those two pumps don't really compare for flow.

Hahahah yes. The hammerhead was TOO powerfu. Even dialed way back the suction on the 2" inlet was deadly. The flow was ridiculous too. I do expect to go back to the hammerhead though in the future when things start to grow in and I need the extra flow to overcome the growth.

Originally Posted by kien

Tank is looking great!



Although you probably don't have a lot of uptake at the moment, I would imagine this would be a ridiculously large volume to be dosing. Have you figured out feasibility of dosing vs a reactor for your volume?

Thanks!

I did look at reactors, and I've always typically used CA reactors and then had a kalk reactor for dKH. This time I'm trying the BRS two-part dosing method. The only reason I didn't stay with reactors is finding media consistently.

I did some back of the envelope calculations on the big three and what it would cost me to do dosing vs reactors and it really comes down to the prices and accessibility of media. Reactor dosing has somewhat fallen out of favour and so I'm not seeing things like ARM media or its equivalent around regularly, stores aren't really carrying it (that I've seen). Equipment for dosing is cheaper, media is more expensive. Equipment for reactors are more expensive, and media is cheaper, but hard to find consistently.

I've just started (last week) automating my dosing using the BRS peristaltic pumps and their 2-part instructions. Using the assumption that the total current water volumne is 550gal I'm already dosing nearly 1g of CA, dKH, and MG respectfully over a 24 hour period. This leaves me with two possible solutions; a) bigger dosing containers (ugh) b) stronger more concentrated doses.

I get a feeling that I'm going to end up with a fraken-dosing solution; half reactors, half dosing. But I plan to disguise it well with Pheasent balls.

Right now I go through about 30-40ppm Ca/day, everything else, is pretty flat.