Tim's (lakelivin) RSM 500 build

D

DaddyTLi

Active Member
You can stop for a day or two to see how quick your animals deplete the cal and alk. Waiting a month or two can skew the numbers expecially with water change. You should measure before and after water change as well because the salt has different level of chem than your tank. Water change usually lower the parm levels. I find that to be true with instant ocean salt. Red sea salt has higher levels of cal, alk, and mg as well. I'm beginning to think red sea saves me money with less dosing needed after water change.

Tom
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
All good points Tom... My plan is not to wait a month or two to begin testing but to spend a month or two testing without additional dosing to see how levels are affected with the increased frequency of water changes. It may not take that long to figure out what and how much I need to dose but because the daily water changes will be relatively small I figure it will take more than a few days to see how things adjust. When and if I see my water chemistry parameters fall out of recommended ranges I will dose what's necessary.
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
I got some help and tore down the sump and gave it a thorough cleaning this week. It's been a year now so it was needed and It's back to looking brand new again. Going to go back to using socks again as well and will just have to get used to changing them out every 2 to 3 days at least.

Anyone use a HE washer to clean there socks? Of course I will run an extra rinse cycle or two to get rid of as much of the detergent as possible, but was wondering if anyone has a concern or had a problem with any residual detergent hurting their tank.

Also, firming up the plans for the APEX DOS to start my automatic daily water changes. I bought a 100' APEX aquabus cable so I can mount the DOS in the garage next to my water making station. Some have complained that the DOS can be a bit too noisy for in the cabinet under the tank if it is located in a living room where you watch TV.

Going to have 3, 40 gallon barrels connected together with gate valves and pumps so I can easily transfer water to and from the different barrels. One for RO/DI, one for pre-mixed salt water and one just to mix the saltwater thoroughly before pumping it into the pre-mixed barrel.

Going to run the cable and tubes inside a PVC conduit to protect them. I'm also adding a 3/4" tube through the conduit and out the wall plate behind the tank to fill the ATO reservoir. I figured why not, going to all that trouble may as well do away with the need to fill jugs and haul them to the tank to fill the reservoir.

The DOS is on backorder but hope to have one before the end of the month. Probably will get all the tubes, conduit and barrels installed soon so i'll just need to connect the DOS and start programming when the DOS arrive.

If anyone is interested in the setup I can take pictures and answer questions once it's setup and working. Just let me know...
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
The DOS is on backorder right now but hope to get one in by the end of the month and I'll provide some pics of the setup when It's done. If it works as designed it's going to make for a much cleaner tank with daily small water changes and keep nitrites and phosphates at bay. Constant daily dosing of elements in the Red Sea Crystal salt should prove to be very beneficial as well.

Still have not decided exactly how many gallons I will change per day so I plan to experiment a bit. The good thing is I can easily adjust the amount with a simple click of a mouse.

Finally got my Radion Pro G3's dialed-in using Fusion and I'm really loving the colors. Once I get the DOS working correctly it will be time to spend some money on some more corals.

I recently bought one of the new oval Skimz protien skimmers and after a couple weeks of breaking it in it is stable and working like a champ. It fits perfectly in the center chamber of my sump.
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
Greetings all, have not been around here in a while and I see have things have changed a bit. I wanted to update everyone with the progress I made setting up my new daily/automatic water change system using Neptunes Systems new DOS product.

I totally redid my water station setup in the garage and I have to say I'm loving it! I fed all the tubes and wires necessary up into my attic inside a PVC conduit. I decided to use a conduit to protect the tubes/wires up in the attic as well as making it easier to add or change tubes/wires in the future. You can see the conduit in the picture below. I even ran a 3/4" tube that allows me to pump refill water into my ATO reservoir. No more filling jugs and lugging them into the house a couple times a week to keep refilling the ATO.

The three barrels you see in the pic from right to left are fresh RO/DI barrel, salt mixing barrel and mixed salt water barrel that the DOS pulls from. As you can see they are all plumbed together and using the external pump pictured on the bottom I simply move the valves to the desired position and transfer water from barrel to barrel depending on what I want.

I currently have the system programmed through APEX to change 4 gallons per day. The system automatically spreads the water change out over the 24hours doing small amounts at a time. The system is capable of changing a little over a gallon an hour so if you want to do a large water change over a shorter period you can.

setup_1.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
Thanks, not sure what happened. I cut and pasted the IMG URL form photobucket like I always do and it appears it added some extra characters.
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
Thanks, I'm very happy with the final outcome. My next ongoing project is taking measurements of the essential elements to determine what affect the daily "dosing" of fresh salt mix will have on maintaining appropriate levels of Alk, Calc and Mag.

I'm also stopping the extra filtering I was doing with my reactor to see how daily water changes will affect nitrate and phosphate levels. I'm still using activated carbon in a bag in the sump but hoping I may be able to eliminate having to use a reactor. One less piece of equipment to maintain and clean hopefully.

Now if I can only teach the fish to clean the glass I would be just about maintenance free. :)
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
Roughly 15' on the left pump that draws old salt water from the sump. I have 12' ceilings and there is another 3' of height once in the attic to get over some of the roof joist/structures. Total distance of about 65'. Of course the distance of the return run is the same distance but the vertical hight is not as steep.
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
Thought I would post another update for my tank. It's been a couple weeks now since using the APEX DOS for AWC's and it's working great. Changing 3 gallons per day and the corals seem to be liking the daily dose of new salt water.

Added the APEX automatic fish feeder and even though it's quite loud when feeding it works great. Programmed it to feed twice a day and I will supplement with frozen food a few times a week.

Also replaced my old MP40's with the new quiet drives and it's amazing how quite they are. They are virtually silent and I have to look at the propellors to make sure they are actually on!
 
LakeLivin

LakeLivin

Active Member
Thought I would post an update... It's been a little over two months running the APEX DOS for daily/auto water changes and the tank is doing great. Neptune had some issues with the system logging doses but latest firmware appears to have solved the problem.

All the corals are doing great and my only problem now is that soon I am going to have to move things around because some of the corals are outgrowing their territory. A couple polyp colonies are getting out of hand as well so I will have to figure out how best to "trim" them back some before they take over too much tank space.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top