equipment importance

[THE_BEAST]

hey guys just want some opinions. all are welcome. im looking to buy a new piece of equipment for my tank. what do you think would be the next most important upgrade for my reef.
1. new full spectrum lights-currently have chinese 120w black boxes
2.a ATO system-currently manually topping off everyday
or 3. a set of dosing pumps to dose cal,alk,and mag.
once again all opinions are welcomed

[Cammed_02]

Definitely an ATO, i have a 15 gallon top off reservoir and I can set the tank on cruise control for about 8 days without worrying about it.

Why do you think you need to dose? Are your levels constantly low?

[THE_BEAST]

i already dose alk. the other two are always fine. but if i dont dose alk it falls to about a 6

[Dkray944]

Auto top off for sure.... It makes life so much easier

[Zack]

ATO for sure. Chinese black boxes for other people say about them being bad or actually really solid lights and will hold you over for quite a while Along with good old hand dosing.

[THE_BEAST]

my lights are doing their job really well and everything is happy and growing. so i may wait on those

[Zephyr Aquatics]

Well lighting will definitely be the most expensive of the 3. Imma go with these fellas and go with a ATO. Once you have that then id go with the dosing system. Jaebo has the DP-4 and its affordable enough that i have tried one and have been so far pleased with its performance.

[350gt]

Ato without a doubt...

Once u get one set up properly, you'll wonder why you never did it sooner!

[THE_BEAST]

sweet.

[mkengr45]

ATO and use kalkwasser in the reservoir and you'll likely solve both problems...(alk and topping off)

[THE_BEAST]

dosing kalk scares me. just cause i dont really understand it

[Dean]

ATO and use kalkwasser in the reservoir and you'll likely solve both problems...(alk and topping off)

This would be the next purchase if I were you also Beast

[mkengr45]

dosing kalk scares me. just cause i dont really understand it

It's super easy man...look into it. I use kalkwasser in my ato (2tsp per gal) and also run 3 dosing pumps but I have a pretty high Ca demand with mostly sps and clams. You can get away with ONLY doing kalkwasser for a long time...pretty much until your tanks consumption outpaces saturated kalkwasser in the ATO.

[350gt]

Are you running a controller at all?

[THE_BEAST]

no no controller at all yet

[mkengr45]

ATO and a controller are the two biggest things that make a reef tank easier to maintain. What size tank are you dealing with and what kinda calcium/alk draw are we talking about here?

[THE_BEAST]

its a 72 bow front tank. and im losing about 1 dkh of alk a day. cal stays between 420-450.

[THE_BEAST]

oh and a little over 5 gal of top off a week

[THE_BEAST]

With that said. Does anyone have a reasonably priced ATO they want to part with!? Or which ones do you guys use/recommend?

[Zack]

Jbj auto top off!

[Scutterborn]

I agree with pretty much every comment above. I also support the JBJ ATO. That's what I am running. Kalk is good stuff. I run a Kalk stirrer in my ato reservoir. I should've shown it to you yesterday. Super easy to keep up with.

[Dean]

With that said. Does anyone have a reasonably priced ATO they want to part with!? Or which ones do you guys use/recommend?

I recently purchased and installed an AutoAqua Smart ATO for a little under $150 it's a great deal. It comes with the hose and pump and is light censored rather than using float switches. Excellent bang for your buck.
I have a JBJ that I've had for about 18 months which works fine but it has a few small glitches that the Smart ATO does not have. I am still using it though.

[OrionN]

I would do Kalk alto top off also. However, I would not use one of the water level auto topoff units. There is so many thing that will result in change water level, including loss of water due to leakage. If this happen, the outo top off can cash your tank.
I use a lab grade varible lab pump. I can set the rate and just add water/kalk with this pump.

[mkengr45]

I use Tunze...but have heard good things about others too. The Tunze will be a bit more expensive. I've also used a peristaltic dosing pump connected to my Profilux controller which worked well but it is more complicated and it also means you would need a controller.

Lots of options out there. Don't be afraid of the kalkwasser!

Randy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scutterborn]

I actually pulled off the Tunze from my 210 and put on the nano. The jbj is better only in the fact that you can use any pump. The Tunze pump couldn't keep up with the demands of evaporation on the 210.

[THE_BEAST]

im leaning towards the jbj.

[OrionN]

Looking into one of the Cole-Palmer pump. It is a lab grade pump that will last a life time. variable speed so you can adjust to whatever flow rate you want. Multiple heads that adjust the flow rate. You can varies the rate from 1cc/hr 5000 cc/hr. Set it and forget it. continuous constant rate. The head are steel or stainless steel. None of these plastic head the break in a few months.
I used to use Aquamedic, Tunze, what have you, pumps for aquarium but change to Cole-Palmer and never look back.
For top off, no controller needed. Just adjust the speed to feed the correct amount of water added. minor adjustment from winter to summer but that is all.

[THE_BEAST]

nice ill look into them all

[OrionN]

This is one of mine. Continuously run for 2 years will go on for many years to come. I can add 4 heads to this pump and pump 4 fluid at a identical flow rate.
25694

[Troy Valentine]

I actually pulled off the Tunze from my 210 and put on the nano. The jbj is better only in the fact that you can use any pump. The Tunze pump couldn't keep up with the demands of evaporation on the 210.

I've been using the Tunze ato for many years on my 240, and the 12v pump is definitely the weakest link in that system. However now Tunze makes a 110v adapter so you can attach any pump you wish. I now run a 40 gallon kalk reservoir with a Maxijet 1200 pump for the ATO. It works great, and the Osmilator still has a cut off if the pump is on too long.

[OrionN]

I got away from top off with water sensor as a mean to turn off and on. One of my system crashed a long time ago because of water loss and the top off keep on adding kalk water into the system. This crash my tank.

Right now I have my RO system hook on my small water reservoir and added it continuous to the system. I don't have to ever worry about fill up the water reservoir. Water from there got pump through my Kalk reactor and into the tank.

[Troy Valentine]

I got away from top off with water sensor as a mean to turn off and on. One of my system crashed a long time ago because of water loss and the top off keep on adding kalk water into the system. This crash my tank.

Right now I have my RO system hook on my small water reservoir and added it continuous to the system. I don't have to ever worry about fill up the water reservoir. Water from there got pump through my Kalk reactor and into the tank.

This is good advice. This is one of the reasons I took the CA reactor off my system almost 7yrs ago. Now I have 3 medical peristaltic pumps for dosing CaCl and Sodium bicarbonate. I tried using the pump for my ATO with the high capacity tubing. But I found my evap rates weren't consistent and I was constantly having to adjust flow and clean tubing from the kalk buildup. I evaporate approx 3 gallons a day, and the tunze does have the auto shut off if the pump is on too long. Where you using the tunze when this happened to you? Prudence does dictate that I go back to the peristaltic for ATO just because Murphy lives in my living room next to my tank.

[OrionN]

....I tried using the pump for my ATO with the high capacity tubing. But I found my evap rates weren't consistent and I was constantly having to adjust flow and clean tubing from the kalk buildup.....
This is where using the lab grade pump have it's advantage. I use my pump to pump water to the Kalk reactor this then feed water to the tank, so I only pump RO water. The flow rate is rock steady. No variation what so ever.
I also use this type pump to pump salt water to my Ca reactor and pump very constant flow through the Ca reactor. This is really imperative to adequately adjust to get optimal output from my Ca reactor.

[kkiel02]

I have used the tunze osmolator since the beginning and love it. On my system the stock pump works great but like mentioned above they do make an adaptor now for it. Y'all must be evaporating some serious water cause I was doing about 35-40 gallons a week with halides.

[THE_BEAST]

i cant even imagine 40 gallons a WEEK. wow

[Scutterborn]

I have used the tunze osmolator since the beginning and love it. On my system the stock pump works great but like mentioned above they do make an adaptor now for it. Y'all must be evaporating some serious water cause I was doing about 35-40 gallons a week with halides.

I lose 15-18g a week. I'm not gonna complain.


- Ben -

[THE_BEAST]

i guess that makes sense. you guys have bigger systems than me. but soon i will have a larger one

[Dean]

And I thought 7 gallons a week was a pain.

[LuckySingh]

My previous tank was roughly 4 to 5 gallons a day now that was pain . Now it's about less than a gallon a day