Hi again George,
Here's an example of my experience with
one of my smaller tanks. It's a DIY 111g system :- 68g display with 30g
refugium/13g sump, this system was set up about 3.5 years ago using
RO/DI water, 'Marinium' artificial sea salt and some Sodium Bicarbonate
about days 3,4 and 5 to raise the PH to 8.4 the display has a 3"/3.5"
live sand bed with 140lbs live rock, mostly dead corals in large
pieces, sitting on a 1/2" PVC pipe framework closed loop at the sand
surface, drilled with small holes like a spray bar and fed by a
2000L/hr power head to give good circulation through the live rock. The
display tank has a total flow of 2,560g/hr about 37 tanks per hour made
up of the return pump, the closed loop mentioned above and 3 power
heads, one of which is quite small, 600L/hr it's function is to keep
the 2 overflow bends permanently primed by drawing any air out of the
top of the bends via air line tubing and fitting glued in the highest
points. (fool proof and fail safe). The refugium has a 7" live deep
sand bed. I also have a Jebo quadplex spraying protein skimmer in the
sump processing 2,000L/hr. this system evaporates about 8 to 10Lt per
day depending on the ambient temp. ( today at noon it was 37C (98F) the
tank runs at 29/33C. My top of water is straight RO/DI PH5/6. In 3.5
years I've added very small amounts of Sodium Bicarbonate 3 times and
1.5Kg of salt mix once to make up for salinity lose through salt creep,
I also add Limewater every couple of weeks to repace consumed calcium
and essential elements when required. I do not do water changes because
I don't think they are necessary in a well managed system, ( also the
cost would be prohibitive in my case with my total volume of water).
My water parameters a-
Flow 37 tank
volumes per hour
Temp. 32C
SPG 1.023
(about 35 PPT)
PH 8.4
KH
115mg/L
Ca
430mg/L
Fe Less
than 0.1- more than 0.0mg/L
NH3/NH4 0.0
NO2 0.0
NO3 Less
than 5mg/L
PO4
0.25mg/L
PS. I do use activated carbon for about a week maybe twice a year to
polish the water. Also I have 5W/G lighting via 20,000k MH, 10,000
Fluorescents and O3 actinic's and 10,000K on the refugium on reverse
cycle to stablize the PH.
regards,
unclenorm.