Drip System Poll

[SHARK13]

I'm sure this has been covered many times in the past, but things change, tanks/systems evolve over time. Hopefully people don't mind sharing some things, and we can see some differences with setups.

I just have a few simple questions I would like to ask ye fellow ray keepers about drip systems.

What's the size of your tank/system in gallons?

Is it heavily stocked?

What kind of makeup water are you using for a drip? Is it filtered? RO or just carbon, ect?

How much are you dripping per hour or per day?

What is the pH of your makeup drip water prior to going into your system?

What is the pH of your system?

If there is a difference how are you maintaining the system pH? Buffers? Driftwood? Shells, ect?

How often do you change filters on your makeup water filtration unit? Once a month? Once every couple months? Every 6 months? Ect. Or do you go off of a tds meter?

Thanks for your time.

 

[SandNukka15]

Currently I am using a 300 gallon stock tank until my new tank arrives next month.....it's about 275 gallons full roughly with a drip of 72 gpd with 2 fx6 and 1 fx5 ....stock is

10 inch female motoro
9 inch male motoro
8.5 inch male bd hybrid
8 inch female orb

My drip goes thru a carbon filter.....i just installed this and it's only going on a few months so I haven't replaced filters yet

Ph is about 7.5 thru filter

 

[mybluem3]

Switched over to a pure r/o drip here cause of you SHARK13 lol ph liquid test at 7.6... Tds low-mid 100's in the tank. Rays seem to love ive been dripping 100 Gpd on my 600. May bump it up a little stock is heavy. 6 Rays all around 7-10 inches, 32 inch fire eel, 2x 26+ in black aros, 2 X 9 inch bass, 7 X giant 8-10 inch red tail barbs. Ive got 50+lbs of ceramics and 2.5-3 cuft in a 44 gallon reactor...Ive heard of guys running 5-6 gph drips on heavily stocked tanks.... Also curios to see what others out there are running. I think we also have a negative on our side with **** well water my water is almost 2,000 microsiemens hard which is obscene. Had some ray issues here over the last year and went over to pure r/o. I've got some shells in the sump and they slowly seem to be disapearing.

 

[SHARK13]

Yea my well water is horrible. I had no choice but to run RO/DI. It has free ammonia, as well as high nitrates, and phosphates.

Anyone else care to share?

 

[murray8698]

500 gal tank with 100gpd drip using city tap water going through a 3 stage filter. Tds reads 184ppm ph is around 7.6 7.7. Change my filters every 6mo for the drip system filter. I have 7 rays in this tank ranging from 10"-18"s with my big female prego and seperated from the bunch. Filtration is 2 35 gal sumps one going from each overflow and a 60 gallon k1 filter with a 57w uv

 

[DB junkie]

I have hard water. Been trying to look the other way cause there's soooo many people on this forum that insist rays "adjust" to crap water but I don't believe it.

When my rays die I send them in for necropsy to the university of Mississippi. I had 3 in a row come back "environmental" factors..... Meaning they found no issues. So, WHY did they die?

I'd put my filtration up against any on this board. I run more watts in UV then I do lighting on the tank. I feed similar food to everyone else. So, what's different? Water that can hit 9 for PH?

I don't drip regularly cause of temp fluctuations but I run wide open drips for hours sometimes overnight on my systems once or twice a week to maintain readings between 700-800 microsiemmens.

Now I've set up a system for waterchanges using RO/tap mix but I'm still messing with ratios. Even using 80 gallons of RO to 40 of tap I'm still well above 400. I'm guessing I'm going to need to be somewhere around 8-10 to 1 before I'm where I want to be.

Switching all systems over to this form of water changes is going to be a nightmare, as I want to do the water changes without shutting anything off. Current system is a 360 gallon tank, 240 gallon sump, and 3 40 breeders that store water. Seems to work well, just need to get ratios right. A 120 gallon RO mix water change can be done in less then 10 minutes as the storage tanks are on float valves. The rays seem happy, fish seem even happier....... I think this is the "right" way.

 

[05spurky]

I have a 270 gallon tank.

I drip 18 gallons per day, 126 gallons a week equaling 46 percent of water in tank per week.

Tap water is run through a water softner with iron remover, carbon filter and uv filter.

I have 3 rays, 7 inches, 10 inches and 13 inches.

I also have 12 dollars in same tank.

ph runs 8.2 with nitrates below 20.

I have a 3 chamber sump.

If anyone recommends different, please let me know.

 

[Beester15]

I run a drip on my tanks. you all got me thinking that I should be testing my water as well. ALL I do is run my water through a carbon filter....will test the water when I get back in tow...

 

[UnstoppableJayD]

total system is about 550 gallons... 130 GPD - through three stage carbon filter.. cold water only. I change those filters about every 4 months per the person who designed them. ph in is like 7.1 ph in tank is about 6.8 some drift wood heavily stocked...

 

[UnstoppableJayD]

total system is about 550 gallons... 130 GPD - through three stage carbon filter.. cold water only. I change those filters about every 4 months per the person who designed them. ph in is like 7.1 ph in tank is about 6.8 some drift wood heavily stocked...