The paint on the hood was dry so I moved it inside and installed the light rack. The hood has just become a two man lift so I called a neighbor to come over and help put it in place. I got out the ballasts and got ready for Nate (natec) to come over to lift the monster up on the tank. Nate came over around 9:30 pm (thanks for the help) and we hoisted it up into place. I had some of those nylon furniture slides that fit perfectly under the rails that sit on top of the tank. It moves very nicely now with minimum effort and I can still slide it open by myself.
The hood is in place and all is left to do is plug in the ballasts and see what it looks like. I couldn’t believe it nothing a few more minutes go by and still nothing and then one of the HQI fires, but not the other. I could not believe it I was going to have to take it all off and reseat the bulb, so off it came and I removed the pendant that would not fire, reseated the bulb put it all back together and we lifted it back into place. You would not believe that it didn’t fire, so I turned it off and was just a bout to take it down when I thought I should give it a good whack and try again……success it fired so Nate went back home ane I went back to work on installing the Icecap 660 for the T5s. as things were going they didn’t fire either, I was not having fun and it only gets worse. I swapped some bulbs around and reseated all the bulbs and tested it. This time two bulbs flickered and went out so I knew that those bulbs worked. I swapped some more bulbs around and reseated all the bulbs and tested it again and three bulbs flickered and went out so I knew that those bulbs worked and the one that didn’t flicker was good from the last swap. I changed the end cap on the power side of that bulb and then I moved the bulbs into the order I wanted and reseated all the bulbs and tested it again. Thank god it worked because it was 2:30am and I was going to bed.
Just before going to bed I finally got to do the water tests on the 150 the #s are:
Ca 400
Alk 3.16 meq/l 9Dkh
Mg 1200
The water tests for the 150 are good but not where I like them,and not the same as in the 65 so I made the adjustments and went to bed
This morning the T5s fired right up but the HQI didn’t, the sockets are so loose that just the movements of sliding the hood will unseat the contact.
I got on the phone to Icecap and spoke to Dave in service and he said to send it back so next week the corals will just have to get used to the T5s and when the HQI pendants come back Ill run them for a few hours a day.
This was the first time I removed the pendants from the hood on the tank so now I know it can be done I reseated both bulbs and reinstalled the pendants and they fired up.
I didn’t get much else done except wiring up the fans and power supply, I changed the filter sock, and cleaned up a little.
The skimmer was still going nuts anytime I did any thing near the tank and flooding the cup and dumping a lot of micro bubbles in the tank. Because the skimmer is not broken in I had to have only the gate valve on with out any other PVC parts or it would overflow the cup. I elevated the skimmer on a piece of egg crate cleaned the cup and readjusted the skimmer and have now got the flow through the stand pipe and over into the sock so it should help with the micro bubbles.
I finally got to do the water tests on the 150 to see how my adjustments worked out the #s are:
Ca 470
Alk 4.3 meq/l 12 Dkh
Mg 1250
The water test for the 150 are good and close to the same as in the 65 but the Mg is still low and I’m out of Epson salts. Ill get some in the morning and make the adjustments then.
Tonight I’m going to bed.
The rest of the fish are looking good, at least. I am just really surprised, I figured if we lost a fish from stress it would be the powder blue and not the purple. But, what can you do?
