180 build from scratch!

[michika]

That particular unit can be left on all the time. I have in the past, but don't have anywhere to sit it safely. Once the RKE is here it will be put into the panel permanently. Without it being secured somehow I am afraid that something unfortunate might happen. I ran it constantly on my 28g long, and calibrated it whenever I did big maintenance days, usually once a month.

 

[jnarowe]

no kidding...I know someone that dropped one into his tank. They don't work so well after that! :lol:

 

[michika]

Nice new icon Jnarowe!

Alright so its Chiller Time! The tank held steady all day at 82, and around 8pm it started to climb and has hit 85.7 as of 8:30pm. I made Kevin crawl down into our creepy spider infested crawlspace to pull up my now undersized chiller. Something is better then nothing right?

I have never had to run a chiller before on a tank that has been on the main floor in any of our previous residences. I only have this chiller because I used to keep a 24g cube in my 12th floor apartment. That was the apartment where they kept the heat on year round.

So my new and temporary chiller is a 1/4HP Aqua Logic chiller with controller, and it smells like basement. I have to admit I wasn't 100% prepared to have to add a chiller, I've been fine for years with just fans near my lighting, and the occasional fan over the sump. While I was aware it could be a possibility, I just figured since we've had quite a few hot days already where we haven't hit 83 that we would be fine.

 

[melev]

Are you positive the 85.7 is accurate? What changed?

 

[ouling]

You know, to build anything from scratch, you would actually have to recreate the universe.

 

[jnarowe]

that's pretty high Catherine. If it gets that high again, toss in some freezer packs and/oor ice in a ziploc to take the temp down. Judging by your attitude over the last few months, I think it would be safe to assume that you used more than one thermometer to determine actual temp.

More importantly, don't you have air conditioning? For your own sake, I hope your next house has a heat pump. If it got to be 85F in my house I'd move.

 

[michika]

We have two thermometers, they are about 0.01 apart. The condo hit 27 which is 80F last night, I am in love with our giant fan.

I think its the humidity here that has changed and contributed. It hasn't rained much, and the day before and yesterday it rained quite a bit. The condo was feeling pretty hot too last night. I guess it would be more accurate to describe that the air felt quite heavy. I'll check later if maybe it was extra hot in our end of the city or something.

The chiller did wonders, its loud, and under suited for the tank (rated up to 175g), but worked well. Tank is at a nice 78.3 this morning. Its set to chill at 82 and to heat anything below 78.

Ah freezer packs! I know this method well. We had a power outage in our 12th floor apartment and had to do that all night. I was not a happy camper in class the next morning. I keep about 10 on hand every summer just in case.

Our next place will have and HVAC system and AC. I have never before had AC because normally we don't need it. Keep your blinds closed, and create cross ventilation with your windows and fans works pretty good.

 

[jnarowe]

when you move up in tank size, it is less of a problem, but I would still have some auxilary method of cooling like a chiller or ground loop.

 

[michika]

Canada, or at least Calgary is looking more and more like a chiller type area. We've been looking into ground loop options along with our house buying options, and lets say the first is a bit iffy. We are talking about a need to dig quite deep due to the frost line, or frost something.

Tank didn't hit over 83 today, but it did rain this evening, and we were out, so I can't account for the last few hours of the evening. However its looking like things are back to normal. The chiller is still hooked up, just in case, and its on an alternate breaker, just in case.

The next step is going to be to add on fans into the eventual canopy, and over the temp. sump. Which will cause extra humidity in the condo, so I will be digging out my de-humidifyer and hooking it up. It however is noisier then the chiller, so I'll need to figure something out for it.

P.S. the chiller is still putting out a vague basement smell....and for future reference there will be no more storing of things with fans in the crawl space.

 

[michika]

Grrrr!!! Excel just ate all my parameter data on the 180g from its inception until now. So not impressed....it also auto saved the corrupted version to the backup. Not my night.

Signs of the coming apocalypse that I see;
- bubbles, they always seem to precede some sort of algae outbreak
- increased filamentous algae on the glass, could be T5 related, could not be.
- phosphate dropped from 0.14 to 0.5 in 6 days, algae using it? Soaking into the rocks?

Avoiding the apocalypse, aka avoiding doing battle with something like GHA again
- Scrape the bubbles off the back glass
- 30g water change
- tweak the Ca. reactor, its not quite high enough yet.

Pre WC numbers;
Ca. 360 (low, want 420)
Mg. 1200 (low, want 1280)
dKH 6 (low, want 8)
phos 0.05
Nitrate 16

The urchin started to spawn while we were doing the WC, it was pretty cool to watch.

Is Salifert still the going thing for Magnesium test kits? My options are Elos or Salifert. I've only ever used Salifert for Mg. testing.

 

[jnarowe]

I haven't been able to get a Salifert mg test for ages. Been out-of-stock for months.

 

[michika]

Its in stock at a local vendor right now. I remember someone mentioning that most Salifert kits were out of stock for months from various LFSs and online retailers.

Have you used the Elos brand version?

 

[jnarowe]

No, not yet. I am moving towards using a multi-parameter colorimeter, but I "heard" the Elos are good.

 

[michika]

Tell me more about this multi-parameter colorimeter please!

 

[jnarowe]

the one I want isn't on the market quite yet. It will measure all the key parameters and a whole lot more. These aren't cheap. It will probbly retail around $800US plus the reagents, but I am convinced that I will get better results and be able to dig deeper into some of the products we use. I am particularly ineterested in better analysis of salts, carbon, and calcium media.

When it gets out, I will post about it for sure. There are already one or two out that fir the reef keeping hobby somewhat, but they all seem to be lacking in one or two main tests.

 

[michika]

I just drooled on myself.... I want I want I want!

 

[Cprowler]

:lol: ....I was just wiping drool as I started reading your post.

 

[jnarowe]

Well, it's a market that is not being properly addressed IMO so some of us are pushing for an all-in-one unit that really works well.

 

[michika]

I agree with you. I also wish there are more of an accessible supply of reliable and quality test equipment up here. An all-in-one unit that works well would be fantastic. I never fully trust my test kits because you can't always be consistent, e.g. remember my variety of nitrate readings with test kids and the meter?!

 

[jnarowe]

yeah, even colorimeters have their issues. You are still basically doing a titration but with better analysis of the color shift.