Menard; Box cleared
Thanks Floridabob! I would love to live in Southern Florida and try and outdoor tank!
Wecome aboard jnarowe! The effluent cup is just a fancy drip cup to allow me to measure my effluent. As you know, some calcium reactors have a built in slot for a pH probe, mine doesn't therefore this allows me to measure and change my effluent pH accordingly. I don't measure my effluent Ca or Alk; only the main display. I maintain the effluent pH at 6.3. I haven't used a controller to do this BTW; More timeconsuming, but possible with the right equipment.
As far as releasing it into the refugium; I think in theory it is a GREAT idea, but the refugium isn't a closed system from your main tank. IMO, the CO2 affecting the pH occurs throughout the tank and refugium in series without any higher concentrations in one area. You may end up getting more macroalgae if the effluent drips into the refugium. I think that it may be a good attempt to have you skimmer diffuse the CO2. Never thought of that
.
waynemk. My main concern about using a chiller was the production of heat. I also didn't want to deal with more plumming and other feeder pumps. A neat idea, that may have actually influenced me a bit when I was setting up the room would be to buy a TV mounting rack or heavy industrial shelf and suspend the chiller up near the top of the ceiling. I had a fan intalled (two actually) with the intention of venting the room for excessive humidity, while the second was supposed to pull out the heat produced by the chiller. I RARELY use the fans, but it would be cool to have a chiller mouted about 6 inches from the ceiling near a vent. That would be a great way to keep the ambient heat controlled!
Back to the A/C. *Murphy's Law*, when I was out of town recently, the temperature got over 100 degrees, while my a/c vents into the garage. No one was around to vent the garage, so I assume the temperature in the garage got up to 130-140 degrees. The ambient temperature in the room climbed up to 90 degrees, while my tank temp climbed up to 86 degrees. My ballasts are the timer integrated blue wave ballasts and they need to be mechanically tripped to turn on or off. I discovered this as I attempted to hook up my aquacontroller. :mad2:
The A/C unit is GREAT! Overall, the only problem that I have had was the one above. It keeps the room very cool with 4 400 watt MH's. I keep it set at 71 degrees in the summer and 74 degrees in the winter. The other problem is that it runs constantly. Never gets the room cool enought. I'm not sure if that is because the A/C unit is too big? The dimensions of the room are 12 X 8. The bathroom would already have a fan installed!!! BONUS Adding both a chiller and an A/C would be great if you can find a way to control the ambient heat.
So where am I going from here? I am sick of adding things in piecemeal because it always seems that what ever I get now; it provides my wife with reasons to complain about me spending money on the tank. So I'm probably going to add the following;
2 more 6100 streams for propagation tank
3 nano streams for main display to place behind my rocks.
Lighting set up for Fragsystem (considering the LED's for energy conservation and heat)
Possible Lineal Light mover from sunlight supply
Ozone
Wavebox and Magnet
Spare Pump
Then I think I'm done.
:rollface:
Ok just curious. I'll get min up and going this month. When are you coming to check it out?
