A Living Room Reef: 90 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

[Bello]

So did you get much done today? Or did ya go grilling again? :furious:

The colors of the shrimp in contrast with the YWG would look visually stunning! I've never kept either, so would love to see how they work out :thumbsup:

Zoas can be difficult to keep long term. Seem a bit finicky sometimes. Hopefully, once the new lights are up, things'll be back on track

About the photoperiod, mine run a total of 12 hours, as follows...
for 12hrs, 20% (mainly blues)
for 8hrs, 40% (mix)
for 4hrs, 40% (mix)

So basically, for 4 hrs, all lights on at 100% MAX. I'd guess I'd start with the blues on for full 8 hrs in your case at maybe 25%. The other strings for maybe 4hrs at 25%. It's gonna be a matter of observing your zoas, and drawing conclusions, and adjusting as you deem fit.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure that running your lights at 100% straight off, with your tank depth, won't create much of problem for LPS/Softies, at least not for quite a while. Knowing you, you'll go the slow calculated route

 

[McGarnicle]

- No BIG updates on my lights as of today. I do have a different surprise. I did get to do a shopping run and picked up some of the last few things I'll need. I got a bunch of oak to finish this canopy extension at the same time as the lights. I'm expecting to get the day off tomorrow to put in some good work on the lights! I'm ready to install the quick disconnects and start hanging the electronics boards.

- It sounds like I'll be jumping into some cabinetry work right along with you this week. I picked up a Mini Kreg Jig back when I started wood stuff to clamp down on my projects. It works great for getting square joints. Especially when it's inside a cabinet where you don't have to fill the holes if you don't want. I've used it on chairs, cabinets, pergolas and more. I was out running errands today. But the plan, according to the Mrs., is that I work on the lights tomorrow!

So today my stand is actually looking like a stand... Kind of :bounce3:

Got the frame all together with the bottom cut out, tomorrow I'll be sanding it all down and then start working on the skin. Hopefully end of next week it will be ready for the living room.

I also picked up the Kreg jig, thing works great and makes life a lot easier. I'm pretty surprised on well the frame turned out so far since this is my first wood working project. Everything for the most part is square and level.

I am ready to get some water in this tank though, this build is taking way too long but it will be worth it.

 

[laureef]

This little tiger is snaping so loud that sometimes I think my glass has cracked

 

[troubadour11]

OH YEAH>>> It's coffee time! :inlove: >>>Ramble ON!

Well Bello, you know me. When do I ever get a lot done? :headwalls: LOL. The length and pace of this build is killing me. I want to throw in a bunch of cool stuff so badly!!! :smokin: And there hasn't been much BBQ'n going on lately. My area of SoCal is getting some MUCH NEEDED rain!!! >>>RAIN DANCE >>> :bounce1: I think the last time we had any measurable amount of rain was sometime last July. And hopefully these storms are dumping tons of snow up on the mountains to get us through next summer!

Even this this has been dreadfully slow, I still think it's right to be going super slow to start it off. 1.) because of my lack of experience. 2.) for $$ purposes. and 3.) because it was almost entirely dry rock/sand that was seeded for our future plans.

I'm still really hoping that all this time lets the micro population and things really establish for the future mandarin hopes. I feel like we've made some good progress and gotten our heads around the QT set up. Finger crossed we will be adding YWG very soon. I was at 1.021 when I started the 2 gallons that are still dripping. So between now and Sunday we should be ready to transfer it up to the DT! That will be exciting to get it in with the new pistol shrimp.

Speaking of the pistol. Laureef thanks for stopping by and saying hello - I was super excited to get the pistol in there. But I can't say that I've really heard ours cracking/popping yet. And I did warn my wife about the popping sound and that I'd read accounts like you're saying. Where it sounds like the tank cracks. While I never hope to hear/see a tank crack, I am hoping to hear the shrimp

And so far so good on having the pistol and cleaner in the tank together. I'm not sure if I spilled the beans or not... but we lost 1 of our 2 cleaners a few weeks back :-( It went M.I.A. over night. Luckily I'm not biggles, because loosing a cleaner shrimp over there is like loosing your retirement savings. Hehehehe. The big cleaner we still have has crawled right over, past, next to the pistol shrimp without much of an issue. I have noticed now though after a couple days that when we feed, the cleaner tends to freeze or give the pistol a 1-3 inches of space when near each other and food. But I haven't observed any aggression between the two yet.

And I have been really excited to see how active and outgoing the tiger pistol is. So far we have seen him in a burrow under the center tower next to the pistol condo, under both bases of the arch tower on the right, and under/inside the zoa rock in the back. While it doesn't come out of it's den much during the day except for peaking out during some house keeping. It definitely comes out when we feed. I was surprised to see it scurry all over the right end of the tank. Back and forth under the archway and all over the top of and under the zoa rock. Really exciting to have a new critter... and even more exciting that the rockscape and sandbed layout is making an interesting layout with lots of visibility for the pistol shrimp. Now to just get the YWG in there with it!

So a day or two after releasing the Pistol into the tank I was able to grab this vid... You can obviously tell in the vid that this shrimp is very camera shy. LOL
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VXMT1RK1loQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

- I took other videos of the release too... but this is a good enough one of it up close exploring around the base of the rock. Sorry for the shaky cam. I haven't figured out the shrimp cam technique yet.

And here's a decent close up of the Pistol in the bag during acclimation. I floated the closed bag for 5-10 minutes. Then opened up the bag and floated it for another 30 minutes adding tank water to the bag every 5 minutes until I had doubled the amount (or filled the bag basically). Then I transferred it from the bag to a cup of tank water transferring as little of the bag water as possible to release it.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/St1UYDVBfUc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

McGarnicle - Glad to hear the stand is moving along. I look forward to seeing some pictures of all this work eventually. And I'm glad to hear the Kreg Jig helped out. I recently started working with wood when I moved into the house. That little tool has made the start SO much easier in tons of projects and applications! And in my experience. Do your best to build it square, pretty, and level. But you'll still want to check the level and shim if necessary once you get it in place. I had to shim my perfectly level stand since it's on carpet. And check your level at least twice... once after you get in place and your dry rock/sand in there... and then at least once while you're filling it with h2o. I had to slightly adjust 1 or 2 shims with a few taps of a hammer about 1/3 of the way full after the weight compressed the carpeting more. I'm wishing I could match the pace of your build. This sinus infection/cold has knocked me on my a**.

And lastly... onto the couple light build updates I have. Just a couple boring pictures to share. I got the new blue leds delivered and wired them into the moonlight circuit. So I'm happy to report that both moonlight circuits light up again. On my test table/bench at least.

I discovered that I needed to remove the +/- wire leads for each circuit because it is SO much easier to crimp the disconnect terminal pins on without the wires attached to the fixture.

- Pre-crimping. Here's a female terminal pin that I'll crimp on and then insert into the 6-slot disconnect.

- Here is a pin post-crimp

- And here is one of the plugs 1/2 way assembled. In this shot I've only got 3 of the wires inserted. But you get the idea. I'm setting it up that the order will be Blue/UV and Color/W on the ends and the moonlight in the middle.

And here is a tip... the pins are cheap a little over 10 cents a pin. Order extras in case you loose one like me or get a bad crimp. I lost one pin... some how!!! I have no clue how/when I lost it. I took them from the delivery package straight to a shot glass and from there to a wire. But I came up 1 short of the female pins. And then I had 2 ugly crimps that I decided to cut off since I needed to get more anyone since I was missing one. GRRRRRrrrRRRRRrrr-AAAARRRRRrrrrrrrGGGGGGGGggg!!!!!! Just another delay in my excruciatingly slow build. BAH!!!! So after the 1st of the month, I'll get a few more pins to finish this up.

In the meantime. If my sickness lets me feel up to it, I should get to work doing the rest. I can put some heat shrink on this plug and get it soldered back to the leds. I can also put some work in on the electrical board and maybe start installing and wiring up the Reef Angel and other end of the lights while I wait. Or work on the canopy extension :facepalm: So much to do. While I'm quite positive the reward of all this time, research, and slow work is going to be awesome. It was quite a bit to bite off on my first go-round. I'll be so happy when these lights are completed!

Oh and Bello, thanks for the thoughts on the LED photo period. Very much appreciated! That's what I was looking for. I was thinking somewhat similar things. So good to know I'm thinking in the right direction.

Right now I run my cheap-0 36" RB-led almost 24/7. I turn it off when I go to bed and back on when I get up. Kind of an actinic supplement and moonlight. Then run the standard dual t-5 for 11 hours.

With the new led fixtures. I have a mix of 3w and 5w LEDs but all of them running at 685ma. I set them up to 685ma because of the mixed strings. And that way even at 100%, I'll be running all the LEDs just a shade below their max rated levels to avoid any odd chance of burnout. Since we already found out my cheap multimeter isn't very good.

I'll give an organized update of the final layout, wiring, and stuff once I get them running above the tank. But I was thinking along the same lines as you. With approximately 27-30 inches from the sandbed to where the LEDs will be mounted and only running up to 685ma, I doubt the Zos or LPS/Rics near the bottom would be to upset. But I worry more about just shocking them with to much - to fast. Especially with no SPS above shadowing them yet. So, you're right. I'll probably be going the excruciatingly "slow calculated route." And I'm using everyone in here's experiences to base my calculations on... so since you chimed in. If I kill everything, expect some abusive PMs. ;-) LOL.

My initial thought before asking opinions was to set it up to start like this:
RB/UV - 12 hours @ 0-25% (dimming sun rise / sun set parabola)

- Then add 10% power once a week until 100% or I reach the color temp look we like.​

White/Color - 6 hours @ 0-25% (dimming sun rise / sun set parabola)

- Add 1 hour of running time and 10% power once a week until 100%​

Blue/Uv Moonlight - on the pre-programmed moonphase option the RA unit has. I'll have to see how this runs the moonlights and learn to adjust the RA programming to do the desired dimming percentages after I get it set up.

Ok, well, I'm through 2 cups of coffee now. The warm felt good on my sore throat. So I supposed I can switch it to RAMBLE OFF. I'm going to see about making something else warm to drink, maybe something to eat, and see what I feel like getting up to the rest of the day. I was looking at the LED table while I was typing all this and had a crazy idea. It won't really "accomplish" anything. But it could be some reefy fun. So I may sneak off to some and look into this idea to cheer me up until the lights can get done. :bum:

 

[biggles]

This thing looks bloody awesome Troub :thumbsup: And trust me mate, if i lost a gold plated shrimp i would be spewing all over my journal.........

I have at least one pistol shrimp which came with my rock - i like hearing him banging away every now and then lol. Tap the edge of a coin firmly against your tank glass a few times rapidly - that's what you normally hear. You do hear some really loud whacks at times - really loud like a hammer hitting the glass lol.
I had a 2" mantis in rock once, he and i decided it was best he went back to the LFS in the rock he was hiding in.

You need to put some bloody stuff in the display Troubster, i'm gonna go right off at you again soon if you don't get some reefy things in that bloody tank........... :deadhorse:

 

[troubadour11]

OK Biggles, ask and you shall receive!

- It's not a ton of stuff added in. But it's something reefy at least! And I think you'll appreciate it with your fish kick your currently on. We released the Yellow Watchman Goby into the tank. So far so good. As of this morning it's spent a couple days checking out the tank. We matched the salinity, checked to make sure the PH was the same, and transferred the little bugger up over the weekend. Here are a couple vids of it checking out it's new home.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/tIJKI5rPUiY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

- Here it is exploring some for the first time just after the release.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qj6ppk9T87w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

- YWG & Orange Firefish meet the first time. Suprise, you're not alone! :fun2:
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bj7dKeDRTFY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The YWG and Pistol Shrimp haven't run into each other yet. The shrimp has only poked it's head out of it's holes the last day or so. It would be cool to be present when they first run into each other. Here's hoping they fall :love2:!

As for adding in other stuff. I REALLY want to get some more corals in there. But I'm in a bit of a tough spot right now. I'm still looking for new work and have been at home. So all spending is kind of on a hold right now until I can land a new gig and get some fun money again. I would add 1 frag or something, but I know I've been having trouble keeping my CA and Alk levels up closer to where they should be. So I don't want to add anything to sensitive until I can afford to find a solution to that.

Now that the YWG is in the DT though, we could think about starting another round of QT. We are getting close to thinking about picking up a pair of clowns, but aren't sure if we're going to that next. We would like to have a torch coral or something in there before we add the clowns. The Mrs. would really like a group of something... so we're playing around with ideas to get a schooling type fish. It's been a tough search to find something that might work well for a 4 foot long tank. Because I think she's really hoping for maybe 5-8 of something in the group.

Since the stupid good lights got yet another build delay :mad2: (see the previous ramble about the terminal pins). I got upset being sick, and broke out the little reef goody I picked up last time to cheer me up. I threw the little 3 meter LED strip light and controller above the tank for now. I figured I might as well bust it out of the pack and throw it up there. It's just a little extra light over tank. It can't hurt. So this is that controllable light that I'm going to eventually use to make a shadowbox background for the system. I can control something like 24 different shades of colors and dim the unit. I'll have to stick it on a timer eventually when I get it in the shadow box.

- But here's a little test video just to show you what it does. All other lights are turned off and it starts out on white. Then I cycle through each color for a few seconds and dim it down and back up.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/jS0eNmwLABg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Until next time friends :fun4:

 

[troubadour11]

Well, here's what I was up to yesterday.

- I've been keeping my eyes on this thing. I'm not really sure what it is. Any thoughts?

<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/MX4Eid9mv7M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
- It started off smaller then it is now and has been very slowly growing. It retracted when a snail crawled over the top of it and at night. It hasn't moved at all, just stayed in the same spot since we first saw it. Living in the sand right behind a snail shell and is still pretty small.

- I attached 1/2 of the quick disconnect plug to one of the light fixtures yesterday.

- Then I used a couple dabs from my hot glue gun to anchor the leads for each circuit. This way if the plug gets bumped or jostled, the glue holds the wires in place and it doesn't wiggle and degrade the solder joint.

- Test fitting the first fixture above the tank!!! I think this hanging rig system is going to work well. I can slide the fixture left/right on the bolts. And I can even give the fixture some angle front/back/side if I want by making the bolts shorter or longer.

- Now that the first fixture is up above the tank, it's time to figure out this electronics board for the closet. Here's the empty canvass up and hanging in place. I used a few screw hooks, cranked them into some studs and added a couple hooks to the board.

This way the board in it's entirety is easily removable if I ever need to add anything or work on any of it. Just pop the plugs out of the RA Unit that will be mounted here and plug them into the wall outlets while I do some work. The only hassle will be the soldered wires run out to the fixtures. I'll have to pull the wire back through the wall if I have to take down the board because I don't have any disconnects on this end.

- I flipped the board around in this shot to show the back side. I mounted a couple spacer blocks onto the back bottom corners of the board. I did this because of the electrical conduit up to the light bulb on the wall. I had to leave enough room between the board and the wall for that. So I added the spacers so I could push against the board to plug/unplug things and have a solid surface. Plus, the extra space between the wall and board will give me room to run some plugs and wiring behind it for organization or to keep things out of the way that don't need to be accessed often.

Time to start mounting things to the board!

- I picked up some sticky back velcro tape. I'll need it to mount the RA Head Unit to the board. There are no screw mounting holes on the head unit.

- Velcro back

- Velcro on the board

I did add a drop of superglue gel to the sticky back of the velcro tape. I figured better safe then sorry. I know sticky tape can degrade and wear out over time. So a few spread out drops should help to hold it in place quite nicely.

- Mounted all the drivers and RA Unit to the board. Here's the layout I'll be going with.

This will hang the drivers just to the left of the electrical conduit almost directly over the hole in the wall out to the DT where I will need to run the wires. I left space between the drivers and the power unit. This way I could potentially mount additional RA unit expansions to this area above the dimming expansion. I also measured and left enough space to the right of the power unit that I could add a 2nd power expansion to the right between the head unit.

Hopefully today I will be able get the rest of this board wired up. I'm looking to solder and connect all the dimmer circuits on this board since it's all screwed down now. Maybe I'll be able to hang it up and get the RA unit plugged in and running. That would be pretty cool! Wish me luck!

 

[troubadour11]

Here's a few picture updates of the build progress... I'm making some headway on it all! I was working on wiring up that electrical board some.

- Here I'm soldering some wires together. Time to get all these dimming circuits attached and hooked up! I also picked up some of those screw in zip ties. They came in SUPER handy for organizing and running all these wires!

- Here I'm soldering on some wire leads to the other end of the dimmer that plug into the Reef Angel unit.

And now for some shots of the dimmers all wired up.

-

- You can see I zip tied each pair of wires together with little mini-zips. Then I ran each group of wires through their own screw in zip ties. So I have the R-DT-Blue/UV and R-DT-White/Color grouped together, the same for the L-DT wires, and the 2 moonlights each run in their own groups.

-

-

-

And there you have it. The dimmers are all wired up and cable managed! I think it's looking good and came out pretty well. Now I need to work on adding the other end of the quick disconnect plugs and then I can solder the +/- wires together for each circuit to the LEDs and we'll be ready to go!

The only tough part of this are these quick disconnects. I've been having a really hard time getting the pins crimped on correctly. I'm going to have to order more pins to finish this.... I should have ordered more extra then I did. I think I'm going to try and solder the wires to the pins and then fold the crimp over. I keep getting crimps that pull loose. So my universal wire header isn't a good tool for this job.

So, I'm off to see if I can figure the rest of this out... wish me luck! :beer:

 

[troubadour11]

I DID IT!!!!!

@ 1:30 a.m. the other night my LEDs went live over the tank!!!

- Here it is the first time they kicked on. As mentioned, 1:30 a.m., so this is my 2 moonlight circuits running at 48%.

:celeb3:

I do have some Reef Angel programming issues to figure out. The moonlights currently never turn off and just sit at 48%. The other 4 circuits are kind of doing what they should. The blue/uv circuits fire up 1/2 hour before the color/whites and turn off 1/2 hour later. But I'm going to need to learn the RA programming lingo a bit to get all that straightened out. Right now I'm just happy they are running!!! The system has a very cool blue-ish temp look to the lighting right now. But that's because the 2 blue / 2 uv (per light fixture) moonlights are not turning off when they are supposed to. They aren't going to hurt the corals running though, so until I get the programming figured out, this will do for the time.

And now for a few of the last shots of the build. I was making a big push to get them accomplished that night, so I took a few less shots then I expected. So if anyone needs more details of how the final install went, let me know and I can snap some better shots of it installed.

- Remember how I was annoyed with the quick-disconnect plugs I ordered... having the proper tool does wonders! I went and picked up this wire crimper and bought a couple new quick disconnect plugs. It was only an 18 mile drive (each way) to get to a big electronics store that had what I needed to get this thing finished up!

- The proper tool does wonders for crimping these things on! It's a little blurry, sorry. But you can see the nice wonderful crimp on the pin now!

- New plug ends assembled and all the wires run through a cable wrap to keep them nice, neat, and organized on the run from the closet out to the back of the canopy.

- Ready to solder up the last connections for the lead wires running out to the DT! One run connected, one to go... then it's time to hang all this stuff up and throw some electricity at it!

- Last connection made... so pretty with all the wires organized and connected and all the covers and stuff back on. Such a good feeling.

- And finally... the electronics board hung and all wired up and running in the closet above the sump! I still have some cable management and things to finish up in here. But the RA Unit is up and running it all... reading the temp, monitoring both heaters, and controlling the power to all my pumps as well. This was a good feeling to get the lights accomplished and running!

Now that the lights run... it's time to dabble around with the Reef Angel programming to get the lights running how I want them. And now that's there lights... the corals can come!!! :beer:

 

[Bello]

Great stuff Troub!!! :thumbsup:. Finally!!!

I must say that's an awful lot of work. I mean it's bad enough doing everything DIY, but hooking it up to the RA, AND having it really neat like that, must've been exhausting!!

I can certainly say that your lighting rig looks waaaayyy neater and cooler than mine :thumbsup:

Glad to see the YWG is in the DT. I don't know too much about them, but hopefully they'll pair up eventually :thumbsup:. Time to get some more fish and coral now

I don't know what that critter is in the sand, but my rather harsh rule is "If you don't know what it is, then its gotta go"...

Looking good Troub :thumbsup:

 

[markalot]

I'm jealous of all the amazing wiring and organization. I've got cords and timers going everywhere, mostly just hanging from GFI outlets. At least I have GFI.

 

[troubadour11]

Great stuff Troub!!! Finally!!!

I must say that's an awful lot of work. I mean it's bad enough doing everything DIY, but hooking it up to the RA, AND having it really neat like that, must've been exhausting!!

I can certainly say that your lighting rig looks waaaayyy neater and cooler than mine

I'm jealous of all the amazing wiring and organization. I've got cords and timers going everywhere, mostly just hanging from GFI outlets. At least I have GFI.

Thank you both for the complements and appreciating the lengths I went to in order to organize it all! :thumbsup: I really am thankful to hear it because it was a huge project for me to tackle. And I spent WAY more time then I probably should have thinking, re-thinking, :reading:, re-thinking, measuring 1,000+ times before cutting, and then re-checking I had the correct wire orders right before soldering or inserting into the quick disconnects. But I can say... I think it's going to be worth it!!!! I've only had them up a few days but we are loving them so far!

It was so much planning work trying to figure out how to run all these wires around and keep it as neat and "professional" looking as possible. I was really happy with the outcome. I think my wife expected it to look a little more hap-hazard since it was a DIY project. While there are some wires running here-to-there... it's only in a few spots and are all organized and contained in a small, out-of-the-way space for the most part. Having never set up an all-in-one "off the shelf" reef controller and lighting system, I'm not even sure how much more "organized" a set up like that would be. I'm guessing there's still a few cables and wires running around in a non-DIY set up.?.?.

One of my biggest goals of the entire build (since we're starting with a blank slate) is to try and keep it all polished and as organized as possible. Sometimes I feel like I'm failing there... but each big step I take forward, the plan starts to fall into place and more things can get organized and tucked away semi-permanently. And this was one big step :beer:

And Markalot, good call on the GFI! I set up that electrical run into the closet with the same protection. Sometimes I worry that I built a weak point into the system because all the outlets in the closet are protected by 1 GFI. So if it trips... everything is going down. I may be looking into some battery backup protection or something for the RA unit in the long term future.

Glad to see the YWG is in the DT. I don't know too much about them, but hopefully they'll pair up eventually :thumbsup:. Time to get some more fish and coral now

I don't know what that critter is in the sand, but my rather harsh rule is "If you don't know what it is, then its gotta go"...

Looking good Troub :thumbsup:

It was definitely fun to get the YWG up into the DT! It hung out at the back glass and hiding for a day or two after making the move. But since then, the little bugger moves from one perch to another multiple times a day. It seems to really like hanging out right where the rock and sand bed meet. Then occasionally hovers a body length above it's perch, or scoots around the open sand for a bit before returning to a perch.

One cool thing that's started happening since adding the YWG is the Orange Firefish leaves his hovering current more often and explores the open water areas of the tank more often now. Especially during feeding times.

And hopefully it eventually pairs up with the pistol shrimp. Which BTW, we dig that little critter! We don't see it nearly as much as the cleaner shrimp, but it moves between the Zoa rock and the Arch rock quite a bit. If you watch long enough, it usually pokes it's body out or you see sand shooting out from the rock where it's digging. And about every other day, it comes out more in the open sand during feeding grabbing food and carrying it back to it's caves. Then spends the rest of the day turning around Nassarius snails and bulldozing them back out of it's den. LOL

Maybe one day soon the YWG will be over on the right end of the tank when it comes out to feed. We can only hope, watch, and wait for now

I'm also kind of thinking the same thing on whatever it is in the video. That thing may have to go... I'd still like to figure out what it is though before removing it if I could. Just because I don't think it's anything I seeded into the system. LOL. So it's new life that popped up from "no-where." So my curiosity is peaked! LOL. I'd hate to get an infestation of something bad though if I ignore it an never take any action.

--- Programming the RA Unit Fun ---

I've been spending a bunch of time today :reading: and working on the RA programming. I managed to start REALLY writing my code and programming the cycles and fun stuff for the lighting.

After running the lights for a couple days now dimming the Blue/UV and White/Color channels up to 35% from 8:30-8:30, and then the moonlights stuck permanently at 48%, things seem to be ok coral wise. Every time I tweak the lights, the trumpet coral kind of shrivel up a bit or suck in. But usually within a few hours the flesh plumps back up. What are the signs of "to much / to intense" light for Trumpet, Ric-Yuma, and Zoas? Running the lights this way, the Zoas have seemed ok. I feel like we're seeing more polyps open, more often. And the stalks of about 50% or so of them have definitely gotten shorter (bringing their polyps back closer to the rock surface).
^^^For the most part, I feel like everything is enjoying the light so far and was thinking I'd bump up the % some to start (since all of these are on the bottom of the tank too.

But now I've programmed it to a new schedule.

8:30am - 8:30pm = R-DT Blue/UV - Parabola Dimming up to 45%
8:50am - 8:50pm = L-DT Blue/UV - Parabola Dimming up to 45%
9:00am - 9:00pm = R-DT White/Color - Parabola Dimming up to 65%
9:20am - 9:20pm = L-DT White/Color - Parabola Dimming up to 65%

9:10pm - 12:30am = R-DT Moonlights - Dims from 0% up to 1/2*MoonPhase(value) over 30 minutes... holds value... dims down to 0% over last 30 minutes.
9:30pm - 1:00am = L-DT Moonlights - Dims from 0% up to 1/2*MoonPhase(value) over 30 minutes... holds value... dims down to 0% over last 30 minutes.

MoonPhase = Mathematically Calculated Value from calendar dates (returning value of 0-100). Runs on approximately a 29.5 day cycle. 0=new moon, 100=full moon)
​

This should give me a Sunrise effect that goes right to left across the tank slowly fading from darkness, to deep blue, to daylight gradually across the tank until the mid-day peak.

Then start to dim back down to the Sunset effect. The Sunset will darken the Blues on the Right side first, and then stagger the fading across the tank.

I decided to leave the Sunrise as a "darkness", to blue, to white effect and the Sunset with the Whites being the last to fade out. This is because 10 minutes after both channels on the right fixture fade to 0%, the Right Blue/UV Moonlights will begin their 30 minute ramp up to the Moonlight(value). So rather then dimming Blue > "darkness" > then back up to Blueish Moonlight. I thought it might look cool to dim from White/Color > "darkness" > Back up to Blue Moonlight.

So that's what I've been working on figuring out today. I'm fairly positive I have it all set up and uploaded to the RA Unit. When I sent up the new code, the Moonlights turned off and I'm reading the dimming %'s at the approximate expected values, for the time of day, for each channel. So here's hoping we get a SICK sunset effect across the tank and then a moonrise shortly after!

Unfortunately, I'm a big programming leap away from knowing how to program a 5 Minute Light Cycle Test (24 hour Light Cycle that is sped up to run in 5 minutes total.)

So for now, the only thing I can do is grab a beer, put my feet up, and watch and wait to see if it runs the dimming programs correctly. LOL.

It also took me a bit to figure out how to adjust the RA Unit clock for the Day Light Savings time change we just had here in CA. Without the Wi-Fi attachment (can use internet web portal or smart phone app if on Wi-Fi), I had to figure out to load a Time/Date SetUp file into the menu system. So that was a bit of a delay... but I got it figured out!

While I relax and watch this lighting schedule run it's coarse... I'm going to dabble around with setting up some weather simulation code if I can. There's so many things I can do with the RA controller!! Sure a lot may be "pointless fun, just because I can." I'm really considering hooking up my powerheads to the RA unit and programming some wave maker simulations.

Well, that was exciting... I just wrote a book! I hope you all made it through and found some of it interesting at least! It's exciting to finally get this running... and now I'm really making some progress on things too! Biggles and Bello, you better check twice! I'm picking up the pace and starting to creep up in your rear-view mirrors! :uzi: LOL... now we might get to see if I can keep colorful corals alive and thriving! Hehehe.

Ok, ok. That's enough for now Feel free to give me your thoughts or questions on any of that... I'd love to hear some thoughts on the light schedules and stuff. :dance:

 

[Bello]

Safe to say that you've gone absolutely mental over the RA, dimming and simulation :lol:

How did the day pan out? The effects were as expected? I was choosing between the GHL and the RA for an aquarium controller, till I realized that I'm a lazy bastard, and went with the GHL

About the light effects on trumpet etc...if they shrivel its usually a sign of too much light, stretching in zoas/rics could be too little. Fluffing up extra with the trumpet can happen when flow is low. Hope that helps :thumbsup:

Tank wars are beckoning Troub :strooper:

 

[troubadour11]

Safe to say that you've gone absolutely mental over the RA, dimming and simulation

How did the day pan out? The effects were as expected? I was choosing between the GHL and the RA for an aquarium controller, till I realized that I'm a lazy bastard, and went with the GHL

About the light effects on trumpet etc...if they shrivel its usually a sign of too much light, stretching in zoas/rics could be too little. Fluffing up extra with the trumpet can happen when flow is low. Hope that helps :thumbsup:

Tank wars are beckoning Troub

HAHahahaha! I haven't gone that mental over it. It's just really cool (to me at least) to add all that stuff in... since I have the ability too.

And not that it's proven to do anything other then just make the tank more of a show piece. Although I do think there might be something to simulating lunar cycles for spawning events and such. So THAT is the real reason... DEFINITELY not so I can push a button and show off fancy dancy lighting. LOL :crazy1:

After taking a bit closer look, I would estimate that I spent about 1/3rd (or maybe just a bit more then then 1/3rd) the price of expensive "name brand, off the shelf LED lighting" to put the ReefAngel and custom LED lighting above the tank. And that price INCLUDES tax, shipping, new tools for the build, wiring, hanging kits, etc., etc., etc. The only cost I left out was the wood cost for the canopy extension I still need to finish. But it was by far the only way I was going to afford a good lighting set up. It did take me A LOT of time though to invest in reading, research, planning, and learning new skills.

And I would say that the day panned out pretty darn well for me! I accomplished so much more on the programming end then I really expected too. Maybe it's because I'm more familiar with coding. Or maybe the Reef Angel is just that easy!

I spent Sunday afternoon searching, reading, and bookmarking the RA Forums for "relating" threads to what I wanted to accomplish. Then Monday, I re-read those threads and dove into it.

While I haven't been home 24 hours straight to verify it's working correctly. Last night we had a sunset that moved across the tank :bounce1: and then the moonlights kicked on. All at the right time and in the right progression for the most part. (I fixed one or two coding type-o's when a driver or two didn't dim/turn off/on at the correct time). But it looks pretty sweet! Slowly dimming down each fixture, clicking colors off 1 at a time, gives a nice effect. The Left DT stays barely lit, and the archway area goes dark for about 20 minutes until the moonlights start ramping up.

And programming a test cycle and adding it to the menu is a bit beyond me currently. So I can't just test it... But last night it worked, I didn't get to view the Sunrise this morning. I got a call last night about 4pm to pick up some work through the rest of the week. So I was out the door before the lights started kicking in today. The good Wife took a couple pictures though and sent them to me... it looks like it all worked correctly for the Sunrise/Sunset times. So :thumbsup: to that. I'm pretty sure it's working as it should! :celeb2:

Then once I had the hang of the sunrise/sunset and knew the lights could dim on/off correctly. I jumped to the weather simulation. Here's where I used the open source nature of Reef Angel to a HUGE advantage!

I was able to pull some code out of an already created weather sim and started adapting it to my set up. Again, I'm at a job today (HOORAY WORK and coral money!!!!!) so I haven't been able to watch the weather sim yet. And of course with traffic, I won't be home in time to see any of the weather sim run at night either. But when I left, the display on the RA Head Unit was predicting a cloud for 9 minutes at 11 a.m. :eek1:

That means, I think the weather sim is running correctly (based off the input parameters for the weather sim which I can set). But ONLY on the Right 1/2 of the DT... I ran into some coding issues I need some help on or need more time to figure out to run it over both halves of the tank.

There are parameter inputs for things like:

- The # of possible cloudy days (Clouds have a chance to occur every "X" days)
- "x" percent of a chance of a cloud occurring IF clouds can happen today.
- IF clouds happen today, how many are possible... Min/Max values
- IF clouds are happening, how long will the next cloud last... Min/Max amount of minutes
- Given the above, what time will the next cloud event occur and how long will it last... print that info to the Head Unit.
- IF there is a cloud... what are the chances of lightning strikes during that cloud event.... "x" % for chance of lighting
- and I think there is some more things I can fine tune in there... but that's kind of where it is at currently.​

So it will kind of be a "random" weather simulator because it will take a random sample between my variables or percentage odds of events occurring based off my input. Meaning I can fine tune it to my liking and only have weather events every so often.

So I got ALL of that accomplished. And I'm pretty sure it's mostly working correctly. I may be freaking my fish/shrimp out because I left the coding on 100% chance of 3-5 clouds per day that last between 6 and 15 minutes. And 100% chance of a lightning strike for any cloud. YIKES!!! I hope it's not strobe light flashing my fish to death while I'm gone. LOL. I may need to jump back in tonight and turn the lightning off until I can test it and visually see what happens. I don't expect to use lightning much anyway... but on VERY rare occasions, it can pop in there.

But I made huge strides forward on it all! :thumbsup: I tried to take a picture of the sunset effect, but my camera phone couldn't get it to look good. Once I verify the weather sim is working correctly on the right half of the tank, I'll need to figure out how to get it working on both sides.

I ran into an issue where people have set up the weather sim on the Standard dimming outlets (2 of them come on the power bar, I'm using these 2 for the Right-DT) and I've found people who set it up and coded it for the Dimming Expasion (6 extra slots, I'm using the first 2 for my daylights, and the second 2 for moonlights... last 2 are currently empty). But I can't find anyone who's set it up to use both. So I'm at a bit of a road block.

But my eventual goal with it all is to have it calculate the weather sim effect, and then I want it to be able to randomly choose to delay either the right or left fixture by "x" amount of time for the simulation. That way it will randomly choose whether a cloud will move left-to-right or vice-versa across the tank.

And I'll be honest, so far the Reef Angel has been one of the absolute easiest things to set up on the whole system! :beer: It was plug and play right out of the box with pre-loaded code. But it comes with a Wizard tool that took me about 15 minutes to run through and load "custom" code up to the head unit. I put "custom" in quotes because it was custom code to run the power relays as I wanted and such. But it was the bare-bones custom code. All the dimming, weather, etc needs to be written and inserted. But if you can read their forums and copy and paste... you can easily get to where I'm at very quickly! I would put setting up a fancy Reef Angel at a 20 on a 100 point scale... I would put building a custom LED unit at about a 65 or so, at least doing it for the first time.

And Bello, your advice always helps! So THANK YOU!!! Both for your lighting help awhile back and everything else :beer: The tips to look for on the corals reactions are much appreciated!
- I think the Zoas are doing ok. The first few days more polyps were open the usual. Then since I set up the dimming... a good amount open and have shrunk back closer to the rock. But a few now don't open as much as when I first switched to the new lights last Saturday.
- The green Ric-Yumas don't seem to care one way or the other. They do their normal open and sitting there... lights go out and they pucker up for 15-20 minutes until they open back up.
- Interesting (I don't want to jinx it) but the Orange-Florida Ric is still BARELY hanging in there. It's barely the size of a pencil eraser now. But it's been holding that size for a few months in it's current location. With the new lights up, it even is showing a bit of Orange glow under the Blues/UVs. It had gone to mostly a clear/white little bump for awhile. Fingers crossed the lights help it out some and it can recover!
- The Trumpets seem to be doing ok. Every time I change the lighting... time schedule OR intensity, OR mix of color... the red candy-cane area seems to shrink up a little. But then usually within a day or two, that area slowly puffs up a little more. So if I keep an eye that way, I should be good. If they ever shrink up and never puff back out, probably to much light. I've still very rarely, if ever, seen feeding tentacles on them. But I try to just watch for them to have the puffy look and assume they are pretty happy when they look that way.

Anyway. Lunch time is over... back to it for the rest of the afternoon!

And TRUST me. As soon as I book some stable work again, I'll be sneaking some prototypes into my set up to prepare for war :blown: MWAhahaha!!!

 

[troubadour11]

HaHAHAHhahaha

It kind of works on 1/2 of the tank! There is a cloud effect that already started on the left side. You can see the white/color string is off and only the Rb/UV is on over on the left. Right is normal daylight right now. Skip about 30 seconds in to see the lightning effect go off. LOL. It's not needed very often at all... but it could be fun a few random times a month.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7LDL7UjUGWs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I've been working on re-writing some code to get the weather working on both sides of the tank. The new code is uploaded to the head unit... so I get to watch and wait to see if it's working correctly. Which by the way. If you're interested in the Reef Angel code side of all this. I'll be maintaining a thread in their forum documenting the code side of my controller as I develop it specifically for my system. If you care to dig into that a bit more, it can be found here: http://forum.reefangel.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4432

I want to go buy corals :uzi: LOL

Maybe I should do a water change first. I think I'm a little over do...

And I'm taking votes for the next fish to get going in the QT.?.?. I really want to get that next round going! I think it's either a pair of juvenile clowns or a group of some schooling type fish. Any thoughts :idea:

Let me hear some votes. I've got these lights up, now I want to get them over some new corals and fish next time I go to the LFS.

We're expecting to still add a Mandarin and possibly a single Wrasse sometime after the next addition. I want to give the pods in the system more time to develop in the fuge and stuff before moving on to these.

Time for some fun :fun2:

 

[troubadour11]

Happy Monday everyone! :fun2:

Well, we had an eventful weekend over here. To start off with... we carried out a 20 gallon water change on the system. I didn't check the Ca, Alk, Mg yet. Either way, they're going to be better then they were prior to the water change. I'm hoping I have time to giving those a test today.

After the water change we emptied and dried out the QT from having the YWG in there. So that's been out and dry almost 24 hours now. I saved the 20 gallons of water in a barrel from the water change. I'll use about as much as possible of that to dilute down to hypo salinity for extra water on hand for the next QT cycle.
- So now I just have to figure out what fish is next on the list to add... Because we have an established filter pad in the sump. It's been there since we brought the YWG home to QT. So we're ready to go as soon as we choose the next addition!

- Then we had a disappointing loss. It looks like the pistol shrimp decided to take a journey through the return pump. We saw it shoot out of the returns while staring at the tank. We hadn't seen it around for a couple days since I saw it swimming at the surface. I kept checking the sump, but never saw it in there :-(

- The circle of life. After the cleaner decided it was done, the body disappeared under a pile of Nassarius snails.

So that was the bad part of the weekend. The other thing I did was sit around and watch my lights run their programs. It's getting better but not running "right" yet. So I'll keep noodling with the code. The lights do a staggered sunrise effect that is really awesome! That works correctly. Then usually, the 1st cloud simulation works as expected. I need to make some adjustments to the lightning and break it up with an offset between the fixtures. Then it returns back to the normal parabola curve level for that time of day. But then after the 1st cloud sim, the right side of the tank stopped working and only the left side ran the sim. And then at the end of the night, the lights dimmed in the correct order, but never turned off before the moonlights came on. To solve the issue, I just had to re-upload the exact same code and the lights turned off and the moonlights on. So I have a bit of an issue there to straighten out. But all-in-all, it's moving in the right direction. Oh, and I bumped up my dimming %s. Now the RDT goes up to w/c=85%, b/uv=75%. The LDT goes to 75%/65%.

Then, since we had the upsetting Pistol Shrimp death. A water change done. Then new lights up and running (mostly correctly). My wife twisted my arm and convinced me to go do some "window shopping" at the LFS around the corner. Not our typical store. But it's really close. A little pricey, but not ridiculous. The barely higher price probably equals out. Because if we go to our typical LFS, it's not so local. Like a 35 minute drive into the San Fernando Valley. So with the gas cost, we probably don't save the difference. But they usually have a good fish selection and a solid large shallow frag tank to browse. So off we went!!!

- And we came home with this...

- The LFS got this pink tipped branching Frogspawn from a local, known, established system they get lots of frags from. These 2 heads came from a 10 year old parent colony that's about the size of a volleyball. I've never seen any pests, or even algae, on frags from this system. I thought it was their best Frogspawn/hammer/torch in the shop. Other then the big 8 or 9 head version of this that was already sold. They had about 20 or 25 hammer/frogspawn all together.

- Checking it out on a close up inspection, these worms are the only thing other then the coral we could find. Everything else looked healthy and as it should.

These things are ok to go into the tank correct? They're not a pest to be concerned about right?

- I used a razor blade and holder to pop the frag off the giant ceramic square they had it on and attached it to a decent piece of rock rubble I had.

- Nice and slimy while being out of the water for this procedure.

- Even though it looked extremely healthy and clean. I then popped it into a Revive bath for around 5 or 6 minutes and turkey basted it a few times and did a few more inspections.

A rinse in some fresh tank water and in to it's new home!

-

- Right after we put it in, still all closed up.

- The view from our recliner on the left end of the tank.

... photo bomb to continue...

 

[troubadour11]

- A little while later as it starts to open up some.

- "There's something new where I normally perch!"

- A cloud effect happened shortly after adding it...

- Taken later at night now with the moonlights on. Obviously the camera phone isn't the most reliable way to view color... but it still looks interesting and similar to what it really looks like. LOL

- Night time close up.

- And finally... a shot of what it looked like this morning after the sunrise effect. Here it is pretty much fully opened. You can just make out the mouths in the center of each head if you look closely. They look puckered up similar to the mouths of my happy Ricordea-Yumas. So I'm hoping that's a good sign.

And to wrap it all up. Here is a video I grabbed this morning of the Frogspawn. I wanted to show the amount of flow it was receiving to get some feed back on that. We played with and made some adjustments to the powerhead placement and flow directions after adding the frag. At first it looked like it was getting some heavy pulses of waves. So we worked to make it a little less violent and more of gentle pulses. How do you all think this looks for flow. Both polyps are pretty open and appear to be happy...
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3G63egWFZ4I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Well, that's all the updates for now. The next step is figuring out how to keep my Ca and Alk near "proper levels" a little more. That way I can add a few SPS pieces to the other side of the tank soon! Slowly but surely, the tank is starting to come alive now!

 

[biggles]

That really sucks about the pistol dying Troub, sorry to hear you lost the little guy mate
This quick ramble is in no order but those worms on the side of the frogspawn are fine, i have them all over the walls of my sump - cool little filter feeders. That frogspawn is a pretty color, nice score mate. The video flow is about spot on, a little more would be ok but no less than that i think. In too low flow they extend the tentacles two or three times the normal length and look faded due to the pigments spread out over a larger surface area. Too high is when the actual tentacles are being forced over the edge of the skeleton sharply at times - the polyps will stop extending if this keeps up or you will see tears in the polyp tissue which can lead to infections etc - flubber infections are bad bad bad lol. So in a nutshell always err on the side of too low a flow when acclimating anything that extends large water filled polyps and tentacle thingy things. If moving stuff even under water the whole time give it a flick or two so it retracts flubbery bits you might tear when moving it around. If taking such corals from the water i always hold them upside down just under the water and jiggle them softly for 30 secs or so which makes them expel the water they can't support when in air.

The goby looks super cool btw, i love the expressions on those guys faces lol, i need more fish Troubster and so do you !

It's time you get your alk, calc and mag dosing sorted mate. Now is the time to get a handle on it while draw is low but steady. You're probably pulling 20-25ml a day of 2 part right now so how about we get that one squared away asap buddy. You need to start thinking reef not fish in regards to your water and parameters from now on. In water good for corals fish are 'spoiled' with water quality whereas fish will happily survive in water that is toxic to corals.
Are you going to use a dosing machine and bulk 2 part additives or something else. Let's get off our arse and do some work please Troub - and mowing the lawn isn't what i mean in case your wife reads this. How are you lovely lady btw, very nice to hear you participate in the reef tank decisions. Troub is bloody lucky to have you (biggles is one smooth operator around female reefers......watch and learn guys...)

 

[troubadour11]

Oh you've got to be kidding me!!!! The stupid site "re-logged" me in after I was already logged in and typed out a response!!!! I just lost all my reply :angryfire:

So, I'm not typing that out again... short and sweet summary now. I just lost my whole lunch break to that.

Thanks for the sympathy. Loosing the pistol shrimp was sad :-(

Maybe when we get a new one, the YWG and shrimp will find each other right away as it explores it's new home.

:thumbsup: on the healthy worm confirmation! The Mrs. was happy to see them. She wants Christmas Tree Worms eventually. She was not happy I dipped the frag... But it looks like the worms made it through. Unless they slowly die off in the tank. But so far they keep popping in and out.

We were super excited to pick up that Frogspawn! By far the best color and look of the pieces they had for sale then. Now we just need to mix up some reef colors. Green w/ reddish/purple flesh Frogspawn, Green w/ reddish/purple flesh Candy-Cane Trumpet, Reddish/blue/purple flesh with green tentacle bubbles Ricordea.... TIME FOR SOMETHING WITH NO GREEN

Also, thank you for the flow critique. Much appreciated. We messed with that for about 45 minutes every couple hours to get it dialed into that. I'm guessing I'll always be close to pushing the limits there with a mixed reef. But I bet it gets easier as I get more corals filled in above to break up the current before it hits the LPS.

Also :thumbsup: for the tips on moving flubber around. Some good pointers I had never been given before. Thank you.

LOVE the Yellow Watchman Goby so far. And agreed I need more fish. Anything in particular get your vote? We want a small schooling type group of fish... but we might go with a clown pair next if not a school.

We're still waiting longer to let the refugium establish before we add a Mandarin. I think we're planning a singular wrasse at some pint. But probably later for aggression and food chain reasons. And of course bigger fish need to wait until closer to the end. But I'd love to get the next QT round started ASAP!!!

As for the Ca, Alk, Mg... I'm in the throws of how to start handling that now. Since I'm guessing I will not have a big draw on the system for a time, I was looking to use the ATO topoff to drip limewater maybe. But I'm open to any recommendations.

LONG term, I'm guessing I will be running a doser or two through the Reef Angel. But for now, I was hoping I could automate it as much as possible with the Kalkwasser/ATO... But that only handles Ca, right? I'm not sure other ways to handle the Alk and Mg.

I will note that my draw seems to be close to this by my testing... We've been doing 20 gallon water changes about every 3 or 4 weeks.
- Ca starts about 370-400... drops to 310-330 range
- Alk starts off closer to 7, but usually just under... drops to 6.3-6.5ish
- Mg typically stays close to stable...
- starts somewhere between 1300-1400 and drops to 1260-low 1300s.

So any tips, brands/products, or thoughts on managing the "big 3" for my system is welcome. Along with fish/coral votes. I've got lots of projects to do on the tank still. But getting these levels better stabilized and stocking a few more animals is tops of the list right now!

And yes... my wife is AWESOME!!! I think I am also very lucky your smooth operations are 1/2 a world away! LOL :blown:

 

[biggles]

I bet you said a few choice words when you lost that post didn't you Troubster lol......

biggles brainwave shrimp/fish bonding technique shortcut - tie them together with a 2" length of string and chuck em in the bloody water. After they bond just cut the string - job done !

Xmas tree worms are super cool and easy to keep in a healthy coral safe system. Don't buy one of those disgusting brown porites boulders with Xmas tree worms in it because they look like they're popping out of an elephant turd. Porites is one of the hardest SPS to keep colored well but the emerald green ones look amazing covered in many different colored Xmas tree worms. You will also get them in wild acro branches if you're lucky and keep an eye out.

Red acan - get one asap as they're easy to keep and look great if you want a splash of bright color. Trying to avoid green especially when talking flubber is bloody hard mate.

The fish choice is screamingly obvious - pair of nice percs as things don't look quite right without a clown or two in the display They are one of the tamest 'pet like' reef fish and both you and the wife will get many hours enjoyment watching them do clowny stuff. I have to shoo my clown away when gluing acros as he comes in so close to watch what i'm doing lol - very inquisitive little fish :thumbsup:

Kalk will do the trick just fine atm mate. Get some BRS alk, calcium and Mg supplies as you need to add Magnesium along with the kalk. The kalk will deliver both calcium and alk in the correct ratio to each other but contains no Mg - and no you can't add Mg to the kalk as it precipitates out immediately from memory due to the sky high pH of a saturated kalk solution.
I had a ramble about using kalk in my journal in answer to your post there btw mate. I used kalk with great results in a full blown SPS tank once until the draw became too high so i think it's a great way of maintaining steady levels. You need individual alk and calcium additives to adjust just one or the other as raising calcium will raise alk and vice versa with kalk.

When you get a dosing machine you will simply use the BRS individual additives that you were using to keep the kalk dosing levels spot on so nothing will go to waste at any stage.