Dodged a bullet today

[Grant W]

Well I got home from work today at around 4 pm. Going about my business and realized the tank was awful quiet......I had left the main pump off from about 6am this morning when I fed the fish. 10 hours with just the vortecs running Yikes. Fired it back up, temp was 82 and glass had a film of algae on it. Fired up a big fan and added an iceblock to the sump. The chiller kicked on also and with all of this and cranking up the vortecs temp was back down to 79 in no time. Skimmer was also foaming like mad. Nothing seems the worse for it so whew. That could have been bad on a cold day. Like I said in the intro, Dodged a bullet.

 

[gdm42001]

I thought you had a Reefkeeper controller?

 

[lokii_37]

have you ever thought about putting it on a timer? that way it just goes off for 15 or 20 minutes then kicks back on automatically

Nick

 

[Grant W]

One of the only things I just unplug is my main pump a big Eheim. I let the cord hang out the front. For some reason got distracted this morning and forgot.

 

[northbay-reefer]

Whew glad you caught it in time. I never turn of anything for feeding because I am so easily distracted

 

[Reef Bass]

That is very fortunate that it was not a huge problem. Yay. Let's hear it for the vortechs.

I turn off my return pump if I add zooplankton while running a filter sock. And I shut off all pumps when I feed my few remaining lps (favia and hammers).

In fact I pulled a Grant last week. Fed the tank before bedtime, went to sleep and woke up at 3 wondering if I had turned the return pump back on. Turns out I hadn't. All was good though, thanks to the vortechs.

I should set a timer when I turn off the return pump.

 

[northbay-reefer]

If the power ever goes out in your neighborhood and you have the Voertech running on battery backup, your tank should be ok for at least 10 hours

 

[thysrof]

Good to hear eveything is ok!

 

[gdm42001]

In fact I pulled a Grant last week. Fed the tank before bedtime, went to sleep and woke up at 3 wondering if I had turned the return pump back on. Turns out I hadn't. All was good though, thanks to the vortechs.

I should set a timer when I turn off the return pump.

I did that several times, then bought the Reefkeeper II, and have the feed button set to kill the main pump for 45 min along with the skimmer.

 

[iarethesea]

Whew. Close one!

 

[Reef Bass]

Good idea Guy. I have always considered my protein skimmer and return pump to be "run all the time" devices and so hadn't bothered to attempt to manage their power through my RKE. A timed feeding mode would be a reason for me to do so. I think I could do just the return pump as I don't mind if my protein skimmer skims the water in my sump for 1/2 hour before the return pump turns back on.

 

[Grant W]

May be right Guy. I'm just too lazy to do the programming plus I already have three dc-8s and they're all full and I dont really want to add another.

 

[zeroinverse]

Good idea Guy. I have always considered my protein skimmer and return pump to be "run all the time" devices and so hadn't bothered to attempt to manage their power through my RKE. A timed feeding mode would be a reason for me to do so. I think I could do just the return pump as I don't mind if my protein skimmer skims the water in my sump for 1/2 hour before the return pump turns back on.

Depending on how your skimmer is set up and the water in your return & skimmer section you could overflow your skimmer cup and pour back all the skimmate back into your sump (and overflow/bubble up your skimmer).

This happens if your return area fills with water (b/c of return pump is off). If your skimmer's water level is normally 8" and your return puts water back to sump to 10"... Then your skimmer water level will increase and your normally tuned skinmate production will now overproduce and overflow your cup.

Soooo... Point is, don't put slimmer to run all the time if you plan to control return pump.

Technically, even the 2-8 minutes of your return pump starting up could cause your skimmer to overflow.

Different for each configuration, but general principle is what I mean.

 

[zeroinverse]

In that case, you'd have to use two channels so that skimmer turns back on like 5-10 minutes after return pump kicks back in.

Then again, if 1-2 days of skinmate dumped back into tank is no big deal, then no worries.

 

[Grant W]

Not a prob with my skimmer, I have a 45 gal sump and my full draindown only raises the sump level about an inch. The skimmer is also a beast with a long neck.

 

[gdm42001]

I use the Digital Aquatics Expansion Socket, takes one plug and makes it two coming off of the DC-8
both the skimmer and main pump are plugged into it.
it only uses the DC-8 for the on/off signal, has it's own power cord so as not to add to the 15 amp max of the DE-8
not sure if they make it anymore, but something like it may be the PC1

 

[Grant W]

Guy that could be worth checking into, thx for the info. My stupid moves continue. Yesterday I noticed while adding alk supp by hand to the frag tank the supp. Did not turn the water a little cloudy in the area I was adding it like normal.......... The last time I made up alk for the tanks, of course around 10pm 2 days prior, I either mixed ca carb instead of sodium bicarb or didnt add enough alk supp when mixing. Big tank has therefore been dosing ca supp from both pumps. I swear I need to stop doing stuff so late at night. Remixed everything over and everything seems ok will test water again sunday sometime. No I dont need to switch to a reactor guys. You know who you are I just need to pull my head out when I'm working on the tank. I really wonder about myself sometimes. LOL BTW I am dosing around 160 ml of each supp every 24 hrs so we're talking about a lot of supp. So guys do better than I am OK.

 

[Reef Bass]

I use calcium chloride to mix calcium supplement. I would think calcium carbonate would be very difficult to dissolve without soaking in a low ph solution, like happens in a calcium reactor.

You're only human buddy. An incredibly competent reef keeping human, but a human none the less. Welcome to the club.

Here's something for your humanity. Since I switched to Randy's Recipe 2, I have noticed that there is no immediate precipitation of the alkalinity solution when added to the tank. So you may have been fine without remixing solutions. My theory is that since the solution is half as concentrated, precipitation is no longer an issue. I'd be happy to demonstrate next time you're over.

 

[Grant W]

Oops I meant ca chloride, sry and I do recipe 2 already but thx

 

[thysrof]

Say it with me " I need to change to a CA Reactor"