Ivan's terribly slow 225 build

[IvanTheTerrible]

I bet you have a bad probe. I even tried to recalibrate my probe and it did not work. How are the other ones? Like SG and all?

All of the other probes are fine. This one was fine until the other night. Here's a shot of the probes with the return pump off. You can see they aren't fully submerged, but really close. I agree that the probe is probably bad. I emailed BRS last night but didn't get a response. I'll try to cal them tomorrow if I get a chance.

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

I think I've mentioned before that I use a 20L for TTM. It has an acrylic divider that splits it into two ~10 gallon cubes. Well today, the silicone on the divider decided to leak, which is a bummer because I was planning to transfer some fish tonight. So, I had to clean up the other 20L that was being used to store extra equipment (you know how stuff just kinda collects). Unfortunately, I'm out of places to put another tank, so I had to put it on the floor of the fish room. I sat it on a piece of plywood since the floor wasn't perfectly level. My fish room was already too small for comfort and now I've lost about 1/3 of my floor space. Oh well, the fish should enjoy the bigger tank and it's a temporary inconvenience.

I filled the new tank with 5 gallons from the QT and 5 gallons from the display tank and added RODI to match the SG of the tank the fish are currently in. I then put 5 gallons from the display tank into the QT and 10 gallons of new SW into the display. Once I move the fish, I'll paint the sides of the TTM tank black and remove the divider completely. That'll give me two 20L tanks for TTM, which should be big enough for my future fish purchases (tangs, triggers, etc.).

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

I called BRS last week, and they are sending a replacement pH probe. The current probe is giving even more erratic readings, so I'm pretty confident it's a bad probe. I am out of calibration fluid, so I had to order some. I won't put the new probe in service until the fluid arrives and I can calibrate it.

Since I didn't have much going on today, I did some system maintenance. I've had my RODI system for a little over 2 years. It started as a 75 gpd BRS system, but then I added the upgrade to 150 gpd and a booster pump. It has always put out 0 TDS water (according to the inline meter), which seemed a little strange since I've never changed any of the filters or membranes. One of the DI cartridges fully changed color about a month ago (but was still putting out 0 TDS water), so I changed the resin at that time. When I'm making water, I typically flush the membrane when I start, about every 3 hours, and when I stop. Also, when I first start making water I bypass the DI resin and send everything down the waste line for about 1 minute. This makes the DI last longer since that initial water has a high TDS reading due to TDS creep. Other than that, I haven't really done any maintenance.

BRS did a video showing how you could check the life of your carbon blocks by testing the rejection water for chlorine/chloramine. I've done that test a few times and never saw any chlorine/chloramine in the waste line. I should say that my family didn't see any indication of chlorine/chloramine since I didn't trust my colorblind eyes with the test. :hmm6: Today I decided that 2 years was long enough and I needed to do some maintenance.

One of the things I didn't care for with the my system was the TDS monitoring locations. They are set up to read water going into the DI, between the DI cartridges, and coming out of the DI cartridges. That is great for monitoring performance of your DI resin, but doesn't help you gauge performance of your whole system. Also, the readings were always 0 or 1 going into the DI and 0 between cartridges and at the output, so they weren't really providing much info. I never really trusted that reading going into the DI canisters, since that would indicate a TDS of about 10 for the incoming water. Since I wasn't using a lot of DI resin or seeing chlorine in the waste lines, I assumed the incoming water was pretty good but 10 would be pretty exceptional. So today I eliminated the reading between the DI cartridges and moved it to the incoming supply line. I didn't have a way to measure my incoming water previously, so this would let me check it. It turns out my incoming water has a TDS of 90-100, which is what I would have expected.

I also changed out the pre-filters and membranes. I followed the instructions Russ from Buckeye Hydro provides in this thread, except I didn't mess with the DI canisters since one was recently changed. One thing to note, when he says to hold the output lines above the system and fill them with the water/bleach mix - be prepared for the water to go squirting everywhere. I wasn't planning to wash down the walls and mop the floor in my fish room, but I did that job today too. :hmm4: Anyways, this is what the filter looked like.

I have no idea if that's good for 2 years of service or not. Any thoughts?

After changing out the filters and flushing everything, I tested everything out. It turns out I have a TDS of ~8 or 9 going into my DI resin, which seems reasonable for new membranes (at least to me). I also moved the sensors around to see if they were reading consistently, and all were really close. I have no idea why I was consistently getting a reading of 0 or 1 into the DI resin. Regardless, that sensor is reading the supply water now so it doesn't matter if it is off a little.

My new skimmer pump should be here tomorrow, so I will have a skimmer again. I decided to go with the Vectra, so I shipped the new Mag to Jeff at Lifereef for credit and bought a Vectra from him. I'm curious to see how much skimmate it produces, since it's been over a month since the skimmer was working. If the new pH probe works, I'll finally have a fully functioning system again.

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

I'm SO happy to finally have a fully functional tank again.

The new Vecra M1 arrived for the skimmer. Rather than buy a $10 adapter kit from BRS, I picked up a thread/thread union 1.25" union at the hardware store. For this application, I figured the threads would be close enough to the British threads on the pump to not make a difference. Plus, having a union makes it easy to get the pump out for maintenance.

I'm still adjusting things a little, but here's a shot of the skimmate after 24 hours. Since the skimmer is running now, I scraped the algae that's been growing in the sump. Hopefully, the skimmer will catch most of it.

Since I added the firefish to the tank, it's been out swimming around most of the time. Hopefully, it stays so bold as I add more fish. Since the firefish has been out, the clowns have decided to roam around the tank a bit more. They still hang out in their corner a lot, but they are a little more adventurous.

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

I needed to do a water change on my QT, which currently has an assortment of coral frags in it. I've been reading a few threads about storing saltwater long term and loss of alkalinity over time. My saltwater was mixed up in early February (not sure of the exact date) and stored in the tank since. It hasn't been heated and was only circulated for a couple of minutes when I needed to use some of it. So, I decided to test it. According to my Hanna Checker it tested out at 8.68 dKH. Since I didn't test it when it was fresh, I don't know where the levels started but I was pretty happy with that result. Just thought I'd share in case anyone else was curious about this.

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

It's been a couple of months, so I'm probably due for an update. For the most part, not much has changed. I've been playing with my light setup lately. I slowly increased the intensity of the blue channel until it was at 100%. The frags in the tank still weren't growing, so I moved both lights to one side of the tank. That gave a little growth, but I still wasn't getting enough light to the corals. Yesterday, I dropped the lights down so that they are just a couple inches from the top of the tank. It's too early to tell how the corals will respond but I hope this does the trick. I may be upgrading my lights sooner than I hoped.

I've also been dealing with some high humidity. The humidity wasn't a problem when it was cold and the furnace was running a lot. Now that things have warmed up some (but not enough for the AC to run a lot) the humidity is creeping up. It's been running about 60% most days. We've been getting rain almost every day, so the outside air is also very humid. Unfortunately I don't have another humidity meter, so I don't know if the humidity is high in the entire house or just in the fish room.

I've been considering changing the exhaust fan setup for a while now. When I built the fish room it was cold outside and the ground was frozen for most of the winter. The frozen ground was going to be a problem, since I assumed my vent would be below grade, since the tank is in the basement. So, I had the exhaust fan dumping air from the fish room into the rest of the basement. It worked OK, but certainly wasn't ideal. This week, I decided to spin the exhaust fan around 180 degrees and vent the humid air outside.

I ordered a Decovent from Home Depot, and proceeded to dig a hole in the landscaping in my front yard. Much to my surprise, about 4" down I learned that the foundation had a reinforcement exactly where I planned to install the vent. This reinforcement was about 6" thick and I assume solid concrete, which I wasn't going to drill through. I couldn't easily move the exhaust fan, since the ceiling is finished. At this point, I was pretty bummed and didn't know what to do. I called a contractor friend, but he wasn't any help. He agreed it was crappy luck and wished me the best.

Since I didn't know the exact elevation of the vent, I decided to drill a test hole and hope that the vent would be just above the top of the reinforcement. Much to my surprise, the pilot hole ended up being above the reinforcement and above grade - actually quite a bit above grade. At this point I was ecstatic. This morning I drilled a 4-1/4" hole into the front of my house. If you've never done it, it's a weird experience purposefully drilling a big hole in your house. A couple of trips to HD and Lowe's later, and my exhaust fan is now happily venting the humid air outside. Hopefully, this will bring the humidity levels down some but only time will tell.

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

I'm not convinced that the new vent arrangement is actually doing anything. To be fair, it's rained a lot lately - by a lot I mean that it rains for at least a few minutes every day. The humidity in the fish room seems to follow the humidity outside, which makes sense. Maybe it's because my house sees a lot of traffic in and out, so a lot of air is exchanged with the outside. Couple that with moderate temperatures (so the AC doesn't run a lot) and you end up with a humidity inside that nearly matches the humidity outside. Blowing the humid air outside doesn't do much when it is replaced with new air that is just as humid.

Any thoughts?

- Ivan

 

[acer]

Well yes, humid outside= humid inside. Unless your running AC or dehumidifier. I think the new venting is a good idea though.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Measure the humidity at other places in the house, one place in particular is on the outside of the fishroom just next to the tank since that's the air that will immediately replace what you vent.

Granted I don't live on the East coast so I don't know the level of outside humidity but I would think the humidity in a fishroom would be far greater (approaching 100% if left unchecked) than that outside. Translation: you still might have humid air in the fishroom, but it's less than what it would be. A fan system simply pulls air out of one air and replaces it from another.

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

Until my Amazon order is delivered, I only have one humidistat and it's hardwired in place so I can't measure other parts of the house. According to the little assistant lady who lives in my phone, the humidity outside was 57% right after I made my last post. The humidity in my fish room was 59%, so essentially the same (regional variation, measurement inaccuracy, etc.). The humidity outside is lower today, so I expect the humidity indoors to drop as well. It just seems like a waste of electricity to run a fan that essentially does nothing. Perhaps I'll wire it up so that the fan only runs when the humidity outside is less than the humidity indoors by a certain amount.

- Ivan

 

[sfsuphysics]

I'm fairly sure you're humidity would be a LOT higher than 59% without ventilation, but the easiest way to test it is to turn off the fan, and see how high the humidity gets.

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

I'm fairly sure you're humidity would be a LOT higher than 59% without ventilation, but the easiest way to test it is to turn off the fan, and see how high the humidity gets.

So, I gave this a try and didn't notice much of a difference. My fish room isn't sealed (usually the door is open), so I assume the humidity was dispersing throughout the house rather than being concentrated in the room. After a while, I adjusted the setting on the control so that the fan only comes on when the humidity is above 60%. The problem is the humidity varies a lot even throughout the day. Here are the stats for yesterday.

Average Humidity 61
Maximum Humidity 87
Minimum Humidity 43

It would be nice to have the fan only kick on when the air outside is a few percentage points drier than the air in the room. This might turn into my next project....

- Ivan

 

[reefzone123]

slow and steady wins the race. haha awesome looking tank setup.

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

slow and steady wins the race. haha awesome looking tank setup.

Thanks.

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

OK, so I'm probably overdue for an update. Not a lot has changed. I'm still playing around with my lighting trying to find the right settings for my corals. I should have just bought the par meter. :debi: I still only have a few frags in the tank (a mix of LPS and SPS), since there's not much point in adding more until I get the lights the way I (and more importantly the corals) like them.

I've been monitoring the humidity in various places around my house and determined that a fan setting of 58% is about as good as I'm going to get, at least during this summer of never-ending rain. I'll keep watching it through the fall and winter to see if/how things change.

I've been fighting with cyano, which is a pain. I did a blackout recently which didn't help much. I don't want to reduce my feeding anymore since I feel like the fish have to hunt around for food as it is. I've recently started running GFO in one of the reactors, and I'm hoping that clears it up.

I've also been slowly adding livestock. I've currently got a few fish going through TTM. Once that is complete, I'll QT them for a few weeks. A while back I added five banggai cardinals. From watching them swim, I believe there are 2 pairs and 1 third wheel who swims all alone and stares at his/her reflection in the glass all day. One of the pairs has been acting odd lately, and today I noticed that the male has a mouth full of eggs!!! I'm not at all prepared to raise them, but my daughter is really excited so I may give it a try if he doesn't swallow them. I can always move him to the QT when things are a little further along.

That's all for now. I'll try to post an update if I become a fish daddy.

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

Well that didn't take long. The cardinal swallowed the clutch after only 3 days. Not a completely unexpected result, but still a little disappointing. Hopefully, he will get the hang of it.

If you don't have an aquarium controller/monitor on your system, you should definitely consider getting one. My Apex prevented what could have been a significant issue for me today. At some point, my GFO reactor developed a leak at the shut-off valve. It was a small leak and not in an easy spot to see, so it could have been leaking for a while. The water was dripping between the back wall of my stand and back of my sump tank, making it impossible to see the puddle without crawling over the sump and looking down into that small gap (less than 2 inches wide). The bottom of my stand is slightly sloped, so the water was running along the sump and towards the front of the stand, where the Apex leak sensor sits. The drip was much slower than the output of my ATO, so it didn't affect the water level in the sump.

Today, I woke up and found a text message alert from the Apex on my phone. I went downstairs to investigate and found a very small puddle surrounding the leak sensor in the sump area. Since the Apex shuts off the return pump when it senses a leak, the puddle was small and the leak was no longer active. I cleaned up the puddle, started the return pump, and started investigating. It took me a while to find the leak. I didn't see any salt creep or any other signs that could help pinpoint the problem. Eventually, I stumbled on the leak. A few quick turns of the wrench and everything was good.

I have no idea when the leak started. I started running GFO three weeks ago, so it wasn't leaking before that. Since the leak was slow, it's possible that it has been dripping and evaporating for a while and the ATO was keeping the sump water level constant. I checked my SG today and it was 1.025, down slightly so I'm guessing it didn't start leaking last night. Regardless, this is just one more example of how a controller/monitor can prevent major issues with your tank. Had the Apex not alarmed, it would have been a while before I noticed the small puddle in my sump area. Since I don't regularly check SG it could have been quite low before I knew anything was wrong.

- Ivan

 

[acer]

yep- have had that happen on many reactors. SO now, with my new setup - the GFO reactor is inside the sump - so if it leaks the water drips into the sump. I agree it is always good to have a controller - for many reasons. This ,as well as pure laziness, is the main reason I have not yet built a manifold to put reactors on from the main pipe from the return pump. Reactors seem to be the main area that develop leaks for me - probably do the same thing you did- not tighten enough as I am afraid of over tightening and breaking it.

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

yep- have had that happen on many reactors. SO now, with my new setup - the GFO reactor is inside the sump - so if it leaks the water drips into the sump. I agree it is always good to have a controller - for many reasons. This ,as well as pure laziness, is the main reason I have not yet built a manifold to put reactors on from the main pipe from the return pump. Reactors seem to be the main area that develop leaks for me - probably do the same thing you did- not tighten enough as I am afraid of over tightening and breaking it.

I would like to have my reactors in the sump, but don't want to give up the real estate. Originally, I was going to have them located over the sump so that drips weren't an issue but I didn't like the location when I test fit them. I guess I'll live with the occasional drip for now.

As far as updates go, I'm still playing with the intensity of my lights. I think I'm pretty close, as the corals seem much happier. The duncan is growing a couple of new heads so that is a good sign. The GFO seems to be working and the algae is slowly losing ground. I've also been slowly adding livestock. I added a one spot foxface and a midas blenny. Both are awesome fish. They add a lot of color and personality to the tank, especially the midas blenny. It has been harassing the firefish a little lately, but nothing too extreme. It's currently the biggest fish in the tank, so I think it wants to show everyone who is boss on occasion. I ordered a few tangs from LA tonight, so he won't be the bully for long. I'll post a few pictures as soon as I teach the fish to hold still and smile. :lol2:

- Ivan

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

So, the cardinals are still doing their thing. Hopefully, he'll figure out how to be a daddy and quit swallowing the eggs.

Received a shipment from LA this morning.

So far, everyone seems to be adjusting well. I'm hoping they can get along for a couple of weeks in a 20 gallon tank. Not much room to swim, but they are pretty small so I think they'll be OK. Still trying to get a good picture of the midas blenny and foxface.

- Ivan

 

[acer]

When I said reactors in sump I really meant above it so the bottom of the reactor touches the waterline in the sump. So, they don't take any real estate in the sump- but if they leak - they drip into the sump.