My rendition of 300

[McPuff]

Jimmy, in my experience the algae reactors do work pretty well. Definitely controls the light spill (I just wrapped mine in Aluminum foil). I used a GFO reactor and just wrapped it with LEDs. No need to spend a boatload of money on a purpose built chaeto reactor.

I harvest about once a month and get a nice chunk of cheato that I either throw out or give away. The fish just won't eat it (the only downside of cheato). The combo of GFO reactor and cheato reactor seems to be working really well (for me). As the fish grow, I am not seeing an increase in algae growth as long as I am running those two components. Also running two marine pure blocks though they are really overdue for a rinse!

 

[reef_of_flames]

There’s a bunch of diy videos on YouTube as well for reactors and filters!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

And if I go that route I couldn't deny myself the chance to make one myself. It's what I do best....hehe

 

[reef_of_flames]

Any updates?

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Any updates?

I wish I did, I seem to be in a holding pattern trying to QT fish, every fish shipment I get, they don't last more than a couple days in QT. I've been getting a bunch of dead on arrivals and some unhealthy looking fish. I'm not sure if they're leaving the healthy and sitting in a hot box inside a hot UPS truck for hours before it gets to my front door makes their demise inevitable. But my luck has been pretty bad lately.

There is absolutely nothing fun about this part, all I want to do is wake up tomorrow with a tank full of healthy fish.

After trying 4 times to get healthy fish from online vendors, I found out there is a LFS that will QT new fish for 4 weeks, and if a fish dies within that time they will replace it at no cost to me. That is a win in my book. I had them get 8 dispar anthias, 6 chomis, 2 diamond gobies, 1 sixline wrasse and 1 lunare wrasse for the first batch and if this is successful, I will just go through them to get my tank stocked.

 

[McPuff]

I wish I did, I seem to be in a holding pattern trying to QT fish, every fish shipment I get, they don't last more than a couple days in QT. I've been getting a bunch of dead on arrivals and some unhealthy looking fish. I'm not sure if they're leaving the healthy and sitting in a hot box inside a hot UPS truck for hours before it gets to my front door makes their demise inevitable. But my luck has been pretty bad lately.

There is absolutely nothing fun about this part, all I want to do is wake up tomorrow with a tank full of healthy fish.

After trying 4 times to get healthy fish from online vendors, I found out there is a LFS that will QT new fish for 4 weeks, and if a fish dies within that time they will replace it at no cost to me. That is a win in my book. I had them get 8 dispar anthias, 6 chomis, 2 diamond gobies, 1 sixline wrasse and 1 lunare wrasse for the first batch and if this is successful, I will just go through them to get my tank stocked.

Now that the temperatures are starting to come down you'll probably have better luck with online orders. If you're ordering from Live Aquaria, they provide 14 day guarantee on the Divers Den fish. To me, that is an excellent deal. And they ship free if over $100. Both of my angels came from DD and I've ordered a bunch of fish through them in the past. Always had success. Standard LA orders are not as good though in my experience.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

man, that sucks. Hopefully your newly discovered LFS deal will work out for you.

Why only 1 6 line? With that big of a tank, a half dozen would look good in there.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Now that the temperatures are starting to come down you'll probably have better luck with online orders. If you're ordering from Live Aquaria, they provide 14 day guarantee on the Divers Den fish. To me, that is an excellent deal. And they ship free if over $100. Both of my angels came from DD and I've ordered a bunch of fish through them in the past. Always had success. Standard LA orders are not as good though in my experience.

Yes, divers den is by far the best online company when it comes to their guarantee, unfortunately we had to take advantage of it. I stopped ordering from them for 2 reasons, it didn't sit right for me to keep ordering the same fish and continue to claim losses, and second the redundancy became extremely frustrating to the point that I had to find an alternate route.

The bad thing is that there isn't a LFS around me that will sell me a fish and give a 14 day guarantee. Most were verbal agreements that they will work with me, others gave a 10% store credit if the fish died within the first day. To me Live Aquariai is a no brainer. If for some reason this other LFS doesn't produce results, I will definitely order from them again.

man, that sucks. Hopefully your newly discovered LFS deal will work out for you.

Why only 1 6 line? With that big of a tank, a half dozen would look good in there.

This is only phase one, I'm trying to introduce fish into the tank from least territorial to most aggressive. And I know that wrasse aren't the friendliest to roll out the welcome wagon to new fish, these guys are small enough to eventually know their place in the pecking order when other larger fish are introduced.

I would like a healthy amount of wrasses in the tank but they will be introduced further down the road.

 

[McPuff]

Just be careful with the wrasses you do choose. There are some (e.g., ruby head) that will be quite aggressive to other wrasses. But if you do a lot of research and try to introduce them in groups you should be fine.

 

[BeanMachine]

Looking awesome.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

One of my Gen1 radion power supplies that lit the QT decided to stop working the other day. I hopped online to see if I could replace it and was coming up with outrageous pricing for a used Radion power supply. Some were in the range of $150, most were over $100.

Knowing that the power supply was already toast, I decided to pull it apart and noticed that the innards looked a lot like the ones I was finding on line when I put in the part number . $32 is a lot better than $100, all I had to do was swap the wires around and maybe a little bit of soldering.

I got the new power supply in this afternoon and went right to work on swapping it out.

The New power supply is on top

Pulled the cover off and most of the components are roughly in the same place, I did notice that the fuse was soldered in place, so if ever the fuse blows it will take some work to replace it

An option that is on the outside of the radion power supply is actually on the circuit board of this one. I decided to simply switch it to 110 and not move the switch.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

On the radion cover the option to choose 110 or 220 is here, I simply cut the wires and abandoned the switch in place.

Made note that the wire configurations were going to be in the same location as the old one.

Decided I wanted to have the green indicator light to work so I cut the wires and soldered them to the new circuit board

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

These were the 2 that corresponded to the LED

A little heat with the solder iron and it pulled right out

Soldered the new wires in place

Placed all the terminals in their proper location and tightened down.

Tightened down the transistor clamps

One thing that I didn't document with pictures was adjusting for 36V. there's a small pot that can be adjusted to get the proper voltage, I grabbed my multimeter and while probing the V+ V- I adjusted the potentiometer.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Button it all back up

Plug it in and it all works like a charm!!!

In other news, I have some fish that have been in QT for 4 weeks tomorrow and I will be putting them in the tank then. I can't wait to see movement in the tank!!!

 

[McPuff]

Nice work! How long did it take? Even considering your time, you probably still saved a nice chunk of change!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

It took maybe 20 minutes. It would've been quicker if I didn't stop to take pictures. Hopefully someone will benefit from it.

 

[McPuff]

It took maybe 20 minutes. It would've been quicker if I didn't stop to take pictures. Hopefully someone will benefit from it.

Ha! Shows what I know. I would have guessed several hours based on the pictures and your description. Probably would have taken ME that long anyway. :0)

 

[JimON]

I am with McPuff, couple hours for me too. Nice job Jimmy!

 

[Wbattles]

Just curious, I could have missed it, but what kind of laser did you use to cur all your acrylic pieces?

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Thanks guys, our family just got a puppy and all my time has been devoted to potty training. I haven't had much time for anything else!!!