Pete's 110 build

Very interested to see what you come up with in regards to the reactor Pete. Both of those ideas seem like solid solutions.
 
Very interested to see what you come up with in regards to the reactor Pete. Both of those ideas seem like solid solutions.

thanks Brett - I think I'm going to reverse the flow as that seems to be the recent industry apprach to dealing with the Co2 bubbles

as for the low PH: I'm considering using the extra media a you suggested but I also considering aerating it to increase the O2 and hence Ph of the effluent - it's such a simple approach I'm surprized I haven't read about it elsewhere
 
Sunday 10/2 parameters

Salinity 1.026
Temp 79.8 --> 81.5 over 24 hrs
Ph 8.27 --> 8.10 over 24 hrs (with some spikes in the 8.3s)

Ca = 560
Alk = 7.6 dkh
Mg =1400
Po4 = undetectable

Other items
the meteor shower base color has faded, I suspect from too much light, so I moved it lower in the tank. We have noticed at least 7 new polyps forming

Installed the heater - for redunancy it is set up with dual controls

the pipe organ coral has hundreds of new polyps that form on plates the older polyps grow our horizontally. the plates also proved lateral stability and strength the coral colony

I remounted the "chips acro", the "strawberry tabling acro", and the "$500 efflo" on "drilled & pegged" rocks. These 3 corals have also been repositioned horizontally to grow out in a table shape
 
looks great man

thanks :)


I just placed an order for some more clean up crew and 15 ricordia of different colors. I ordered from a new place (at least new to me) so I hope all works out okay. I should get the new items in Friday so I'll post my thoughts about them next weekend.
 
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here is a list of the ricordia I ordered:
Light Pink
Rainbow
Tangerine Orange
Orange & Blue
Blue with orange dots
Pink & aqua geeen
Purple
True Blue
Yellow
Orange
Lavender Purple with Deep Purple
Pink

and I got talked into a couple of St Thomas mushrooms or coralmorphs, one they said their diver has never seen in the 35 years diving and I'll be the first to get one

red with yellow <-- this is the rare or new one, can't wait to see it
and a sky blue
 
needed to build a lil box for the new rics
some black eggcrate, gutter guard and some rubble does the trick nicely
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the new rics - just about all of them came in with more then one mouth some with 3+
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Beautiful Rics Pete! Is the box to try and get them to attach to the rubble and/or so they don't float off and you lose one?
 
thanks Brett

I ened up putting a gutter guard cover on it as they were still floating around a bit
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these new rics look great - I only got a couple decent pictures

yellow rics to the left and in the lower right is a lime yellow with teal trim
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this orange with deep blue center and teal trim is also very nice and it realy glows under the actinics
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I also picked up a couple St Thomas mushrooms (coralmorphs). I attempted rubberbanding them to rocks but they both escaped. I found the red/yellow one but the blue one is still in hiding - I'll have to make another container to hold them until they fasten themselves to some rock rubble

While searching I found a live clam in my system. It's not the best picture but you can also see a black limpet to the lower right of the clam (it looks like it's in a shadow of the rock) and a couple of orange ball nems to the upper left. The rock is lace lava base rockl from my old 300g system.

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I finished the mods to the Ca reactor today

it is now an upflow reactor - like the new designs it should help minimize excess Co2 bubbles be recirculating the water from the top pulling in any undisolved Co2

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I am pleased with wll the rics, but this one may end up being my favorite
(this or the yellows, or the amybe the blue ones with orange dots :) )

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I picked up these zoas a couple weeks ago. They actualy have yellow skirts but under just the actinics they look lime green

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thanks Brett - it may be a couple weeks before I hook up the Ca reactor as there just isn't that much Ca/Alk demand right now. Also, I want to make sure I'm home for a few days to make sure I get it dialed in right.

here are two other rics and the St Thomas shrooms I mounted yesterday

first up is a orange with blue ric (actually there are about 5 mouths in this ric cluster)

the same video scans over to a blue ric with orange dots and at the end you will see the St Thomas mushrooms (sorry the view isn't the best as the rock was under my center brace making it hard to get a good picture)

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Looking great! I'll be waiting patiently for the Ca reactor progress. :) Video is awesome. I'm digging the smooth jams on this one. :D Can't remember if I asked this before but what camera do you use for the videos? I'm looking into getting something soon that will do HD as well.
 
Looking great! I'll be waiting patiently for the Ca reactor progress. :) Video is awesome. I'm digging the smooth jams on this one. :D Can't remember if I asked this before but what camera do you use for the videos? I'm looking into getting something soon that will do HD as well.



the camera is a Sony HDR-XR150, I did a lot of research and ended up with it for features and price (and that surprized me being a Sony)

I wanted:
- a fairly large built in hard drive - no more tapes or cards
- good optics
- full HD
- had to be fast when turning on
- semi pocket size

and it has a bunch of nice features I wasn't looking for but have come in real handy like: face recoginition for locking in focus and a smile recognition feature that takes pictures automatically without shuting down the video

only gripe so far but it was a price savings is not having a view finder (only the screen), oh and it dropped a hundred bucks a month after I bought it
 
I may be able to set up the Ca reactor this weekend. If we get back in town on Sunday early enough I'll give it another bleach rinse & leak test to check the latest modifications.

I'm also considering bleaching my reactor media but need to look at it and give it a sniff test as it came out of my large Ca reactor several months ago. It should be okay as I let it air dry before putting it up in a closed bucket, but may have some fungus or bacteria growth that I would rather not introduce to the new tank.

if everything checks out, and time permitting, I'll go ahead and hook it up to the tank and start the water flowing through the media and get the effluent flow rate set. Then, the next time I'm home I will need to:
- calibrate the new Ph probe to the Milwaukee controller
- hook up the controller to the Co2 solenoid valve
- adjust the Co2 needle valve to a very slow (low demand) bubble count
- monitor tank Ph, Ca, and Alk for several days and adjust flows accordingly

I just don't want to start the Co2 until I'm home for a few days where I can keep an eye out for it as it get's dialed in proper. With a low demand tank the last thing I want is to over dose and have Ph drop too much. If it was a high demand tank it's okay to under shoot the demand and just supplement 2 part as your dialing in the reactor to your specific needs.
 
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the camera is a Sony HDR-XR150, I did a lot of research and ended up with it for features and price (and that surprized me being a Sony)

I wanted:
- a fairly large built in hard drive - no more tapes or cards
- good optics
- full HD
- had to be fast when turning on
- semi pocket size

and it has a bunch of nice features I wasn't looking for but have come in real handy like: face recoginition for locking in focus and a smile recognition feature that takes pictures automatically without shuting down the video

only gripe so far but it was a price savings is not having a view finder (only the screen), oh and it dropped a hundred bucks a month after I bought it

That's a nice camera. Might be a little pricey for my budget still but nice indeed. No wonder why your videos always look so clean. :D
 
That's a nice camera. Might be a little pricey for my budget still but nice indeed. No wonder why your videos always look so clean. :D

yeah - I think it still runs a tad over $500

The Ca reactor passed it's latest leak test and the media is clean so no need to bleach it. Time permitting, I'll get it hooked up for water flow today (but no Co2)

I was able to mount a few of the new ricordia last night - if I get some time I'll see if I can get a video of things prior to catching a plane later this after noon. I plan on making a LFS run to pick up a couple shrimp and my son wants me to go to Fry's with him to pick up some computer stuff

here is another actinic video showing the ricordia that were mounted last night.

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I'm repeating myself but I'g ready to place an order for my supliment LED's .Currently I am running 4T5's and 2 VHO's but want to introduce the additional LEDs for the following reasons:

1) shimmer
2) illuminate the sides of my rock wall where I will have numerous Ricordia, Zoas and Acans
3) more blue

I am ready to place an order for 24 CREE XR-E's with this kit using a dimmable driver

https://www.reefledlights.com/produc...-e-q5-led-kit/


the diagram below should give you an idea of what I'm after
the 24 LED's will be wired in parallel 12 each side and fused
I'm planning on mounting the LED's to individual heatsinks that will be mounted to a piece of aluminum angle that will be hinged to allow an adjustable angle to maximize light to the side structure of the rock face. The Angle will we oriented so that one leg acts as a splash shield with the optics placed in drilled holes through the spash sheild face

the LED's will be 4" on center using 60deg optics as I have a narrow space between the glass and rocks

heat sinks
http://www.satisled.com/high-power-l...m15m_p169.html

I will eventually have a dimmer controlelr that will bring the royal blue LEDs on at a low setting that intensify through the morning before the other lights kick in

any input or suggestions will be appreciated


thanks
 
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