Randy's 180G Reef-Photo Journal

[rdmpe]

Just for my record...

11/03/06, 06:30, CA = 435, ALK = 10.90 dKH / 3.89 meq/L
11/07/06, 07:15, CA = 435, ALK = 10.75 dKH / 3.83 meq/L, MG = 1395
11/13/06, 07:30, CA = 430, ALK = 10.75 dKH / 3.83 meq/L
11/21/06, 20:30, CA = 415, ALK = 10.75 dKH / 3.83 meq/L, MG = 1365
12/03/06, 02:30, CA = 415, ALK = 11.65 dKH / 4.17 meq/L
12/03/06, 08:45, CA = 425, ALK = 12.50 dKH / 4.46 meq/L
(dosed CA up to 450 after above test)
12/04/06, 23:00, CA = 435, ALK = 11.2 dKH / 4.00 meq/L
(dosed kalk all night set to PH of 8.0, no 2-part)
12/05/06, 07:15, CA = 450, ALK = 11.2 dKH / 4.00 meq/L, MG = 1275
(kalk will still be dosed until lights bring PH up some time in early afternoon)
(dosed magnesium)
12/05/06, 20:00, CA = 435, ALK = 10.4 dKH / 3.72 meq/L, MG = 1450

 

[jnarowe]

you can run a rigid line into the bucket that is below the surface of the kalk solids and have an output up high. That should do OK too.

 

[rdmpe]

Yeah but that won't work with a float valve, cause "they" don't make a float valve with a threaded fitting on the outlet side... I'd have to go with a float switch or pressure switch/selenoid type setup which will increase the cost from $0.00 to I'm-not-sure-how-much. Now, if I had the float valve in it's own chamber that forced the water to enter the kalk chamber from the bottom, that would do the trick. I may be able to rig something like that up...

 

[rdmpe]

Lots of new stuff for the tank but no pictures of any of it yet

I ordered another ro/di system that will go under the kitchen sink, so the dual-canister filter there now will become my kalk reactor (but no active stirring). We'll see how it goes. New ro/di will not be here until after Christmas.

There was a grand opening party at Sea In The City, a great local fish store that is now about 4X it's old size (was very small). I picked up some great corals:

A nice red and green open brain
A tan and green candy cane coral
A very nice tri color acro of some sort (Marcye, help me out here )
A bright green plate coral with deep purple center, ~2.5" diam
A yellow caroliniana
10 black foot snails
5 nassarius snails

I won a free battery powered air pump (for emergencies, transport, etc.)

From another local reefer I got a new Occelaris clown fish. Now that I have it in there with clown #1, I think that clown @1 is a true perc. It has a lot more black than the false perc that is in there with it now. They seem to be getting along well, but I haven't seen them actually sharing the anemone yet... Clown #1 still hosts the anemone solo.

Also from that same reefer I got a very cool 3"-4" Clown Tang. It caused a bit of a stir when I added him. There was some jockying for position between the sailfin, powder brown, scribbled rabbit and the new clown tang, but no real damage done UNTIL I got up this morning and found a big cut in the rabbitfish... So here are some photos of course...

Other than the cut, he seems to be acting normal, eats and swims around fine. Hopefully it will not get infected...

 

[Me No Nemo]

Yikes, looks like he got cut with the "scalpel". That's why tangs are also known as surgeonfish. That tail spine can be very damaging and the look of that cut is just about right. Clown tangs can be VERY territorial and aggressive. If you can, I'd try to get the rabbit into a dip with a drop of Formalin to help clear that up.

 

[Me No Nemo]

Also, post a pic of that coral as we had a number of "tricolors" and I'm not sure which one you picked up

 

[rdmpe]

Hi Marcye, I'm going to try to get some pictures of the new stuff soon. Did you get my PM about the Kole Tang?

On another note, I'm having some slight heat issues, two of the fans on my sump bit the dust due to salt spray. I don't want to put new fans there since I think the salt will just eat them up.

I read an interesting thread about mounting a 12v fan on the back of a Panworld pump motor that had good results. They were just trying to make it more quiet but also found that the tank was running slightly cooler. I think my pumps are where most of my heat comes from, so I'm going to try it. The Dart fan shroud comes off easily, so I'm going to cut out the grill part, then mount a 120mm fan on the back of it. That will provide a convenient mounting bracket and will direct the air over the motor the way it is supposed to. Here's the thread about it:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=828812

 

[tgunn]

Ouch! It's amazing the things fish will do to one another isn't it? I haven't had any cuts yet but my powder blue has a habit of swimming into one of the 1 1/2" closed loop outputs to graze on algae growing in there. Every now an then he bumps himself (big surprise) and gets a little bruise on his side. :lol:

It sure is amazing the heat that pumps add. Now that I've got my new skimmer and ditched the PCX-70 my heaters have been actually running to keep the tank warm.

You could also try just blowing the fan onto the side of the pump; that'd probably help out too.

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

Yep, they can be nasty sometimes. Especially since they are in such a restricted space compared to the wild...

Lately I've been having what I think is a diatom outbreak. I think I know why too. I read that diatoms use silica and that DI resin is the part of the RO/DI filter to remove silica from tap water. My DI resin is toast, it has turned from what I think was green to a dark purple now. I have more on order but will not be here until Dec. 26. So until then I'm living with diatoms.

I hope that after my DI comes in, I'll be able to siphon and do some water changes and the diatoms will burn themselves out. We shall see.

Still no pictures of my new stuff, I'm at the library right now with the kids. The internet access here is WAY slow...

 

[bheron]

Hey Randy. Looks great! Havent chimed in in awhile. Nice!

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8780351#post8780351 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Yep, they can be nasty sometimes. Especially since they are in such a restricted space compared to the wild...

Lately I've been having what I think is a diatom outbreak. I think I know why too. I read that diatoms use silica and that DI resin is the part of the RO/DI filter to remove silica from tap water. My DI resin is toast, it has turned from what I think was green to a dark purple now. I have more on order but will not be here until Dec. 26. So until then I'm living with diatoms.

I hope that after my DI comes in, I'll be able to siphon and do some water changes and the diatoms will burn themselves out. We shall see.

Still no pictures of my new stuff, I'm at the library right now with the kids. The internet access here is WAY slow...

Hey Randy,
Can you take a close up what you are seeing as diatoms?

I'm curious to compare this to the brown algae I'm seeing in my tank...

I've heard the same thing about diatoms as well. I've since removed all my DIY rock on the presumption that perhaps they were leaching something into the water. We'll see if this helps in the long run.

Thanks!
Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

I'll get a photo of it when I take some photos of the new stuff in the tank. It's sort of a brown filmy/stringy kind of stuff.

I took the fan shroud off one of my darts. I cut out most of the metal grille area so that it is much more open (danger to fingers) and then mounted an 80 mm fan on the shroud (via duct tape temporarily). I can feel the air flowing over the pump motor now. The air flow now is still not very strong, but before the mod the air flow was not even detectable to me. So we'll see how this impacts the tank temperatures if at all. I'm thinking I need to mount the fan differently. Right now, even with the shroud cut out, the rim of it blocks too much of the fan IMO. I have something else in mind but have to hit Home Depot tomorrow

Of course, all this fiddling with the pump caused one of the connections to leak it is dripping about 2 or 3 drops per minute I would guess. For now I wrapped a towel around it and sat a water alarm next to it Gonna wait and see if it keeps dripping. If so, I'll have to pull the pump out and will do the improved fan mod at the same time, but I'm trying to avoid pulling the pump since it is such a PITA. If I pull it then I have to tear it apart and clean it, etc....

The rabbitfish looked about the same today.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8781647#post8781647 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
I'll get a photo of it when I take some photos of the new stuff in the tank. It's sort of a brown filmy/stringy kind of stuff.

I took the fan shroud off one of my darts. I cut out most of the metal grille area so that it is much more open (danger to fingers) and then mounted an 80 mm fan on the shroud (via duct tape temporarily). I can feel the air flowing over the pump motor now. The air flow now is still not very strong, but before the mod the air flow was not even detectable to me. So we'll see how this impacts the tank temperatures if at all. I'm thinking I need to mount the fan differently. Right now, even with the shroud cut out, the rim of it blocks too much of the fan IMO. I have something else in mind but have to hit Home Depot tomorrow

The rabbitfish looked about the same today.

I'll be very interested to see how the fan mod works on the dart. My Sequence 1000 5000SEQ22 is by no means hot but it certainly gets a bit warm. And I agree, the air flow from the fan is pretty pathetic..

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

This is what I plan to do tomorrow
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8678126#post8678126

 

[jnarowe]

Very cool!

 

[Me No Nemo]

That sounds like a good plan, but another option is what we did at the store. I'm VERY happy with our new coral tanks. About 210 gallons each, with a Barracuda pump, a Mag 7 on the AquaC skimmer, (3) 250watt, 20K MH Moguls, (2) VHO's and no chiller...we don't go over 79 degrees. We dropped almost 4 degrees by drilling a hole in the side of our cabinet, adding one clip on fan blowing down on the sump and one 4" computer fan sucking the air out of the cabinet. No other fans. Might be something else to think about. You could probably do that fairly easily on the side by the window.

 

[tgunn]

The computer nerd in me thinks it'd be pretty sweet to glue some copper coils to the side of the pumps and water cool 'em like an overclocked PC. :lol: However, that might just be a wee bit overkill!

Tyler

 

[asnatlas]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8783542#post8783542 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tgunn
The computer nerd in me thinks it'd be pretty sweet to glue some copper coils to the side of the pumps and water cool 'em like an overclocked PC. :lol: However, that might just be a wee bit overkill!

Tyler

LOL, Maybe just a little

 

[rdmpe]

Hey Marcye, I already have two 4" fans blowing in one end of the stand and two other 4" fans blowing out the opposite end. I did that initially because I didn't want a damp mold box under there. But I agree that it definitely helps with heat too.

I wish my tank was running 79, but I have less surface area on top than you, and my lights run hotter and are closer to my water surface.

I was just looking at the reeflow pump curves
http://www.reeflopumps.com/flowbiasedpumps.html
and the barracuda draws about 240 watts. My two darts draw about 160 each for 320 watts total. Then my mag 9.5 draws about 100 watts and my UV unit adds maybe 20 watts to the mix. So I think the combination of all of these things is what hurts me. More wattage, more heat from the lights, less surface area for evap (compared to your coral tanks)... Makes for a warm tank.

 

[rdmpe]

Oops, double post!