It's amazing that it's been a little over a month since this tank first started. It was really fascinating to see the tank go through the ever-present algae stage (green water!), and then brown algae on the rocks, and now, it's already starting to get the early green/purple/pink hue of coralline too. Very exciting stuff.
As far as livestock goes, everything is so far so good for the most part. The only exception is that one of the anthias got pop-eye pretty bad in one eye. It has only gotten worse over the week. I'm hoping it goes down/goes away, like it did for my female clown, but we'll see. The anthia spends most of the day under a rock hiding, but when food comes out she still eats voraciously, and I've started adding Kent garlic xtreme to the food as well, so hopefully that helps ( :: shrug :: ).
With the regulator for the calcium reactor, I've decided to fix the carbondoser, as well as start building up a custom rig, and whichever one I prefer I'll stick with. I finally figured out what was wrong with the carbondoser. The regulator seems to work just fine and hold pressure and dial-in to lower PSI no problem. The problem lies in the solenoid valve. It looks like it is a
Clippard EV series valve. The original valve either was custom for Carbondoser, or was old stock and they've changed their part numbers since this was made. Either way, I'm fairly certain it is the EV-2-12 2 way valve. The reason it doesn't work is because the solenoid must have gotten water in it at some point, or at least humidity, and was pretty heavily rusted on the inside.
It looked beautiful and brand new on the outside, but the valve itself was all rusted. The actuator actually cleaned up nicely, and the interior cleaned up nicely, but the valve that opens and closes was stuck, presumably rusted, shut. I didn't want to see if I could use liquid wrench or anything to get it moving again, so I just ordered a new valve, and will drop it in and it should work just fine since the rest of the setup seems to work just fine.
So I'll play with the two regs and see what I like. LQT and I have been talking a lot, and I've seen mention a few times of the idea of hybrid Carbondoser with a high-end regulator, but I think I'd rather sell one or the other once I see what I prefer.
Next is to clean up/clean out the GEO 612 reactor itself. Some of the plumbing pieces are missing hose fittings, so I may have to put in some John Guest valves, or find other replacement parts for it. Annoying, but not the end of the world. It looks like if I wanted a new main assembly from GEO, I'd have to also replace the lid, so that could get expensive. I'll just work on replacing the incomplete hose connections for now. I'm very empowered in that respect after replacing the leaky 1/4" output hose from my RO system right after moving.
I still have to clean up the nano and get it posted up for sale. I think I'll sell the tank, stand, upgraded LEDs, Reefkeeper lite, and 2 part dosing system as one package and see what I can get for those. They served me well, and it's legitimately a turn-key SPS system, so once I get it cleaned up, it'll feel more worth the value, and hopefully it will appeal to someone around here since everyone is cramped for space but want to grow beautiful SPS.
