where to start

[fatboyracing]

So I have been out of the hobby for 6 years or better

I remember the thing I wished more than anything before was a way to feed fish food automatically and a way to dose chemicals auto when I am out of town can anyone point me in that kind of direction

Also what happened to the classifieds area I am looking for a tank and a lot of stuff does this site no longer have a classified section

 

[Sk8r]

Classifieds appear when you have 90 days membership from join date and have 50 constructive posts (sifting out robots and fly-by-nights)...
Re your problems, Eheim makes a real good programmable feeder. And if you're doing a reef, you can set up your autotopoff system (float switch or pressure tube) to deliver kalk from the topoff reservoir, which can keep a tank chemically supplied for a month with a large enough reservoir, with no controller.
Controllers are less pricey now, and many people do have them do their dosing.
Lights are increasingly automated, particularly the LEDS. Mine can be set to acclimate (light) with one button push on a computer; and they run a day to dark brightness change, even with sun movement if you want that.
Skimming is better, as well.
You might try the online household selling sites for anything within driving distance. There's almost always somebody selling a rig.

 

[fatboyracing]

Classifieds appear when you have 90 days membership from join date and have 50 constructive posts (sifting out robots and fly-by-nights)...
Re your problems, Eheim makes a real good programmable feeder. And if you're doing a reef, you can set up your autotopoff system (float switch or pressure tube) to deliver kalk from the topoff reservoir, which can keep a tank chemically supplied for a month with a large enough reservoir, with no controller.
Controllers are less pricey now, and many people do have them do their dosing.
Lights are increasingly automated, particularly the LEDS. Mine can be set to acclimate (light) with one button push on a computer; and they run a day to dark brightness change, even with sun movement if you want that.
Skimming is better, as well.
You might try the online household selling sites for anything within driving distance. There's almost always somebody selling a rig.

when using an auto top off with the kalk do you not have to worry about it getting too much?

 

[Coelli]

when using an auto top off with the kalk do you not have to worry about it getting too much?

I have my ATO set up (with a controller) to turn on every 15 minutes for a max of 15 seconds. If for some reason it does kick on and start dumping too much kalk in the tank, the controller will detect the PH spike, shut it down, and send me a text message. You will love this new (expensive) reefing world

 

[Greybeard]

when using an auto top off with the kalk do you not have to worry about it getting too much?

With a properly set up system, you're only replacing evaporated water with Kalk. If that's too much, you can easily lower the concentration in your reservoir. Some sort of fail safe, to insure that failure of a single component isn't going to flood your tank with Kalk, is (imho) a necessity. There are stand alone dosers that work pretty well, 2 part calc/alk dosing is still popular.

I recently started back up after a 10 year hiatus. LED's are excellent. Reactive media is _much_ better now, skimmers? I'm not sure this generation has much on the old Precision Marine bullet I used to run, but it's far quieter! DC powered pumps and wavemakers are worth looking at. Aside from better equipment availability, things haven't changed that much. People are still having the same arguments about substrate, still arguing about the minimum tank size for a tang, etc

Welcome back!

 

[Sk8r]

ONLY 2 teaspoons of kalk CAN dissolve in each gallon of fresh ro/di, which conveniently limits it. I don't even bother to measure. I just toss 'enough' kalk into a 32 gallon topoff reservoir, lid it (so it won't form a 'skin' and waste some) and let the excess fall to the bottom as a white residue. When I add fresh ro/di to the reservoir, it'll kick up the undissolved kalk and dissolve as much of it as Mother Nature allows.

It's how the ocean does business, dissolving old corals and limestone to let critters build anew.