krish

Folks, The 8.9 Ritcher scale quake that hit SE Asia brought in 20-30 foot Tsunamis. The entire region that got hit has a lot of reefs. All the way from Java/Sumatra/Maldives/Srilanka and the East coast of Southern India. Too bad. The reefs had issues with Crown of thorns, then the global warming and the subsequent bleaching. -krish

Howard, Here is the link to the dude who is selling the stuff. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws....08&rd=1 His last auction was for 5 units. We might be able to arrange a bulk purchase from him. The floatswitches.net domain was on the auction block a while ago for 50K. The guy was offering the patent as well for the switches. Oh well, looks like either no takers or probably the guy who purchased it is no good. -krish

Folks, The float switches are available on ebay. However, the seller is in Shangai. He seems to be the manufacturer. Well, either way, it won't arrive on time for the project. -krish

Darn it. The last time, i got 4 from him. Used 2 and gave 2 to another reefer. Folks, each of you would need 2 switches for a single system. I have 2. I have seen it get stuck on 2 occassions in my 1 year use. Instance 1) It got stuck with algae clogging the lower one. The backup one would have protected it, if i had not caught it after the water got over the first switch. Instance 2) Salt/Calcium creep on the stem cause friction and the switch getting stuck in the high position. So the water level dropped and no top off happened. So a back up is always better. -krish

Folks, I like the custom PCB idea. Its extra soldering work, but is a neat solution. There are a number of folks that i know of who would need it and we have not raised awareness yet. I would go in for at least 1 or 2 units. Luke( craby) and Kannan will need 1 each as well. So that makes it a total of 4. Btw, we need acrylic stip to mount the float switches and slide the main and back up switches and lock them in notches. I can just imagine Chips setup, but wont break into his busy holiday schedule. I have accomplished the same using 1/2" PVC tubing. Not great in terms of looks, but has been working fine for a year now. It can be locked to the rim of the sump. I have a soldering gun that i can bring on. -krish

dchild, The way i do it is to get a standard DC adapter and power the relay control circuit. If the relay is 5V DC, we can get those $4 Ac-Dc 6V adapter, open and stick in the 5V 7805. That should take care of it. Wow. This thread has exploded since this AM. I can join and show how to do it as well. I need to do one for my self and have been procrastinating due to busy schedule at work. -krish

Hi Doug, The 12V can be converted to any voltage up to say 9V by the use of regulator chips. The regulator chips are available in rat shack and are cheap. You can get different of these and get anywhere from 2 to 12V. I would love to jump in and pick a few, but then will have trouble storing stuff. The power relay block you have is pretty cheap for the price. -krish

Doug. That looks like a power relay. The mouser catalog shows look alikes that are around $20+. There are just one too many choices at this point. Relays ------ Omron subminature SIP solid state relay Input voltage -5v DC Can Control - 100-220VAC load and upto 2Amps. This would be good enough to run pumps like a mag7 etc. Cost - $3.85 Mouse part# - 653-G3MB-202PL-DC5 This appears to be the cheapest option i guess. Folks that want to control quite high output like 500W can just add 3 of these in parallel. But what are you going to control?. Btw, this is a Printed circuit board mounted one. Is pretty easy to rig up. I just control a solenoid. So just one will do for my application. There are other cheaper higher amperage choices like the magnetic relays as well. These should last a long while as well and can go like 10+ Amps and we can similarly have 2 of these in parallel to run higher wattage. So here are the things one would need. 1) Relays 1 or 2 or N 2) AC to DC adapter 6VDC/200mA = $3.99 3) A small PCB - $3 or 4 from rat shack or else where. 4) Some wires. 5) 2 float switches - $14 6) A 3 pin socket and an enclosure from rat shack. -krish

A few things. I have a similar setup. I can run up to over 500W gadget. A voltage lower than 12V is better in salt water. I run a 9V relay. But here is another option. There is a solid state relay, where the trigger voltage is like only 3V and can stand 100's of millions of switches unlike the electro mechanical one. My next one is gonna use that. -krish

Happy birthday to you Michael. May god bless you with a long life and a large tank full of Sps. -krish

Never had to reload mine. The pH is still holding up at 12. New coraline is now beginning to grow in small patches. This means, there is enough Ca left after the SPS have sucked up their share. -krish

Byron, The Ca reactor contributes to the alkalinity and the nilsen to the pH and Ca. I run these 2 as well and have seen a few benefits. winning the battle against hair algae. I still have some ways to go. But is is not as bad as it used to be. -krish

Jacob, Here is the description of my setup. The key is the presence of a pressure cylinder to hold the RO water and a pressure regulated switch that goes with it. This will shut off the RO water to the membrane with the tank is full. I have the RO water from the cylinder go thru a DI cartridge and to my tank. At the tank, a solenoid value ( 100 PSI rating for water) controls the outlet. The sensors are 2 float switches that close a 9V circuit. The 9V circuit has a relay that controls the 110V solenoid. This has been working flawlessly for close to a year now. Soon will be installing a similar setup for the Kalk reactor. This way, if there is a major loss of water, the fresh water top off will kick in. The kalk water top off, by dripping will be the normal water addition, till the sump level is maintained. A sudden loss of water can happen in certain cases, like the mag 7 in my sump got unhooked from the soft plumbing and became a fountain in my sump, under the cabinet or if i take a gallon or 2 of water to add to my softies tank or if you take out some water to do other stuff. :-) Lazy reef it is. :-) -krish

Or add a metallic fixture ontop of the brace like Chip has -krish

With 9 lamps to the order, we all know who has a spare stock pile :-) -krish

The Lowes in Sterling has them as well. I picked up a few this weekend. However, they were out off the 1/4-20 1 and 1.5" nylon screws. -krish

Doug(dbartco), sent back a couple of XM lamps to Marinedepot a few weeks ago, since they stayed yellow for over a month. Doug, do you want to chime in on your experience.? -krish

Michael, Don't have any experience with 400 watters. On the 250W 10K here is my experience. The newer one is burning white from Day 1. The other XM, an older model purchased a few months ago did burn yellow for a couple of weeks. So i guess consistency in quality probably is the factor here. Give it a couple of weeks and if you still have an issue, we can contact hellolights and see what they can do. -krish

Michael, Yea. My sakis have been shelved. The 10Ks are great. Nice white light. The 250w lamps are shorter in lenght than the sakis. Check out the other thread where Eddi is planning a group purchase for XM lamps. I am getting 2 spare backup 250 Watters for $42 a pop. -krish

Eddi, The 250W, 10K XM lamps are like $48 on sale. Plus they will offer $6/lamp off. That makes it at $42. So $84 for 2 lamps. Put me in for 2 250W 10K single ended lamps. Doesn't hurt to stock up. -krish

Dave, You are giving me ideas now :-) -krish

Eddi, Not again. I hope its not the lights this time around. I have been using the kalk powder for over 4 weeks. First i began dripping it using air line tube and a 1 gallon jug. I did this for 2 weeks. Then i installed the Kalk reactor and it has been kickng butt. The coral growth is pretty good. Hope you find the source of the problem. Good luck -krish

Thanks Howard, I have become an equipment junky rather than paying attention to the livestock. Thanks for coming over amidst your busy schedule. -krish

Steve/Ghazanfar, I apologize. Hellolights bailed out on the discount as well as the free shipping. They said that if they bundle the shipping with the pending items, the shipping costs will go up. So i asked them to just ship the pending items. I have Scott's 96W 50-50 PC lamp for sale. Will offer it to anyone for hellolights published price. The buyer will save on shipping. There was a mixup and i had to place a seperate order for the correct one. I am glad that i got them to bundle just that one lamp with the pending items, since it is small and will be fair for scott as well. If no takers, i will post in the public forum. Michael, Yes, homedepot has the color coded wiring by the foot.You are better off getting a spool of the same color/12 or so twist caps/insulation tape. Use the twist caps to the point where the wires start twisting and then wrap the tape over. Darn, i only wish they had left longer pigtails :-) Oh, please ground the body of the ballast to the green wire. I presume you are using that 3 plug power cord you purchased. Just tighten a piece of wire on the screw to fasten the ballast and combine it to the green. These suckers put out a jolt if not grounded due to their High frequency pulses that induces currents on the body of the ballast. I learnt it the hard way with the other electronic ballast that i had :0 -krish

I have had my clowns for close to 8 months now. They never went into a BTA for about 6months. Instead they hosted in a toad stool. I added a sebae and removed the toadstool and colt that they were hosting in. In about 2-3 weeks, they are cozy in the sebae . At night, i have even caught the male and smacked him against the sebae with a net. But it was actually the female that took to the anemone to begin with and the male hesitated for a day. Later , it joined the female. So give it time. -krish