krish

Byron The phosphate problem has not been totally fixed. it is better than what it used to be , but is not totally gone. Will need to put more effort into it. But the corals are growing well, so not awfully worried. The new Kalk reactor should help in due course, since all new water is going thru the kalk reactor and should help precipitate the phosphate. -krish

Chip, I will eventually be hooking up the kalk reactor thru a dual float switch triggering a solenoid. Already have the solenoid on hand.Just need to prioritize the time to do it among an ever growing "To Do" list. -krish

Hi Byron, The store you are referring to has good pricing on the regulator assembly. Just let me know when you would like to swing by for the bottle. I am at work most days atleast till 7pm. I can throw it in the car and you can meet me at work in Herndon. If not, then weekend is the next best choice. Actually, the Roberts O2 is pretty close from my home. If you can come over during the week days, between say 1:30pm to 2:30pm or so, then you can grab the bottle and get it exchanged for a full one as well. -krish

Chip, I run it inline direct from my RO/DI storage cylinder. I have throttled the inlet such that the outlet drips like 3 drips in 2 seconds or so. pH has been around 8.17 and higher. The coral growth is incredible. The kalk reactor effluent pH is around 12. I run the mixing pump about 6 to 7 times a day using an analog timer. -krish

Byron, You can check out the Milwaukee regulator that also has the solenoid valve. It goes for about $86 or so. I have a regular beer brewer type regulator that i purchased for around $35 or so. I bought the solenoid from ebay and one can rig it up for cheap. The regulator from Milwaukee has the bublee counter as well. Thats a bonus. I have an empty 5lb CO2 tank from Roberts O2. I will let you have it for $45 if you wish. You can exchange it for a fully filled one for $16. Getting a new one from them will be around over $100 or so. I went up to a 20lb tank. When you set it up, use pieces of nylon screens around the intake in the Ca reactor chambers. Also screen any intakes as well. These 1/4" tubing get clogged with Arganoite pretty fast. If the reactor has 1/4" tubing hook ups at the lower part of the acrylic chamber, i would use large size aragonite to cover that part and then top off with the finer material. Will prevent clogs to some extent. When you run the reactor, make sure that after a day of running, you get an effluent pH of around 6.9 to 6.70 or so. If you are any lower than that, you can reduce the bubble count or increase the flow thru the reactor. I think thats about the generic tips on a reactor. I don't run a Knop, but a dual stage MTC procal. good luck -krish

will keep ya posted steve. They responded with a Nay on the discount. But i sent a message back asking about free shipping. Never got an email back till 7pm EST friday. Will call them and see where we are at. -krish

No prob Howard, Tonight, i may not be home. Will be around saturday. Scott is coming at/about lunch time. You are welcome to come at your convenience. See you all. -krish

Ok folks, I have sent an email with the new requests from Ghazanfar and steve. Lets see what they have to say. -krish

Steve, I guess here is what you are looking for. http://www.hellolights.com/96watac0334j.html $36.95 each. Item Code: 30-00007 send me an IM if you think it is the wrong one. -krish

Ghazanfar, Let me see if i can at the very least get you free shipping, by bundling it all in the same package that they will use and send for the pending items. -krish

Ghazanfar, They will add, but said that they may not be able to offer the kind of discounts on a smaller order. Do you still want to go ahead and get it any way? I asked them to hold off shipping the pending items till tomorrow. If you still need em, let me know the item codes and quantity and i will send it to them. -krish

Folks, Update. Nothing is going back. They are just shipping the damaged/missing items -krish

Phil and Michael, Thanks for being accomodative. I will sort this out tomorrow. More over Armson wanted some MH stuff and Ghazanfar wanted VHO stuff. These appear to total around $350 or so. I am sure they might do something better. It is a matter of time. Per my call to UPS, they want me to repack the box with the damaged lamp and keep it ready for the truck driver to pick up and then inspect it in their station. They will then sort it out with hello lights. I have filed the report, but will let hellolights call the shots. I definitely don't like the idea of sending good stuff back. Looking at the way the lamp was damanged and no other damages in the package, i believe it was a cockpit error at packing time. Will know what happens by tomorrow. -krish

Michael, Let me call Hellolights and see what our options are. They charged us for 5 cords. Moreover, the broken lamp needs to be replaced. So they will have to ship us something or the other anyway. -krish

Is the pH 10 after a while after mixing or right after mixing? My reactor has been running for over a week and i still see 12. I added over a couple of cups of kalk powder. -krish

Folks, Update. The Good and the Bad. Lets get the Good first. Most of the shipment came out well except for 2 items. For the Bad., 1 48" coralife fluorescent came damaged. We ordered 4. 3 for Phil and 1 for Howard. I have filed a damage report with UPS. It was late when i inspected the contents and Hello lights had already called it a day I will call them tomorrow and discuss it. I hope to sort this out soon. The second issue is the power cords. Instead of shipping out 5, they shipped out 3. Ghazanfar already expressed interest in the ARO VHO ballast + endcaps + fluorescent lamps. I am going to call Hello Lights tomorrow. Let me compile a list in case they are going to shipout, we might as well try to bundle it. -krish

Armson, A bit late. Well, doesn't hurt to start another thread -krish

Folks, Sorry. I am not rushing you all to take it off my hands I mentioned tonight or tomorrow because some of you cannot resist the urge to play with the new toys. If weekend works best, no problem. -krish

Chip, What are you using this for? May i ask? In case you are devising some contraption that goes with the reactor Btw, will you be available this weekend? I can swing by to drop off the #3 and a tin of silicone grease. -krish

Folks, The shipment should arrive later this evening. I will do a check this evening to see if the order was intact. Folks can show up later tonight at my home in Herndon or can swing by my office in Herndon on Thursday. Martin is planning to stop by around 10:30am to 11:30 am or so on thursday. If i know who wants to swing by at my work, i can bring the stuff to work in the morning. -krish

My tank is howering around 1.022. I have had it at 1.021 and the ick is less of an issue now. With a refractometer, i would go as low as 1.019 over a period of say another week or so. Check with David( Chideloh). He has perfected this technique. -krish

Folks, Here is the breakdown of the $1100 total. I have applied the 9% discount and rounded off lower I have an Excel spreadsheet to compute the totals for the entire purchase. Don't want to embed the interactive HTML version on this forum, since one can only Open it with IE and not Netscape. Exporting as Html skews the entries by a tab and don't know how to get it aligned as text. Let me know and i can email it to those that want to take a peek at the itemized listing. thanks krish Michael - 148 Phil - 278 Luke - 91 Krish - 146 howard - 19 Dave-139 scott-101 Doug-9 Ghazanfar-84 Martin-86 ------------------ Total - 1101

Sorry about your loss. Do you have a grounding probe? That is a mandatory one to have in the system. Probably careful water changes with new water of the same temp/ph/salinity will help. -krish

quazi, Drilling additional holes would have put 60 bucks in his pocket. But if he cracks it, thats a collateral damage in terms of lost material/time. So hence is smart to drill upfront to cut short the losses. -krish

The scoop is order about a month ahead of your scheduled delivery date. Call 10 days prior to the deliver and ensure that they really finished it. Tell them not to bother glueing it in the truck and delivering it to you. Larry, yes i had them install the overflow chambers as well and have the holes drilled. A couple of weeks prior to the delivery date, i called them requesting additional holes for closed loop. They said the tank was done and they normally drill the holes prior to siliconing. -krish